Violin – Moon of Alabama

November 29, 2004

Violin

An Israel Defense Forces officer and soldiers at the Beit Iba checkpoint near Nablus forced a young Palestinian on November 9 to open a violin case he was carrying and play the instrument, while local residents waited behind him in a long line.
…
According to Machsom Watch, another volunteer reported several months ago about a similar incident in which a Palestinian was forced to play for soldiers at a checkpoint in the Jerusalem region.
Haaretz: Soldiers force Palestinian to play violin at West Bank checkpoint

And now I noticed, from the corner of my eyes, that the murderer Kapo picked up his iron pipe again and was walking toward me. And I knew I’m gonna be killed. I knew it. So my right hand and my left hand all of a sudden started moving in perfect harmony. And the Strauss Blue Danube was heard coming out of my violin. Now, how? I never thought of the Blue Danube. Never. I heard it, in fact, I, I am even, hate to admit to you, I never even played it really.
…
And the Kapo looked at, eagerly, to, to the SS, "When shall I whack him? When shall I hit him?" Instead, the SS guard was humming the melody, and was beating the rhythm with his fingers–like 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. And he, he just smiled and, "Let him live."
Sandor (Shony) Alex Braun Describes playing the violin for SS guards in Dachau.

Posted by b on November 29, 2004 at 12:37 UTC | Permalink

Comments

It’s tempting, at times, to draw parallels and analogies between the Israeli treatment of Palestinians and the Shoah. And if their fundamentals were similar, then an anecdotal parallel would be most illuminating. But does this comparison do any real justice at all to either of the two agonies? I don’t think it does. The analogy between South Africa and Israel is far more apt, and I don’t recall anyone drawing easy parallels thirty years ago between South Africa and Nazi Germany (and I may have a faulty memory here). The Shoah was a horror of a particular kind; it had no “Intifada” to contend with, for example, beyond the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and a few other moments of resistance…..If we Americans feel a need to find historical parallels to the current situation in Israel, we can always look to our own unending, unfinished agonies surrounding the Emancipation of the slaves, or the Trail of Tears, or the setting-up of our Indian Reservations, or the treatment of the Nisei during WW II. These all pertain, they hurt, and they inform.

Posted by: alabama | Nov 29 2004 14:46 utc | 1

Slightly tangential: The subject of the indian “reservations” in the US comes up a lot in my house, alabama… Culeeforneea… where the governator is trying to make “deals” with sovreign nations for their “fair share” of Culeeforeea taxes since gambling spots have hit here on tribal “land”. I’m betting you can imagine the noise we make at all this… And no one talks about it at all from the press locally. It’s just “get that redman money for the rest of us white folks”.
States are not allowed to “make treaties” with foreign governments. Something quite forgotten, it seems. Are the indian nations sovreign or are they fiefs? We’d like to see the nations go to the UN as they should to be recognized… Short of that they need to tell Ah-nulld to fuck off.
I’ve stopped saying things can’t get weirder, realizing my foolishness. Of COURSE things can get weirder. 😉

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 29 2004 15:43 utc | 2

Alabama: The catch is that Israelis themselves seem to be royally pissed off at that, far more than at any else outrage that occurred recently. Steve Gilliard has more about it – of late, he’s also on colonial warfare, which is worth checking imho.
But of course it’s not the same exactly – though IDF behaviour at checkpoints looks closer to the Germans manning ghetto checkpoint – because there isn’t the whole extermination machinery behind. S Africa may indeed be an apter comparison, and prof. Cole for instance tends to compare the territories to bantustans.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Nov 29 2004 16:14 utc | 3

Kate, shortly ago I heard about some gaming establishment fixing to rise up on (or near) the old Atlantic-Richmond (now Chevron?) oil depot up in Richmond. I never saw any teepees thereabouts myself. Would the casino sit offshore? Perch on a paddle-steamer? And what does the governator propose to offer the sovereign people of that particular Native American Nation in exchange for the opportunity to break their bank? Guaranteed employment by the Department of Motor Vehicles for the next five hundred years?

Posted by: alabama | Nov 29 2004 16:31 utc | 4

I don’t think the governator is offering much at all except a pat on the back for suffering and bowing to the great white father yet again. It’s one indignity and grand theft and attempts at genocide after another for hundreds of years… Really corks me beyond most sensible discourse … The casino places out here are on no islands. Pity. When one of the tribes made a stand on Alacatraz Island back years ago, I smiled and cheered. Too bad the nations have no disease-laden blankets to trade to Ah-nulld in exchange for his good will, eh?

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 29 2004 17:03 utc | 5

So, this is what it’s taken for the Israelis to see they’ve become who they despise. Young Israelis as parodies of the Nazis……
I never did understand why they’d want to settle in Israel, surrounded by hundreds of millions who revile them as much as the Nazis. Robt. Fisk said overwhelmingly his friends among the intelligentsia in No Woman’s Lands Deny the Existence of the Holocaust……
Unfortunately they have the same problem that we have. The kleptocrats/free the marketers have taken over the country, so liberals have nothing to offer…the right stays in power…. Like America, Dancing Over the Cliff……

Posted by: jj | Nov 29 2004 21:18 utc | 6

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