A tale of five players - four Israeli Jews and one Palestinian Arab

An article from the World Zionist Press Service has a photo of the Jerusalem Quartet with the caption, “Israeli musicians also have military strings attached: Jerusalem Quartet members serving in nation's army".

Three of the 'Jerusalem Quartet' are Russian immigrants.Guns n music - it's all Zionism to them

"They were inducted into the Israeli Defense Forces and...Bressler (second violin) says his only fear then was that something would happen to his hands." They continue to perform "for troops three times a week...Gross says they simply want their fellow troops to appreciate classical music. One example of the musical appreciation the quartet have developed in their audiences of settler/soldiers was caught on film. The Israeli Army thugs on humiliation duty at Beit Iba checkpoint on November 9, 2004, felt such a need for classical music that they forced the young Palestinian man in this photograph to play his violin at the checkpoint while they sneered at him and his compatriots. The event was filmed by a member of an Israeli human rights group, Machsom Watch, which often records the cruelty of Israeli troops at checkpoints throughout the West Bank.

A Palestinian is forced to play his violin to get through a checkpoint. Many of these soldiers are very violent.Machsom Watch's Herman Peled told the Associated Press news agency the Palestinian man complied with the soldiers' demand to play his instrument because "he just wanted to get through the roadblock". Some of the soldiers laughed throughout the two-minute performance, she said.

The BBC reported the Israeli Army's initial clam that "the man was asked to play the instrument he was carrying to prove it was not full of explosives. The Israeli Army later claimed that "The Palestinian opened the case and started to play the violin of his own volition" before he was asked to stop by the soldiers. The case horrified many Israelis who do not like to be reminded about parallels between the brutality many Jews experienced in Europe and the brutality being dealt to Palestinians by their thugs in uniform in Occupied Palestine.

Beit Iba has a reputation for systematic harrassment of Palestinians who must pass therough it to get in and out of the ancient City of Nablus (Neopolis). Only one devoid of shame would suggest that any young Palestinian man would, unasked, spontaneously perform music for his checkpoint tormentors. But, then, the Israeli Army lies without any shame at all.

The World Zionist Press Service said of the 'young, winsome' Israeli Army musicians that, "For the three immigrants, carrying a rifle in one hand and a violin in the other is the ultimate Zionist statement."

Why should ethnic cleansers be allowed to put down their rifles after marauding across Palestinian lands and come to Edinburgh for R&R? We need the kind of movement that boycotted South African apartheid, this time against the vastly worse system erected by the Israelis in Palestine: “Compared to what the Palestinians are having to endure, what we put up with in the struggle against apartheid was a picnic.” Ronnie Kasrils, Jewish veteran of the armed wing of the South African liberation struggle, now a government Minister.

And let us remember that current British Minister, ex-South African, Peter Hain used to be the leading light of a campaign called Stop All Racist Tours which worked to disrupt all South African tours during that country's nightmare period of apartheid. The key words were STOP and ALL. Hain didn't lead PART (Protest All Racist Tours) or CART (Criticise All Racist Tours), or even SSRT (Stop Some Racist Tours). Let's work together to try to be as 'militant' as a current New Labour Cabinet Minister used to be. Basic human decency, really.

Mick Napier, SPSC

See original source article from the World Zionist Press Service