Pack of Cards

The Cairo Opera House has joined the ongoing movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people that has swept Arab capitals since Israel's recent attacks on the occupied territories.

On Sunday, the Main Hall witnessed a musical evening featuring performances of classical nationalist songs -- Umm Kulthoum and Abdel- Wahab hymns from 1948 and 1967 -- as well as more recent offerings, like the collective song "The Arab Dream," inspired by the Intifada.

From top: solidarity performance at the opera; (r-l)El-Fishawi, Shahin, Shaath, Moussa, Farag, El-Alaili, Fahmi

Performances formed only part of a large-scale event entitled "Palestine Day," however. High-ranking attendees included the head of the Opera House, Samir Farag, Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa and Palestinian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaath. Egypt's best-known film stars and singers -- Hussein Fahmi, Laila Elwi, Hoda Sultan, phenomenal comedian Mohamed Heneidi, Walid Tawfik, Elham Shahin, Ezzat El-Alaili and Farouk El-Fishawi, to mention but a few -- appeared dressed in black, with the hatta (Palestinian scarf) wrapped around their necks. Singers including such pop stars as Anoushka and Hisham Abbas as well as some actors collaborated on the final song performance, "Al- Quds" (Jerusalem), gracing the stage with their collective, directed and unequivocally unified presence.

In the presence of a number of Arab and foreign ambassadors besides the above- mentioned personalities, the evening started off with a speech by the well-known actor Mahmoud Abdel-Aziz, who, representing Egyptian and Arab artists, called on the world at large, and its artists especially, to support the Palestinian cause. Abdel- Aziz saluted the heroes of the resistance, who, he said, were facing the tanks and armoured vehicles of the Israeli army with nothing but faith in the justice of their cause and strength of will. Israeli and American discourse, Abdel-Aziz added, has transformed victims into culprits and terrorist wolves into civilian lambs. "From the Egyptian Opera House," he declared, "we call on the world to stop the massacres in the land of Palestine; and we extend a special bow to the symbol of endurance and resistance, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

For the benefit of foreign attendees, actor Hussein Fahmi, former head of the Cairo Film Festival, read out the speech in English. Elwi then gave her own speech, in which she saluted, "in the name of every Egyptian and Arab mother and artist," the two martyrs Wafaa Idris and Ayat Al-Akhras, declaring that they had "raised the heads of the Arabs high."

The auditorium shook with the audience's shouts of support for Palestine.

Alongside the performances, the Opera House organised donations and, in collaboration with the Red Crescent, a blood drive for the benefit of the Palestinian people. When the popular television anchor Tarek Allam, in the company of Mohamed Zaghlul, the secretary of the Palestinian Red Crescent, went on stage to announce the beginning of the procedure, Shahin was the first to donate blood.

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