Concert for Holocaust Survivors Is Condemned
Palestinian political activists from the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Sunday condemned a camp youth orchestra’s performance for Holocaust survivors in Israel last week, and said they were banning the orchestra’s director, an Israeli Arab woman, from entering the camp.
...Adnan al-Hindi, the leader of the camp’s Popular Committee, a grass-roots group representing the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the young musicians had been exploited by the orchestra director, Wafaa Younis, for the purpose of “normalizing” ties with Israel. He said by telephone that the children had been “deceived” and dragged unwittingly into a political situation that “served enemy interests” and aimed to “destroy the Palestinian national spirit in the camp.”
...Ms. Younis accused camp officials of wanting to take over the orchestra to get its financing, according to The Associated Press. “They want to destroy this group,” she said. “It’s a shame, it’s a tragedy. What did these poor, elderly people do wrong? What did these children do wrong?”
Jewish suffering under the Nazis is a volatile subject in Palestinian society, where there is widespread ignorance of the details of the Holocaust and a feeling that Palestinians paid a price for it, viewing it as a main catalyst for the establishment of the Jewish state...
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Can I Hear Any Reactions form the Pro-Pals Out There?
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9 comments:
For the Palestinian view, see here:
http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2009/04/concert-for-peace-never.html
It's hard to understand where this kind of reactions originate. At first sight they seem to affirm the unwillingness of Palestinians to have peace with Israel, and the fact that Palestinians are only interested in violence and hatred. Because how would it ever be possible that peace-loving people would want to block such a noble initiative?
I'm afraid the truth is a bit more complex.
The situation in Jenin Refugee camp is horrible. The people who live there are not only economically poor. They are used to decades of opression, occupation and military agression.
I'm sure there are theories of mass-psyhology who can explain this kind of behaviour. I can imagine the mindset of a people that have been living in these circumstances. A people that has seen their sons murdered, their fathers imprisoned, their houses demolished, their freedom taken, their land stolen. A people without a future. A people without hope.
It's not difficult to understand that, when you grow up in Jenin refugee camp, there is no grey. There is only black and white, good and evil.
Jenin refugee camp has been the sad origin of armed military resistance and suicide bombers. It has been the scene of a massacre in 2002 and even today it's a place where despair and sadness overshadow the little seeds of hope, such as the wonderful Freedom Theatre.
About the Freedom Theatre, Jenin refugee camp, Zakaria Zubeidi and the origin of the suicide bombers, I recommend you all strongly to watch the movie 'Arna's Children', by Juliano Mer Khamis.
Do you know that from certain places in Jenin, one can see the Mediterranean? The kids there see the sea every day, but they can never go there. They dream of freedom, but they never seem to get it.
When the only contact you have with 'a Jew' is the soldier at a checkpoint or a soldier in your house, or a soldier in a tank, is it that hard to imagine some people see 'the Jew' only as an enemy?
a) aren't we lucky that some Arabs like Adnan can at least try. too bad though her fellow Arabs drag her down and isn't that the whole story of the Pal. failure since 1920?
b) remind me, what "massacre"? the one at the Park Hotel in Netanya?
Yisrael, what is indeed hard to understand is your absolute failure to have any sensitivity to other people's misery, when the other people are Palestinians. All you can say to the beautiful Martijn's comments is this snark? Just imagine yourself for a second born into the Jenin refugee camp, put yourself in the shoes of a Palestinian boy who sees his parents killed. Are you totally incapable of simple human emotions? did you get so brainwashed by your own propaganda as to lose all human compassion?
In Jenin IDF leveled houses on their inhabitants. This is not from the Palestinian propaganda, but a testimony by the D-9 driver nicknamed Kurdi Bear who did the leveling himself, as published in Yediot. About 50 Palestinians died in Jenin both in the fighting and in the subsequent destruction of the camp.
I am capable of emotion. But I ma first committed to the truth. Emotion or an emotional reaction based on a lie is wrong. If 50 Pals. who were killed in Jenin according to you can justify nonhuman noncompassion, for that is what you are implying, and let's recall: "the final death toll was set at 52 to 56 Palestinians, of whom 5-26 may have been civilians and 23 IDF soldiers who were also killed in the fighting", what can we expect from Israelis after Park Hotel attack? Have you no emotion, Peter, no compassion?
Why do you say I have no compassion to Israeli suffering? Did I say anything for you to imply this?
On the other hand, Martijn was talking of the hell that is the life of the Jenin refuge camp. To this you replied with a snark.
By the way, the Israeli soldiers died in a fair face-to-face fight, which I cannot say of the civilians killed by the Kurdi Bear D-9.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6006251982389677883
Why again was this movie banned in a democratic country of Israel?
I challenge you to watch it Yisrael, if you really care to understand the answer to your question.
Doesn't this whole story remind you of the scene from "The Pianist"?
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