Palestinian Camp Bars Youth Orchestra Leader

In this March 25, 2009 file photo, Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank...

In this March 25, 2009 file photo, Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank play for Holocaust survivors at a center in Holon near Tel Aviv. Palestinian officials in a West Bank refugee camp say Sunday, March 29, 2009, they have disbanded a youth orchestra after it played for Holocaust survivors in Israel. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill, file)

(AP)

The head of a Palestinian youth orchestra who set off an uproar by performing a concert for Holocaust survivors in Israel was blocked Tuesday from entering a West Bank refugee camp because of concerns for her safety, a local official said.

Security official Radi Asiba said the life of the orchestra conductor, Wafa Younis, would have been at risk if she remained in the area of the Jenin refugee camp.

Younis, an Arab woman from Israel, led a small orchestra for Palestinian youths in the hardscrabble camp. But she fell out of favor with residents after taking the orchestra to play for the Holocaust survivors last week.

When Younis tried to enter the camp on Tuesday, she was halted by a prominent local leader, Asiba said. "We informed her that she is forbidden from entering Jenin because her presence causes tensions," he said.

Younis struck a sensitive nerve. Many Palestinians are reluctant to acknowledge Jewish historical suffering because of concerns that it weakens their own claims to victimhood and to the land. Ignorance and even denial of the Nazi genocide during World War II are common in Palestinian society.

Parents said they were not told their children would perform for the Holocaust survivors.

Residents of the Jenin camp are descendants of the some 700,000 Palestinians who either fled or were expelled from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation, an event Arabs call the Naqba, or catastrophe.

They said they were angry with Younis because their children had performed for Holocaust survivors while Israel had not acknowledged the suffering caused to them.

Younis was not available for comment on Tuesday but earlier said she only meant to spread goodwill through the concert.

On Sunday, camp officials boarded up Younis' rehearsal studio and confiscated the orchestra's music instruments: an electronic keyboard, a few kamanjas — an Arab instrument that looks like a violin — and some small drums.