PA dismantles W. Bank youth orchestra [for playing for Holocaust survivors in Israel]

Palestinian authorities disbanded a youth orchestra from a West Bank refugee camp after it played for a group of Holocaust survivors in Israel, a local official said on Sunday.

Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank play for Holocaust survivors at a center in Holon, last Wednesday. Photo: AP

SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World Adnan Hindi of the Jenin camp called the Holocaust a "political issue" and accused conductor Wafa Younis of unknowingly dragging the children into a political dispute.

He added that Younis has been barred from the camp and the apartment where she taught the 13-member Strings of Freedom orchestra has been boarded up.

On Saturday, The Jerusalem Post found that leaders and representatives of the Jenin refugee camp condemned the participation of Palestinian teenagers from the camp in a concert honoring Holocaust survivors in Holon last week.

RELATED Palestinian children sing for Holocaust survivors Palestinian play criticizes local politics The 13 Palestinian musicians, aged 11 to 18, are members of the Palestinian orchestra Strings of Freedom that is based in the refugee camp.

The concert was held at the Holocaust Survivors' Center as part of "Good Deeds Day," an annual event organized by an organization belonging to Israeli billionaire Shari Arison.

The event drew strong condemnations from refugee camp leaders and political activists, who accused the organizers of exploiting the children for "political purposes."

Adnan al-Hinda, director of the Popular Committee for Services in the Jenin refugee camp, said that the participation of the children in the concert was a "dangerous matter" because it was directed against the cultural and national identity of the Palestinians.

He accused "suspicious elements" of being behind the Holon event, saying they were seeking to "impact the national culture of the young generation and cast doubt about the heroism and resistance of the residents of the camp during the Israeli invasion in April 2002."

Hindi claimed that the organizers "misled" the children by promising to take them on a free trip to Israel and teach them music.

Ramzi Fayad, a spokesman for various political factions in the Jenin refugee camp, also condemned the participation of the teenagers in the Holocaust event, saying all the groups were strongly opposed to any form of normalization with Israel.

"There can be no normalization while Israel is continuing to perpetrate massacres against our people," he said.

Leaflets distributed in the Jenin area over the weekend also attacked the event and accused the organizers of exploiting the children. The leaflets also warned the Palestinians against participating in similar events in the future.

Sources in the camp said that the political factions in Jenin have also decided to ban an Israeli Arab woman who helped organize the event from entering the city.

Fatah activists in the city also filed a complaint with the Palestinian Police against the woman under the pretext that she had misled the children by taking them to the Holocaust event. The activists also sealed an apartment that had been rented out to the woman in the refugee camp.

The youths said their conductor, Wafa Younis, 50, of the Arab village of Ara in the Triangle, tried to explain to them who the elderly people at the event were, but chaos on the bus prevented them from listening.

Some 30 elderly survivors gathered in the center's hall as teenage boys and girls filed in 30 minutes late - delayed at an IDF checkpoint outside their town, they later explained.

The encounter began with an Arabic song, "We sing for peace," and was followed by two musical pieces with violins and Arabic drums, as well as an impromptu song in Hebrew by two in the audience.

The encounter was not devoid of politics. Younis dedicated a song to kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

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Just look at those two young girls, fiddling around when they should be in bomb making 101. Clearly ..."dangerous matter" because it was directed against the cultural and national identity of the Palestinians. . A culture that would improve itself by aspiring to simple barbarism. Maybe Hillary can persuade the peace partners to change their mind.

Stuff like this really burns my butt because it's little gestures like this that chip away at the hate and misunderstanding between peoples. If Abbas were really serious about finding that elusive route to coexistence he'd be all over the people who shut these kids down, but again we see the Pali's true colors.

Down in the States, I've heard this concept called "Ping Pong Diplomacy", harking back to the time Nixon pushed to open the door to China. Younger people without an axe to grind taking baby steps to re-humanize relationships between opposing nations. It's hard to change the views of older citizens, but this gets the ball rolling for the future.

For us Canucks, the classic, and maybe all time classic example was the Canada-Soviet hockey series in 1972. And make no mistake, this was not at all a friendly event (though Canada naively thought it might be going into it). The Russki's were all over us here in Canada. Shocked the bejeebers out of us. Scouting said they were weak in goal. Appears nobody told Tretiak. When the series got to Moscow open war broke loose. The Canadians were put up in cockroach infested accomodations with loud construction activity going on all night next door. Pile drivers and such.

On ice it got worse. Bobby Clarke deliberately breaking the Soviet's #1 star's ankle to put him out of the tourney. AK-armed Soviet soldiers tried to arrest Alan Eagleson in the middle of the game. Peter Mahovolich jumping over the boards with his stick raised looking like he was going to kill the soldier. The poor Soviet kid looked like his life was flashing before his eyes (Pete was a big boy). Peter escorted Alan back to the bench. It was ugly, violent and it was great hockey.

What happened after? The Soviets and Canadians began to treat each other as nations with more civility and respect. We could be used as go betweens for US-USSR communications. They almost beat our best - scared us, and we narrowly beat theirs. Tretiak became a hockey icon in Canada...he and Tikonev (the coach) are in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The buzz now is will Tretiak's grandson someday play in the NHL? It appears he's good enough, maybe better than gramps. Canadians opened the first McDonald's in Moscow and taught the concept of customer service to the Russians (to a degree).

From two enemies trying to say "let's take a break and do something we have in common" a beginning happened.

Oh yeah, then there was this fellow Named President Reagan ;-)

Any hope for resolution in the mid-east falls on the young. The older generations are lost. Shame on the Palestians again.

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