Palestinians deport conductor over Holocaust concert

PALESTINIAN SECURITY men detained and deported to Israel a conductor who took a youth orchestra from the West Bank Jenin refugee camp to perform before Holocaust survivors living near Tel Aviv.

Wafa Younis, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said yesterday that she was visiting the apartment where the 18 member “Strings of Freedom” orchestra normally met when armed men took her into custody.

Jenin’s police commander, Radhi Assidha, told Ms Younis she was banned from the refugee camp because of concerns for her safety, citing death threats by parents of some of her students.

“She used innocent children to carry out a political agenda,” he stated. “Instead of taking them for recreation, she took them to participate in a day to commemorate the Holocaust.”

The orchestra was disbanded on Sunday and its practice rooms sealed.

“She exploited the children,” stated Adnan Hindi, the head of the camp’s popular committee. “She will be forbidden from doing any activities. We have to protect our children and our community.”

Most Palestinians accuse Israel of using the Holocaust as justification for Israel’s harsh treatment of the Palestinian people, and likewise resent what they see as the West’s guilt-inspired tolerance of Israeli military action against them. The people of Jenin are particularly sensitive about these issues.

In April 2002 the inhabitants of the Jenin refugee camp, whose homes had been in northern Israel, were subjected to a 10-day onslaught by the Israeli army.

The majority of the 13,000 camp residents fled but of the 4,000 who remained, at least 52 were killed, half of them civilians.

Districts of the camp were heavily bombed and bulldozed into a heap of rubble. Thousands were made homeless.

Ms Younis, who had volunteered in the camp for six years, said she was “very sad and sorry” about the camp’s reaction and “apologised for any offence. My calling is to serve the Palestinian cause and to prove to the whole world that we are a people of culture and that we love music, which is the language of peace. I hope that I will be able to go back to Jenin refugee camp soon.”