So true, Greg.

Good interview on Newsnight tonight, Kirsty meets Daniel Barenboim. Daniel has ruffled many a feather in Israel over the years (I never agreed with him over his insistence on playing the music of that ultimate antisemite, Wagner, in Israel), but he has more than legitimised his stance by dint of his founding, with Edward Said, of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, composed of young musicians from Palestine and Israel and beyond.

Quoth Daniel: The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to – and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago – ...create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.