I am allegedly a UK consultant for the Inbrook entertainment company in New York. This means that Inbrook boss Calvin Wynter occasionally phones me up at odd hours from New York. Well, odd hours for him. I think he may never sleep.
Yesterday morning, he phoned me up to talk about two shows which Inbrook is promoting at the Edinburgh Fringe next month. One is an Israeli show; one includes in its title a reference to the Hamas organisation.
Repertory Theatre is being produced by The Elephant and the Mouse - the only Israeli production company at this year's Fringe.
Jennifer Jajeh's show is called I Heart Hamas: And Other Things I'm Afraid to Tell You.
This morning, Calvin phoned me from New York to tell me that "Jennifer Jajeh has received death threats and there are calls to boycott her show at the Edinburgh Fringe... and now I too am being threatened and called an anti-Semite."
Unconnected to these death threats, Calvin - who is incidentally a black American - earlier this morning received this e-mail:
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From: Steve Malone <e*******@insidehoops.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 3:06 AM
Subject: Supporting suicide-bombing Jew-hating manaics
To: Calvin Wynter
You vile, antisemitic pieces of garbage should go rot in hell.
Fuck you, and fuck your piece of shit parents for creating you.
Steve
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Bizarrely, this appears to come from www.insidehoops.com which describes itself as "the most popular independent pro basketball website in the world".
Calvin seems particularly bemused by being called an anti-Semite.
"For the record," he says, "my great grandmother was a Sephardic Jew from Syria. In essence I am being attacked because Inbrook is promoting both a Palestinian American Christian - Jennifer Jajeh - and two Israeli Jews - The Elephant and the Mouse."
He tells me he thinks what this exposes is "The ignorance of blind hate".
Yes indeed. And it is ironic, too, given that the email allegedly from Steve Malone is apparently opposed to terrorism.
My dictionary defines Terrorism as "The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims".
The emphasis is mine.
The sender should also note that, in the subject heading of his e-mail, he has mis-spelt the word maniacs as "manaics". This is never a good start.