Observer: Macca the victim of Zionist plot

Barbara Ellen got all worked up in yesterday's Observer about Paul McCartney's gig in Tel Aviv: 'What on earth was he up to....could only blather pompously about "helping the peace process"...Oh the agonising stupidity and arrogance of the man!'

Ellen obviously has some difficulty understanding why any musician should want to play in Israel. Then, she confesses, a 'dark thought' occurs to her:

Was Tel Aviv just more evidence that McCartney is the most pussy-whipped music icon ever? A former Beatle who lets his birds boss him around and tell him what to do.

Think about it. It was lovely Linda who turned Paul on to vegetarianism. Then there was all that rolling about with seals with Heather. Now he has a Jewish girlfriend, the glamorous Nancy Shevell, he's suddenly playing concerts in Israel and 'finding out for myself what the situation is'.

Just as the Guardian could only explain Barack Obama's support for Israel by portraying him as 'compelled' by the mysterious 'lobby', so Ellen is forced to conclude that McCartney is under the 'dark' influence of a Jewish femme fatale (the gender and racial stereotypes come thick and fast...).

It couldn't be, could it, that the former Beatle was merely exercising the right of a musician from one democratic country to perform in another friendly, democratic country? Or is Ellen aware of some cultural boycott of Israel that I haven't heard of? If so, does it also apply to countries in the region with much worse human rights records, such as Syria, Iran or Egypt, and would she have made such a fuss if McCartney had toured there? 

Update

The Contentious Centrist has linked to this post and elaborates on the dubious stereotypes underlying Ellen's remarks:

This whole swollen carbuncle of a story can only make sense to an antisemitic reader. As anyone with some common sense and moderate knowledge would have to see that Ellen's free associations, which she probably takes to be cute witticisms, tell us more about her own demons than they do about McCartney and Israel.