Jenin residents shut down children's orchestra

[Saddle Bronc 124]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7972160.stm

Orchestra shut over holocaust row

The group began their concert with an Arabic song called We Sing For Peace

Local residents have closed down a West Bank children's orchestra after it performed a concert for Holocaust survivors in Israel.

Adnan Hindi, a social leader in the Jenin refugee camp, accused the group's director of "exploiting" the children for political reasons.

Thirteen children travelled to Israel last week to play for an audience which included holocaust survivors .

It was part of the Good Deeds Day event set up by an Israeli billionaire.

Mr Hindi, the head of an organisational committee in the refugee camp, said the concert had overstepped the purely "recreational" remit of the Strings of Freedom orchestra.

'No agenda'

The room in the house of the orchestra's director, Wafa Younis, where the teenagers practiced, has been locked and boarded up, local residents say.

Parents are also said to have stopped their children from participating in the group, saying they were not informed of the nature of the trip to Israel.

"If I had known this was a political excursion, I would not have let my son go"

Ibrahim Samour, orchestra member's father

"I have no political agenda," Ms Younis told Reuters news agency, and dismissed the decision to close down the orchestra as "ignorant".

Many members of the audience at the concert in the Israeli town of Horon were surprised to discover the performers were from Jenin, known for brutal fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces in 2002.

And reports from the concert said it was the first time some of the young people had heard about the Holocaust, and seen civilian Israelis, rather than the soldiers they encounter in the West Bank.

"If I had known this was a political excursion, I would not have let my son go," Ibrahim Samour, father of 18-year-old Qusay, who plays the kamanja, a traditional Arab stringed instrument, in the orchestra, told AP news agency.

Neither he nor Mr Hindi deny the fact that some six million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

The need to provide sanctuary for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees is widely seen to have speeded the creation of the state of Israel, which led to a war during which about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled.

"I'm not denying bad things happened to them, but there has to be mutual recognition," said Mr Samour.

Good Deeds Day is an annual event to foster "hope and brotherhood" founded by Israeli billionaire Shari Arison.

Oh, they criticise Wafa Younis as exploitative when he tries to actually promote peace, while they won't slam recruiting by Hamas/Fatah-affiliated militant groups--chops!

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Such tolerance.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Hmmmmm, indeed.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Shame on us!

By Khalid Amayreh • Mar 29th, 2009 at 13:33 • Category: Analysis, Children's Corner, Culture and Heritage, Human Rights, Israel, Khalid Amayreh, Newswire, Our Authors, Palestine, War, Zionism

What will happen next? Will Palestinian kids be duped into playing music to Israeli pilots who exterminated Gaza children with White Phosphorus?

By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem

29 March, 2009

It is really hard to write on this subject without getting angry. We all know the extent to which Israel can be evil and satanic. After all, we Palestinians have been on the receiving end of Israeli savagery for decades.

In fact, being thoroughly tormented and killed by the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the holocaust has always been and continues to be “the” Palestinians’ way of life.

However, for some Palestinians to allow themselves to be duped to sing and play music to their oppressors and child-killers is simply beyond the pale of human dignity.

It is at least as insulting and humiliating as when some Jews were forced or duped to play music to SS, Gestapo and Wehrmacht soldiers during the Second World War. In both cases, the act was meant to humiliate the victims and rob them of the last visages of human dignity.

And now, Jews in Israel are doing the same thing to Palestinians, Nazism’s vicarious victims.

Last week, a few innocent kids from the Jenin refugee camp were surreptiously taken to Tel Aviv to “cheer up and take part in peace-promoting activities.”

However, once there the kids were unceremoniously driven to a reception where they were made to play music and sing to “holocaust survivors,” some of them are former members of the Hagana and Irgun terrorist gangs who had taken part in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

God knows how much Palestinian blood did these so-called “holocaust survivors” shed in 1948 and subsequent years. Certainly, Deir Yasin, Tantura, Dawaymeh, and the numerous other massacres were not committed by UFOs. They were committed in cold blood by these very people our children are now cheering up.

Shame on us a thousand times!

Some of the kids were instructed to utter words that should never be uttered by the victims of Zionism. One of the participants reportedly dedicated a special song to Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier taken prisoner by Palestinian fighters in Gaza nearly three years ago. No mention, not even an allusion, was made of the estimated 10,000 Palestinian political and resistance prisoners languishing in Israeli dungeons and concentration camps.

