Martin Fletcher: Palestinian discord over Holocaust concert

[IndianaGreen]

The Holocaust is NOT a political issue by any reasonable measurement. It is an undeniable historical fact. Just as these children never been to the ocean, despite living 30 miles from it, none of them were taught anything about the Holocaust.

Palestinian discord over Holocaust concert

Posted: Monday, March 30, 2009 11:05 AM
Filed Under: Tel Aviv, Israel
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent

TEL AVIV – Wafaa Younis is a woman whose heart is in the right place; she is an Israeli Arab who has made a real effort to help Palestinian children in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

She started with the boys; she wanted them to put down their stones and learn the violin, in the hope that they would not grow up and pick up a gun. I first met her three years ago when she finally persuaded the Israelis to allow the Palestinian children to leave the West Bank and go to her home in the Israeli town of Ara for violin lessons.

She even took them on trips to the coast; even though they grew up 30 miles from the Mediterranean, they had never seen the sea. Her first attempts to teach a few boys the violin grew into a small orchestra of boys and girls. She even rented an apartment in Jenin so that she could teach them there, because it was easier for her to cross into the West Bank than it was for them to leave.

Then Younis had an idea; as part of Israel’s annual Good Deeds Week, she would arrange a little concert in Holon, near Tel Aviv. Her young musicians from the "Strings of Freedom" orchestra would entertain Holocaust survivors. They would play their favorite classics, and also some songs of peace; a way to bridge the divide between Palestinians and Israelis.

Too volatile an issue

At the concert last Wednesday, the group of 13 young musicians from Jenin played for about 30 Holocaust survivors and they even dedicated one song to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held prisoner by Hamas in Gaza for three years.

Younis is not the first person to make such an effort – there are literally hundreds of peace groups that have the same aim – bringing together Arabs and Jews with similar interests and hopes.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/30/1870536.aspx

[Sezu]

1. This really is a sad case. Now I can understand WHY adult

Palestinians might feel this way but I doubt the woman had any nefarious agendii in mind. It's stuff like this that humanizes both sides for the other to see and it's a shame it couldn't have just been left at that. Imagine what those children must be thinking.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Here is an eye opener...

Younis is an Israeli Arab who tried to do a bit of good. For her pains, her apartment in Jenin has been boarded up and she is not allowed into the town anymore. Her orchestra has been disbanded. She said the Palestinian officials just want to take the money that she had raised for the children's orchestra.

I know Younis. After I met her several years ago she called me for months, asking for donations, for a contribution for a new violin, or even an old one, just so that she could teach music to her Palestinian students.

She wanted to introduce a bit of light into their lives and direct them toward the violin bow, and away from the gun. She had many ideas to help people, and she possessed in abundance that peculiar combination of strength and naiveté that mark people who, against great odds, achieve great things.

Today she didn't answer her phone.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/30/1870536.aspx