Last Monday night, the liberal New York elite gathered at the storied Gramercy Theater for a benefit billed coyly as a “A Night of Music and Peace.”
Presumably on hand to represent the peace was Avraham “Miko” Peled, the Israeli-American founder and president of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Dar Alhurriya (Palestine House of Freedom). As for the music, that was left to guitar legend Eric Clapton, 80 years old but still with impressive enough chops to justify the invitation-only event’s average ticket price of $2,500.
‘I’m walking the halls of Congress with people who have no regard for human life!’ said Omar, seemingly oblivious to the irony.
Inside, the crowd of around 150 — mostly older white folks, many accessorized with solidarity-signaling keffiyehs — were invited to purchase Clapton concert tees and signed copies of Peled’s autobiography, “The General’s Son,” as staff herded them toward the clump of folding chairs that constituted the floor seating.
White Room
As Peled took the stage, the audience erupted in chants of “Miko! Miko! Miko!” — a response that was at once curiously rehearsed-sounding and off-puttingly frenzied, like a gaggle of preschoolers greeting the appearance of Elmo on “Sesame Street.”
After a few thank-yous, Peled wasted no time before introducing the night’s star attraction. Clapton, who much earlier in his career urged his countrymen to “keep Britain white” by expelling the “w*gs” and “c**ns” turning it into a “black colony,” now aimed his guitar — a Fender Stratocaster painted to look like Palestine’s flag — at colonizers of a lighter hue.
Looking uncannily like an aged Andy Dick, the octogenarian guitarist expertly belted out early Cream classics like “White Room,” “Sunshine of Your Love,” and a rendition of “Hoochie Coochie Man” that had second-generation pundit Max Blumenthal singing along and pumping his fist in the air, gyrating next to a man sporting a Hawaiian shirt and fedora bearing the slogan “End Wars!”
Blues hammered
Blumenthal wasn’t the only politico celeb accounted for. His Grayzone colleague Aaron Maté had also made it out to celebrate the global intifada, along with his father, superstar addiction expert Gabor.
In the middle of “Tears in Heaven,” a semi-famous comedian and former mayoral candidate — now four IPAs in — turned to your correspondent to mention what a close friendship he enjoyed with Roger Waters, who he claimed was also in attendance.
“Blues, blues, blues, blues!” he later yelled out after Clapton and Co. had wrapped up what was indeed an exemplary specimen of the genre (their fourth in a row), before turning to the bartender to screech about how unfair it was that rich people paid less in taxes.
Tepid Waters
Much to this writer’s surprise, his name-dropping proved credible a little bit later when none other than the Pink Floyd co-founder himself materialized on stage, dressed in his usual all-black ensemble of cigarette skinny jeans and potbelly-constraining T-shirt.
To thunderous applause, Waters essayed some pre-song banter about “this horrible thing called Zionism,” only to resort, seconds later, to the activist’s version of lip-syncing. Apparently not prepared to speak from the heart, Roger produced his iPhone and played a video of himself speaking at a recent college protest. “I’m so proud of all the young people in all the universities,” said the tiny onscreen Waters. “Zionism is over, and criticism of Israel and its genocidal policies has never been anti-Semitic.”
Putting his phone away, the IRL Waters then treated the audience to a rendition of his little-known 2024 single, “Under the Rubble.”
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Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images
Ilhan communication
As the band left the stage, the crowd clamored for more, chanting “Free, free Palestine.”
Instead of an encore performance of “Wish You Were Here,” it was rewarded with something almost as invigorating: the spectacle of Ilhan Omar — draped in her usual liberating headscarf — strutting onstage to accept a miniature wrestling championship belt from event organizers.
“I’m walking the halls of Congress with people who have no regard for human life!” said Omar, seemingly oblivious to the irony of making such an accusation given the left’s ongoing celebration of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. She lifted the belt and walked off stage; the audience cheered.
The evening was over. Eric Clapton waved, sporting a smile that said “please don’t cancel me again.” Intoxicated by overpriced well drinks and the spirit of revolution, the departing crowd raised defiant fists to the night sky, only tucking them away discreetly when it was time to saunter across the street and into the trendy boutique hotel for the afterparty.
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