But the kids apparently felt they had to say anything they were asked to say in order to show gratitude for the Jewish “peace contractor” who got them out of the ghetto, otherwise known as Jenin refugee camp, even for a six-our outing in Tel Aviv.

I am not against showing genuine sympathy with the victims of the holocaust. However, a sympathy that is manipulated to justify, rationalize or even extenuate the crime against humanity that is Israel is worse than a crime if only because it serves to promote and perpetuate oppression.

As human beings, we Palestinians do sympathize with all victims of Nazism, Stalinism and imperialism, the wept, the over-wept, and especially the unwept who constitute the vast majority of victims.

Having said that, however, I strongly believe that no honest person under the sun has the slightest right to demand that we pay the price for what the Nazis did or may have done to European Jews nearly 70 years ago.

We didn’t send Jews to the ovens. The Germans did. We didn’t starve Jews to death as Jews are doing to us today in the Gaza Strip.

We didn’t incinerate Jews in Gas chambers as Jews have recently incinerated Palestinian children with White Phosphorus.

Hence, of all people in this world, Palestinians must never be made to feel guilty for what the Nazis and other Europeans did to Jews. I say so because a feeling of guilt, even a modicum of guilt, on our part, would be construed or misconstrued as a vindication of Zionism, the Nazism of our time.

There are additional reasons that make the latest insensitive manipulation of Palestinian suffering especially ugly and dishonorable.

First, nearly all the young musicians who were taken to Tel Aviv came from the Jenin Refugee camp. For those who have forgotten, this is the very same refugee camp that Israeli tanks pulverized in 2002. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed homes right on top of innocent civilians, including the physically handicapped, while dozens of innocent civilians were systematically massacred, very much like Jews were at Ghetto Warsaw. The massacre at the camp was so hideous that Israel refused to allow UN officials to access the camp to inspect what happened.

Well, again the Nazi analogy is inescapable. Just imagine surviving Jewish children from Treblinka or Bergen Belsen made to sing to SS soldiers!!

Second, the disgraceful concert in Tel Aviv comes on the heel of Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza where Israeli warplanes showered the children, women and men of coastal enclave with White Phosphorus and other missiles and bombs of death while Israeli Jews were gleefully celebrating the “victory on Hamas” and Israeli rabbis preoccupied with classifying gentiles into “children of light” and “children of darkness.”

In Gaza, the Zionist Jews exposed their shame to all the people of the world by acting like primitive barbarians and murderous savages.

Hence, the utter shamefulness of sending Palestinian children to Tel Aviv to help Israel’s hasbara efforts whitewash Israel’s pornographic barbarianism in Gaza.

Finally, it is obvious that the PA bears much of the blame for this disgraceful event. The PA should never allow so called “cultural exchanges” and “cultural normalization” with the murderers of our children, the very state whose leaders and military commanders view us as “scum, vermin and animals” that ought to be exterminated.

Unfortunately, the PA itself encourages some demoralized Palestinians to endear themselves to Israel, even in the cheapest of manners.

The often cordial meetings and exchanging of kisses between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert, the butcher of Gaza, leave one and only impression, not only on the children of the refugee camp in Jenin, but also on TV viewers around the world.

Perhaps the Israel artillery and war planes were showering Gaza with candy, not White Phosphorus!!!

This is probably the main message the organizers of the Jenin-Tel Aviv tour wanted to communicate to these miserable kids who are obviously having a hard time recognizing their fathers’ killers.

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

[DeadPoolX 9]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

[Ban Hammer 14,569]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

especially when the story has this as an intro

It is really hard to write on this subject without getting angry. We all know the extent to which Israel can be evil and satanic. After all, we Palestinians have been on the receiving end of Israeli savagery for decades.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

[DeadPoolX 9]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

Thank you for that extreme response.

I know Palestinians have their own opinions and views. They're certainly entitled to express them. However, using an obviously biased source to present an argument -- whether it's for Israel or Palestinians -- serves no purpose, other than to be inflammatory. This article, in particular, was very hostile.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

Thank you for that extreme response.

I know Palestinians have their own opinions and views. They're certainly entitled to express them. However, using an obviously biased source to present an argument -- whether it's for Israel or Palestinians -- serves no purpose, other than to be inflammatory. This article, in particular, was very hostile.

Well, that's you expressing your opinion. So maybe you are extreme, obviously biased and hostile !

Be honest. You would demand the right to refuse the use of your children for political purposes with which you do not agree. You also would not agree that you were being biased or hostile or extreme if you criticized or complained about the use of your children without your consent.

[DeadPoolX 9]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

Thank you for that extreme response.

