Yaffa Yarkoni, 76, was at one time a national monument - Israel's equivalent
of Maurice Chevalier or Edith Piaf. Nicknamed "the singer of wars",
she
boosted morale during the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973. Countless archive
photographs show Yarkoni, a tall and beautiful woman with a dazzling
smile,
standing next to Israel's most celebrated generals, from Moshe Dayan
to Ariel
Sharon. During her 50-year career she has recorded 1,000 songs, many
of which
are taught in schools, and was a recipient of the Israel Prize, the
country's
highest distinction. But since April 14 Yarkoni has become a "traitor"
who is
boycotted on the radio and castigated in the press. Speaking on the
army's
radio station that day she justified "those who now refuse to serve
in the
Palestinian territories". "I would give back all the territories,"
she
continued. She also expressed her shock at the attacks on Palestinian
civilians, and said that if these were to continue she would advise
her
grandchildren to leave Israel. "Why is Sharon waging war?" she exclaimed.
"To
kill farmers, bomb Gaza and discover afterwards that the victims include
women and children? We're a people who suffered the Holocaust. How
can we do
such things? What we're doing is making the Palestinians rise up, and
I
understand them." Yarkoni explained afterwards that she had been in
an
emotional state when she made these remarks, that her mention of the
Holocaust had been prompted by the sight of Israeli soldiers writing
numbers
on the arms of arrested Palestinians, but that of course she was not
comparing the Israeli army to the SS. It was too late, however. The
editor of
the daily Ma'ariv claimed: "Yaffa Yarkoni has joined the new European
anti-semites." The Israeli Union of Performing Artists cancelled a
gala
evening that had been planned in her honour. Since then she has received
hundreds of insulting and threatening telephone calls, faxes and emails.
She
no longer goes out for fear of attack, although she did attend the
Peace Now
movement's huge demonstration against the war on May 11, in spite of
a death
threat from a far-right Israeli group. Only Gidi Gov, an Israeli pop
singer,
supported Yarkoni by resigning from the Union of Performing Artists
because
he felt he could not be "a member of a body that does not defend the
freedom
of expression of the country's greatest singer". What most pains Yarkoni
is
the accusation that she has "insulted the memory of Israeli victims".
She
lost her first husband when he fought in the Jewish Brigade alongside
the
British army during the Italian campaign in 1944. Her son-in-law, an
Israeli
fighter pilot, lost a leg on the Egyptian front in the 70s. Staggered
by the
violence of the reactions against her, she told the daily Yediot Ahronot
on
May 3: "All I do and all I say is solely out of love for this country.
The
Palestinians are entitled to have their own state. Good God, nothing
can be
done to stop it. They will get it in the end. So why is there all this
killing in Israel and in the territories?" May 11
The Guardian Weekly 23-5-2002, page 34