PA expels founder of Jenin youth orchestra to Israel

[IndianaGreen]

This is a travesty that must be condemned by all peace loving people in the region and the world! Fatah is behaving like the military junta in Myanmar (Burma). Wafa Younis is the new Aung San Suu Kyi.

Last update - 04:15 02/04/2009

PA expels founder of Jenin youth orchestra to Israel

By Yoav Stern

Wafa Younis, a musician from northern Israel who founded a youth orchestra in the Jenin refugee camp, was arrested there on Tuesday by Fatah militants and sent back to Israel from the West Bank. Last week the orchestra played for Holocaust survivors and elderly Arabs in Holon, news that ignited passions in Jenin.

On Tuesday, Younis had been meeting with students' mothers when about four armed men in civilian clothing surrounded her. The militants were led by Zakariya Zubeidi, head of Fatah in the camp, who demanded that Younis go with him in his car to the camp's police station.

"The police chief, who is familiar with my activities, said he would prefer that I leave because those are the instructions regarding anyone with an Israeli identification card," Younis told Haaretz Thursday.

"Zubeidi offered a hudna, where we would suspend our activities for a time, and I agreed. I'll return to Jenin at the right moment because the children are waiting for me, because the community is waiting for me. And if I can't teach them in their classroom I'll teach them in the center I founded in A'ara ."

Younis' work in the camp has made her a household name there. After teaching more than a dozen schoolchildren to play the violin, oud, drums and other instruments, she arranged performances in Israel for the orchestra, Strings of Freedom. A year ago it played in A'ara for the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, Israeli soldiers who were abducted to Lebanon, and of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1075559.html

[aquart]

1. Not kneecapped. Not imprisoned. Not disappeared.

Just ushered over the border. Well! There's brutality for you.

LOL!

[IndianaGreen]

2. Hamas and Hizbollah would have been less kind

as would have an IDF sniper.

[Igel]

5. At the same time, notoriety can confer a certain amount of protection.

Soviet dissidents found this out.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Palestinian orchestra leader deported after death threats (The Independent)

Here is The Independent's report, a variant of the "we are here to protect you... from us":

Palestinian orchestra leader deported after death threats

By Ben Lynfield

Thursday, 2 April 2009

The head of a Palestinian youth orchestra who sparked outrage by performing a concert for Holocaust survivers in Israel has been deported from the West Bank because security forces felt "her life to be in danger".

Israeli-Arab Wafa Younis has been crossing into the Palestinian territories to give music lessons in the Jenin Refugee Camp for the past six years and set up the Strings of Freedom orchestra about three years ago. But when she tried to enter the camp on Monday, armed men in plain clothes took her into custody.

Colonel Raid Assaida, the commander of Palestinian security forces in Jenin, said there had been threats against Ms Younis's life by the parents of some of her music students, angry about their children playing in front of Holocaust survivors. "I warned her not to enter the Jenin area at all for the time being in order to keep her safety," Col Assaida said.

"She used innocent children to carry out a political agenda. Instead of taking them for recreation, she took them to participate in a day to commemorate the Holocaust. She exploited the children in a way."

Adnan al-Hindi, a leader of a popular committee in the camp, said residents had made it clear after the concert that Ms Younis's presence was not wanted. Camp officials had boarded up the rehearsal studio and confiscated the instruments. "But she insisted on challenging us and returning to the camp despite her crime," he said.

The 50-year-old music teacher said she was unfazed and would continue her teaching "after the storm dies down". She says that the aim of last week's performance in the city of Holon was not at all political and was designed to "revive the hearts of the elderly". "My calling is to serve the Palestinian cause and to prove to the whole world we are a people of culture and that we love music which is the language of peace," she said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/palestinian-orchestra-leader-deported-after-death-threats-1660016.html

Women can be so troublesome to patriarchal authorities. Wafa Younis is challenging the status quo in the same courageous and peaceful manner as the military junta in Myanmar (Burma) has been challenged by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi.

Those of us that advocate peace and justice in the I/P conflict must ally ourselves with other like minded individuals, such as Wafa Younis.

[LeftishBrit]

4. This is disgusting behaviour...

but I believe that Wafa Younis is in fact an Israeli citizen, so they are just sending her home, not into exile. Certainly, she is not being imprisoned or kept under house arrest like Aung San Suu Kyi.

It is certainly a great shame about the shutting down of the orchestra, and about the intolerance that some of the authorities have demonstrated. The world and the Middle East need more like Wafa Younis, and fewer like those on all sides who would shut down peace efforts.

[IndianaGreen]

9. In a binational state of Israel-Palestine, everywhere would be home

whether one is Arab or Jew, and this sad conflict would be quickly forgotten by future generations.

At its present course, Israel will have a one-state solution. The question remains which one-state solution will it be?

[LeftishBrit]

20. Very true - but this incident is just one, relatively mild, example of why this solution won't be

happening in the near future.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

6. Perhaps she could arrange a concert in Israel, in honor of Palestinian prisoners...

My, my, this woman does have an affinity for Israeli prisoners, doesn't she?

I wonder if any who post here can even IMAGINE how utterly, obscenely offensive that is to people in Palestine?

On edit:

Interesting that the Haaretz article has a "related article" about orchestras in Nazi death camps.... Guess they don't know about DU rules over there...

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. I appreciate your point of view and I can most certainly grasp your point

Few people who have never lived under a cruel and brutal military occupation have taken the time to put themselves in the mindset of those who do.

My only concern regards strategy. It is a simple reality that the managing your message is just as important to manage as any other aspect of this or any other struggle.