I know Palestinians have their own opinions and views. They're certainly entitled to express them. However, using an obviously biased source to present an argument -- whether it's for Israel or Palestinians -- serves no purpose, other than to be inflammatory. This article, in particular, was very hostile.

Well, that's you expressing your opinion. So maybe you are extreme, obviously biased and hostile !

Be honest. You would demand the right to refuse the use of your children for political purposes with which you do not agree. You also would not agree that you were being biased or hostile or extreme if you criticized or complained about the use of your children without your consent.

There's a difference between voicing a complaint and the venomous statements made in that article. Many of the comments weren't truly necessary in order to get the point across.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

Thank you for that extreme response.

I know Palestinians have their own opinions and views. They're certainly entitled to express them. However, using an obviously biased source to present an argument -- whether it's for Israel or Palestinians -- serves no purpose, other than to be inflammatory. This article, in particular, was very hostile.

Well, that's you expressing your opinion. So maybe you are extreme, obviously biased and hostile !

Be honest. You would demand the right to refuse the use of your children for political purposes with which you do not agree. You also would not agree that you were being biased or hostile or extreme if you criticized or complained about the use of your children without your consent.

There's a difference between voicing a complaint and the venomous statements made in that article. Many of the comments weren't truly necessary in order to get the point across.

[DeadPoolX 9]

I've often wondered why some people simply quote a statement and fail to respond afterward. There's no point in doing that.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

Thank you for that extreme response.

I know Palestinians have their own opinions and views. They're certainly entitled to express them. However, using an obviously biased source to present an argument -- whether it's for Israel or Palestinians -- serves no purpose, other than to be inflammatory. This article, in particular, was very hostile.

Well, that's you expressing your opinion. So maybe you are extreme, obviously biased and hostile !

Be honest. You would demand the right to refuse the use of your children for political purposes with which you do not agree. You also would not agree that you were being biased or hostile or extreme if you criticized or complained about the use of your children without your consent.

There's a difference between voicing a complaint and the venomous statements made in that article. Many of the comments weren't truly necessary in order to get the point across.

Again, it's merely your subjective opinion that the statements in the article are either "venomous," or "not necessary."

In fact, all you've managed to do so far is engage in name-calling, without any real argument as to whether the author's statements are factual or not.

I posted the article to shed some light on "why" some Palestinians were so upset over the incident, as this context was almost entirely ignored by the author of the OP article. It portrays the story as simply "Palestinian children played for holocaust victims and now Palestinians are furious about it" -- it makes no effort to explain why they would be angry over this particular incident.

So... if you would like to address some actual points that the author made, please do so.

[DeadPoolX 9]

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/29/shame-on-us/

Hardly objective, wouldn't you say?

Of course -- Palestinians are not entitled to have opinions, nor entitled to see anything through the context of their own personal experiences with the issues discussed in the article. Nor are they entitled to the right to refuse the use of their own children for Israeli propaganda purposes, or to complain or criticize when it is done without their consent.

Thank you for that extreme response.

I know Palestinians have their own opinions and views. They're certainly entitled to express them. However, using an obviously biased source to present an argument -- whether it's for Israel or Palestinians -- serves no purpose, other than to be inflammatory. This article, in particular, was very hostile.

Well, that's you expressing your opinion. So maybe you are extreme, obviously biased and hostile !

Be honest. You would demand the right to refuse the use of your children for political purposes with which you do not agree. You also would not agree that you were being biased or hostile or extreme if you criticized or complained about the use of your children without your consent.

There's a difference between voicing a complaint and the venomous statements made in that article. Many of the comments weren't truly necessary in order to get the point across.

Again, it's merely your subjective opinion that the statements in the article are either "venomous," or "not necessary."

In fact, all you've managed to do so far is engage in name-calling, without any real argument as to whether the author's statements are factual or not.

I posted the article to shed some light on "why" some Palestinians were so upset over the incident, as this context was almost entirely ignored by the author of the OP article. It portrays the story as simply "Palestinian children played for holocaust victims and now Palestinians are furious about it" -- it makes no effort to explain why they would be angry over this particular incident.

So... if you would like to address some actual points that the author made, please do so.

I can't address a point because there was none. That article exists for one purpose and that's to project an extremely biased stance. There's no factual data in it; it's opinion, nothing more.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I've often wondered why some people simply quote a statement and fail to respond afterward. There's no point in doing that.

Did you really think I would do that intentionally?

Actually, I had some glitch when posting my reply - not sure how that happened.