On Tuesday evening, in the building of the left-wing newspaper Junge Welt in east Berlin, the rich allegro sounds of the first movement of Mozart’s clarinet quintet filled the halls, played by the Palestinian Nasmé string and clarinet ensemble. Half a dozen heavily armored police officers, ordered there by Berlin’s mayor, stood in the corridor. The tense atmosphere was punctuated by the lyrical strings, while the crowd waited eagerly and somewhat anxiously for the appearance of one of the United Nation’s best-known figures.
A few days earlier, an event featuring Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, at the so-called Free University of Berlin had been cancelled after the German capital’s mayor called her appearance “a disgrace”; the Israeli ambassador to Berlin is reported to have requested the cancellation because of Albanese’s critical comments about Israel. A re-scheduled event at Junge Welt was only permitted with the presence of police. ….more
