Partners for peace?

Young Palestinian musicians in trouble for performing at Holocaust memorial

Ethel C. Fenig

So President Barack Obama (D) and his Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton (D) still believe that Israelis and Arabs, Jews and Muslims can live peacefully side by side. The Jewish Israelis still maintain that hope but not the Muslim Arabs as this telling incident proves. When a small group of Arab teens entertained a small group of elderly Jews who survived the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe, Arab leaders complained.
Fatah-linked community leaders in the PA-controlled city of Jenin slammed the participation of 13 young local musicians aged 11 to 18 in a "Good Deeds Day," held at the Holocaust Survivor's Center in Holon. The PA politicians made a point of using the issue of the young musicians' performance as a platform upon which to launch a diatribe against participation in any integrative activity with Jewish Israelis. (snip)The conductor, 50-year-old Wafa Younis, was later attacked for her efforts towards co-existence, both verbally and in leaflets distributed throughout the area. Members of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction also sealed her apartment and banned her from entering the city. (snip) More ominously, Abbas's loyalists also filed a complaint with the PA Police against the conductor, claiming she "misled" the young musicians in bringing them to perform at the Israeli concert.And in a few short years, when these teens become adults, what will be their attitudes towards peace with the Israelis? Will they follow their leaders or their orchestra conductor? Sadly, I think the former.