Despite the all the threats against his life, Paul McCartney and his 5,000 bodyguards finally played their long-awaited peace concert in Israel last night, with no disruption whatsoever from fanatical snipers or would-be suicide bombers or whatnot. Paul McCartney lives to fight another day!

Of course, Paul McCartney’s masterstroke was to address both sides of the Middle East conflict in their own language right at the start of the concert. First McCartney opened with “Shalom, Tel Aviv, shana tova, ahlan!” giving the crowd the traditional Hebrew greeting ahead of Monday’s Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Then he added “Ramadan kareem” which, as we all know, is Arabic for “Not the face! Not the face!”

When you’ve been around for as long as Paul McCartney, you don’t worry about little things like fanatical death threats. That’s because, when you reach an age where death could come just as easily from a fall on an icy street, a sudden loud noise behind you or a faulty walk-in bath, Islamic extremists just seem noisy and a little attention-seeking in comparison.

That’s why, although threats were made against his life when he announced last night’s concert in Israel, Paul McCartney vowed to play on regardless, with his only defence being his music and the 5,000 bodyguards he hired to protect him from everything.

And play on he did. In photos taken a few hours before the concert, you can see no sign of anxiety on Paul McCartney’s face at all. Although, actually, it might have been there – Paul McCartney’s face now resembles a 3D representation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream sculpted from a bucket of week-old porridge so perfectly these days that we haven’t got a clue what’s going on with it – but we’ll guess there wasn’t.

And Paul McCartney was right not to worry either, because in the end the concert came off without a single assassination attempt. E! Online reports:

McCartney then unleashed a string of hits from both his Beatles and Wings days, among them “I’ll Follow the Sun,” “Live and Let Die,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Yesterday,” “Jet,” “Drive My Car,” “All My Loving,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and, of course, his signature sing-along “Hey Jude.” The concert, which boasted two encores and many, many wild standing ovations, lasted about two and a half hours.

No wonder Paul McCartney got such a wild reception – as well as songs by The Beatles and Wings, Paul also managed to spin some brand-new material into the show, like the just-written Don’t Blow Me Up, along with others like Please Don’t Blow Me Up, Think Of My Children (I Beg of You) and the fan favourite in-waiting Don’t Bloody Blow Me Up I’m Paul McFuckingCartney.

So we can all agree that Paul McCartney’s Israel concert was as epic and statesmanlike as it could have possibly been, and all because he thought to address both the Jewish and Arab sides of the argument in their native languages. It’ll backfire for sure when the Greek Orthodox gang realise they they didn’t get a shout-out and send over a suicide squad to finish Paul McCartney off once and for all, but hey ho.

No, instead, the concert in Israel could be Paul McCartney’s last because a gang of Islamic extremists are running around telling everyone that they’re going to kill him if he follows through with his plan to play there.

However, Paul McCartney has shown admirable strength of character by refusing to bow to these religious fanatics. In fact, if anything this death threat has just strengthened Paul McCartney’s resolve – not only will he play the concert in Israel, but he’s even going to turn it into a live album, entitled Paul McCartney Live Behind Six Inches Of Reinforced Plexiglass Inside A Sealed Lead Box Surrounded By Several Bodyguards And At Least A Couple Of Tanks.

You know what offends Islamic fundamentalists the most about the west? No, it’s not our consumerist lifestyles, our swaggering cultural dominance or our free and easy attitudes to sex and stimulants – it’s the bloody Frog Song.

Seriously, al Qaeda didn’t even exist until Paul McCartney wrote The Frog Song. There they were, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Hamza, all sitting round the kitchen table discussing the Pauly Shore movie Biodome when – bam! – all of a sudden The Frog Song by Paul McCartney came on the radio and everyone more or less instantly decided to bring western civilisation to its knees. True story.

Since then, the terrorists have been determined to finish Paul McCartney off, and now it looks like they might have their chance. Next Thursday Paul McCartney is going to play a concert in Tel Aviv, which would be fine except for all the Islamic extremists carping on about killing him if he does. But, as The New York Times reports, McCartney is unbowed:

Paul McCartney has refused to cancel his concert in Israel, despite threats from Islamic militants, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. The response follows comments made by Omar Bakri Muhammad, a militant Lebanese Islamic activist, in an interview. Mr. Bakri said, “If he values his life, Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel… He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him.”

Oh God, this is worse than we thought. Paul McCartney is relevant again. Ugh.

Anyway, it’s absolutely right that Paul McCartney should play on in Israel despite the death threats. If he can see off threats from Gordon Ramsay he can definitely see off threats from organised terrorist groups. You know what they say – if Israelis aren’t being charged through the nose to listen to an old man with a face like a ruptured hot water bottle sing a load of 40-year-old songs in a way that can’t even come close to replicating the original versions before being relentlessly hounded to buy an overpriced programme and tour T-shirt then the terrorists have won.

Actually, Paul McCartney should be safe, because terrorism experts have already dismissed the death threats as not credible. For some reason the Islamic activists sort of went off the idea of blowing up Paul McCartney’s car with a mortar as soon as they realised that he’d divorced Heather Mills and she wouldn’t be coming with him. Funny that.

Anyway, let’s just hope that Paul McCartney remains safe duing his time in Israel. Not because we care about him or anything, but with John Lennon already shot and George Harrison already stabbed, can you imagine what an obnoxious bighead Ringo Starr would turn into if Paul McCartney got blown up by a terrorist and he was the last one left? God, it’d be unbearable.