In politics including a liberation movement, perception of reality frequently counts for much more than reality itself.

The Israelis have been quite successful in convincing much of the Western world that they want peace and are willing to be reasonable and to compromise. Obviously neither you nor I believe that for one second.

I think it is very important to communicate to the Western World, who after all do dominate the Middle East and the whole world, the reasonableness of the Palestinian cause. I fear that in this situation the message got lost.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

8. There should be a strong message all right!

I think this is a case of western much ado over nothing.

The woman is an publicty hound, whose politics are deeply offensive at best. I wouldn't let my own kids play under her guidance. I don't expect parents in Jenin to be enamored of her.

I think what you're suggesting is asking too much... especially since the end result will be the same. Better to come out and explain why she has been "let go," ie. we have asked this woman to go since she behaved inappropriately by having children perform without parents' knowledge, by using them inappropriately to gain publicity for herself, by speaking a political point of view regarding Isareli prisoners which is obscenely offensive to the people of Palestine. (What percentage of those kids in that orchestra have relatives languishing in Israeli prisons?) The PA should say that at this time, they believe that the exchange (and this was NO exchange!!!) of artists works to "normalize" a violent, cruel, soul-crushing occupation, and that while they hope that in the future, there can be mutual exchanges between 2 sovereign nations, using Palestinian children to make Israeli adults feel better about their cruel institution of occupation is inappropriate beyond description. They should end their explanation by inviting all people of goodwill to work to join in world-wide nonviolent boycotts, sanctions and divestment against the state of Israel.

And it really annoys me when pro-Zionists have the gall to complain when Palestinians exercise a little control over who is allowed in and out, since egregeious Israeli policies regarding West Bank residence/permission to enter have destroyed the lives of so many in Palestine. NOW they complain? sweet.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

10. I have a PA member at my house today and asked him about this.

He just said that the woman deceived the families, who believed the kids were going to a music festival.

This was not a big hot issue in Palestine, FWIW.

[azurnoir]

11. A question if you know

was this concert used as a platform of sorts to inform these kids in the orchestra about the Holocaust?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

12. I have no idea. Our guest didn't know much about it (he was here when it happened, but lives in

Ramallah).

His sense was that the families were lied to.

[azurnoir]

15. That was my sense too or that at least the families

and children did not know that learning the history of the Holocaust without I am betting its historical context to the situation in Israel and the OPT today would be part of the deal.

IMHO learning about the Holocaust in this manner could well do more harm than good in the long run, hence my comment about "the light bulb" going off in the original thread on this topic.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

16. I don't accept that Palestinian kids don't know about the Holocaust. nt

[IndianaGreen]

13. Michelle Obama: "You are the women that will build the world as it should be."

"You are the women that will build the world as it should be."

Those are the words spoken by Michelle Obama to schoolgirls at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in London. Those are words that speak to the peacemaking role that women have played throughout history, often at odds with patriarchal ideology. Wafa Younis is one such woman, and the smearing of her reputation and character is very typical of male-dominated societies in which everyone must submit to a proscribed role.

We need more Wafa Younis and less of the Netanyahus, Liebermans, and the Radhi Assidhas of this world.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

14. I am one woman who categorically disagrees!

There are plenty of fabulous women in Palestine -- on whose backs the new country will be built.

Publicity seeker and manipulator Wafaa Younis is not one of them.

[EFerrari]

17. I love you IG, but I disagree. An adult doesn't drag children in

to a situation that the presiding adults aren't handling well. It's a set up for the kids. It's going to end badly for THEM and that violates the very first principle of teaching children -- violating their trust in you.

And I say this sincerely as someone who plays the piano, violin and cello very badly. :)

[IndianaGreen]

18. They played for the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev a year ago

so the claim that this is something new and surprising doesn't pass the smell test. In fact, calling the Holocaust a political issue, as Fatah Colonel Raid Assaida did, smacks to me of another codeword for Holocaust denial. Why would Fatah also confiscate the children's instruments, if this was merely a dispute between Fatah and Ms Younis?

We should be supporting the peacemakers from both sides of the I/P conflict, and resist the temptation to goose step to the tunes of the so-called leaders just because it doesn't fit their personal agendas.

[EFerrari]

19. But it's not about the issues. It's about how badly the grown ups

are handling the issues that creates the atmosphere? Do you see -- it's not the same thing. This year isn't last year, it's now and big people are behaving badly. It doesn't even matter who is behaving badly. It's not a good enough environment for kids.

I'm not siding with anyone but am saying, this teacher dragged her kids into something they didn't need. And, that's wrong.

Fine, let's support the peacemakers but can we please not do it on the backs of children thrust into a politicized situation when all they think they're doing is learning how to play music? That's grossly unfair to them.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

22. That alone is absolutely disgusting. This woman should have been fired then.

That is positively obscene. I would love to poll those kids families and see how many family members they have in Israeli prisons.

[oberliner]

23. Fired by who?

She doesn't work for anyone - she runs (or ran) this orchestra herself.

The entire program was voluntary for the students. Any parent who found that previous concert "obscene" (as you did) would have been free to withdraw their children from the orchestra at that time if they wished.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

25. She should have been shown the "unwelcome" mat a year ago then.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. And ITA as one whose kid plays in an Arab music group!

[EFerrari]

24. Dragging children into adult conficts is how we keep those conflicts going.

If there was to be some kind of cultural exchange, the communities would FIRST need to make that transaction is safe for the children. That's it. If you can't figure that out, don't teach children.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

26. The group we're involved with takes tremendous pains to keep the work completely apolitical, btw.