Silencing the "Singer of the Wars"

"To generations of Israeli fans, Yaffa Yarkoni has been 'the Singer of the Wars.' Whenever troops marched into battle, they could be sure Yarkoni would follow. Clad in fatigues, she raised spirits at the front with her rousing renditions of patriotic songs," writes Mary Curtis. But after Yarkoni, now in her 70s, publicly criticized the recent Israeli army actions in the West Bank, she was denounced by government ministers, targeted with a boycott, and "received so many hate calls, her daughter said, that she is now too frightened to appear in public." She is only one victim of a national mood in which "anything that is not the official line is considered treachery or betrayal."