Tuesday August 11, 2009 01:03 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

A trip for some 250 children from the Palestinian Arab Al-Jish village, near Safad north of the country, had to be cut short after the manager of a Jewish-run swimming pool refused to allow the organizers of the Jish Church Summer camp, to play Arabic music.

Israeli Ynet News published a report on the incident and stated that Jad Salman, the director of the Jish Church Summer Camp, stated that the pool manager was insulting and racist in his statement.

Salman said that this summer camp is conducted by the church every year, and is considered one of the best summer camps among Christians in Israel, the Ynet added.

Salman stated that after he along with the organizers of the trip, and some 250 children entered the country club to swim, he asked the personnel about the location of an electricity connection, but the workers did not give a direct answer and kept sending him around.

 Later on, Salman managed to find a power outlet, and connected a stereo system before playing church music.  

As soon as he went to fill some drinking water, he noticed that the music had stopped, he went back and the instructors told him that they were asked to stop the Arabic music and were instead given a Hebrew music CD.

He then approached the club manager, Shemi Namimi, and asked him about what is going on, and then the directors said “do not put Arabic music, but you can play Hebrew music”, the Ynet reported.

 Salman tried to convince the manager to allow them to play Arabic music, as he told him that this is a summer camp, and that the mother tongue of the children is Arabic.

But the manager just said “There will be no Arab music in the club”. After he heard the response, Salman used a microphone and called on the children to leave the pool.

The children were crying, upset and had to wait for an hour until the buses returned from Nazareth. After loading them to the buses, they drove to a swimming pool in Nazareth.

 Some of the families drove to the country club to pick up their children so they do not have wait in the hot burning August sun.

 A father of one of the children told the Ynet News that what happened is racism, and that the manager did not want to see Arab children swimming there.

 The manager claimed that it is not possible to allow every sector to play its music, and that the only way to do such a thing is to privately book the whole pool.

Yet, Israeli swimming pools around the country always play Hebrew music in addition to playing music in English and sometimes in other languages depending on the nationality of the visitors. But when it comes to Arabic, it becomes the place’s policy to stop it.