The Middle East Twilight Zone according to Steven Plaut
- From: "Ariadne" <ariadne.mac@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 15 Sep 2005 17:14:14 -0700
Hebrew songs making a comeback in Gaza
Yasser Baraka
Gaza City, GAZA
September 9, 2005
Gaza City, GAZA -- As taxi driver Salem Mallahi goes about his daily
work
on the streets of Gaza City, he always listens to music. In the past
couple of months, however, new and unlikely music tapes have started
filling up space in his car's already overflowing glove compartment -
tapes of Hebrew songs.
Mallahi was first introduced to Hebrew music a worker inside Israel.
Mallahi was in his early twenties then, and the Israeli occupation of
the
Gaza Strip was not as hard as it has been in recent years, he says.
Life
for the Palestinians, according to Mallahi, was easier those days.
"We were in a taxi heading to Haifa to the factory we worked at,"
Mallahi
said. "The driver was Jewish and was listening to [Israeli singer]
Zahava
Ben. Her voice and music were very oriental, and I've liked Hebrew
music
ever since," Mallahi said.
During the time he spent working in Israel, Mallahi discovered that
many
of his Palestinian coworkers also enjoyed listening to those Hebrew
songs
that had an oriental flavor. He started listening more, and became a
fervent fan.
Even when the first Palestinian intifada broke out in 1987, Mallahi and
others like him remained hooked on these songs. It was the melodies,
rather than the lyrics, that appealed to them.
"Israeli music had this special flavor that combines oriental and
western
instruments, producing an exotic tune that is comfortable to listen
to,"
says 32-year-old Fadi Dohan, a tailor who used to work at an Israeli
sewing factory in the Israeli town of Khadera.
"I know that most of the Israeli singers we listen to originally came
from
Arab countries like Morocco, Iraq and even Yemen," Dohan says. "They
knew
Arabic and some of them were brought up just like us, which explains
their
oriental tone," he adds.
Indeed, it was not unusual for a Hebrew tape to have at least one
Arabic
song performed as an original by the Israeli singer or as an remake of
famous Arabic songs.
After the signing of the Oslo peace accords and the establishment of
the
Palestinian Authority in 1994, more Palestinians started buying Hebrew
music.
"The PA realized that there were many people who liked Hebrew songs, so
they hosted Zahava Ben here in a concert in Gaza, and she sang in
Hebrew
and in Arabic. It was broadcast live on Palestine TV at that time,"
Dohan
reminisces.
However, admiration for these songs rapidly dwindled after the second
intifada broke out in September 2000, as Israeli forces invaded large
parts of Gaza Strip.
It was hard for the fans of Hebrew song to put these songs on the
shelf,
but listening to them in public reminded Palestinians of their
oppressors.
Khader Abbas, a psychology professor at Al Azhar University in Gaza,
adds
that the rise in religious zeal in Gaza has contributed to a decrease
in
the number of Gazans listening to Israeli music over the past five
years.
"Hearing the Hebrew language brought back sorrow, anger and despair,
because it became the language of the soldier who shoots and demolishes
life, and the language that was heard at checkpoints," he says. "It
became
the language of death to Palestinians."
Music store owner Fadi Moshtaha says he used sell 1000 Hebrew music
tapes
every month before the outbreak of the second intifada. Over the past
few
years, however, he hardly sold a handful.
"The rise in nationalism and the domination of Islamic resistance
movements drove people to steer away from anything Israeli, and
instead,
they started buying Koran recitals and nationalist songs that glorify
martyrs and resistance attacks," says Moshtaha.
In addition, he says, listening to Hebrew music during the Intifada was
considered by many to be "consorting with the enemy", an accusation
that
could cast heavy shadows on listeners or buyers of such music.
Earlier this year, when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the PA,
prospects of peace were finally glimpsed in the horizon, and
accordingly
Palestinian attitudes to Hebrew music began to change.
And with the ensuing ceasefire declaration by Palestinian militant
groups
last February, people began smelling peace in the air, and Gaza was
ready
to receive Hebrew music again.
At the Azhar University park, where dozens of students relax on the
lawns
with their books and bags, Emran Abu Amra turns on his stereo and
listens
at full volume to a song performed by Israeli singer Dodo Yasmine.
Back at the nearby coffee shop and snack bar of which he is owner, Abu
Amra opens a drawer chock-full of Hebrew music tapes. Now is the time
to
bring them out again, he says.
"With the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza taking place, these songs have
ceased to be a taboo. I like listening to Israeli music, and sometimes
when I'm alone or late at night at my coffee shop, I switch to the
Israeli
army radio, where they play some really good songs," he says.
Also optimistic about the Israeli disengagement from Gaza is Moshtaha,
the
music store owner. He has taken the Hebrew music tapes and compact
discs
that he wasn't able to sell during the intifada, and has lined them up
on
a rack.
"I've already made some phone calls to bring new albums from Israel,
but I
need to at least recoup some of my losses in these tapes by selling
them
as vintage Hebrew music," Moshtaha says with a big smile on his face.
www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050909-083943-1942r
.
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