John Adams, the composer, has stated that he wished to explore the "humanity" (?) of the terrorists.
The Real Cast of Characters
Grand Mufti, Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini (Haj Amin), incited anti-Jewish pogroms in Jerusalem, Hebron, and elsewhere in Israel in the 1920s-1930s, in which thousands of Jews were murdered and thousands of Jews were forcibly expelled from their homes. Haj Amin was an advisor to Hitler and spent WW II in Germany as his guest and advisor. He helped to exterminate Yugoslavian Jews and planned to establish death camps for Jews if his Nazi allies obtained control of the Middle East. Amin is known as the "father" of Palestinian Arab terrorism whose murderous "example" led to attacks such as the Achille Lauro hijacking.
Yasser Arafat, born in Egypt, was a nephew of Grand Mufti Haj Amin. Arafat founded the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). "Chairman" Arafat was the leader of the PLO when the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) branch of the PLO hijacked the Achille Lauro and murdered Leon Klinghoffer.
Mahmoud Abbas (a/k/a Abu Mazen) (1935 - ), born in Safed, assisted Arafat in his terrorist actions. He received his Ph.D. from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. His thesis, based on a falsehood, was titled "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism. Abbas, now the "moderate" President of the Palestinian Authority, heads the Fatah Party which recently formed an alliance with the terrorist organization, Hamas.
Muhammad Zaidan a/k/a Abu Abbas (1948-2004), born in Syria, masterminded the Achille Lauro hijacking, was a founder of the PLF, was elected to the PLO Executive Committee of the PLO and planned numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. After the hijacking, Italy sentenced him in absentia to life in prison. Abbas served as a conduit for Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers ($25,000 for every Jewish person killed). He died while in U.S. custody in Iraq.
Youssef Majed al-Molq ("Molqi" in the opera), the lead terrorist, was convicted of killing Leon Klinghoffer and sentenced in Italy to 30 years in prison. He escaped in 1996 while on a 12-day furlough, was recaptured, sent back to prison, and was released in 2009. Mahmoud Abbas is believed to have been instrumental in his release.
Bassam al-Asker a/k/a Abu Mustafa ("Mahmoud" in the opera) was a terrorist and a founder of the PLF. He was tried and convicted for his role in the hijacking and was granted parole in 1991. According to the Lebanese Daily Star, he fled to Iraq where he spent 14 years training Palestinian Arab militiamen to fight alongside Iraqi rebels against the U.S. Army.
Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi ("Omar" in the opera), the youngest terrorist, was sentenced to four years in prison and fined $1,000 because he turned state's evidence. For this, he was threatened with death by the others during the trial. He became known to Spanish authorities during the trial of Monzer al-Kassar, whom the Spanish government indicted for providing arms to terrorists.
Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif (" Rambo" in the opera), a terrorist who was born in Lebanon and was 20 years old when he committed the hijacking, was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment and served 20. His fate is unknown.
Leon Klinghoffer was a 69-year-old retired Jewish American who served in the U.S. Army. Mr. Klinghoffer came from humble beginnings on New York's Lower East Side. Through hard work and creativity, he became an appliance manufacturer. After a stroke, he became paralyzed on his right side and was confined to a wheelchair. He and his wife were planning to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary aboard the Achille Lauro when terrorists murdered him.
Marilyn Klinghoffer, Leon Klinghoffer's wife and mother to their two daughters, was a personnel manager for a business and trade magazine publisher. At the time of the hijacking, she had terminal cancer and passed away only five months later at the age of 58. She did not witness the shooting and was told by the hijackers that he had been moved to the infirmary. She learned the truth after the terrorists left the ship.
On October 7, 1985, four PLF terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro off Egypt's coast. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Syria, and demanded the release of 50 terrorists who were then in Israeli prisons, one of whom was the notorious murderer, Samir Kuntar.
On October 8, after the Syrian government refused the hijackers permission to dock, the hijackers selected for execution, Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound Jewish American passenger, and shot him in the forehead and chest. They forced the ship's barber and a waiter to dump his body and wheelchair overboard. At the time, PLO Foreign Secretary Farouq Qaddumi denied that the hijackers were responsible for the murder and suggested that Marilyn Klinghoffer had killed her husband for insurance money.
Samir Kuntar (born in Lebanon), the release of whom was the main goal of the Achille Lauro hijacking, was imprisoned in Israel for one of the most brutal terror attacks recorded in Israeli history. The date of the terror attack, April 22, 1979, followed the ratification of the Camp David Peace Accords by the Israeli Knesset. Kuntar led PLF terrorists, Abdel Majeed Aslan, Muhanna Salim Al-Muayyad, and Ahmad Al-Abras from Southern Lebanon into Northern Israel by sea.
The goal of the operation was to kill civilians in the city of Nahariya. They first killed a policeman, Eliyahu Shahar. The terrorists then entered a residential building and invaded the apartment of the Haran family. They took 31- year -old Danny Haran hostage and slaughtered him along with his four- year-old daughter, Einat. Kuntar smashed the little girl's head on a rock with his rifle.
Danny's wife, Smadar Haran, managed to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two- year- old daughter, Yael, and a neighbor. Tragically, Yael was suffocated as her mother sought to prevent her from making noise as they hid from Kuntar. Several years later, Abu Abbas masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, demanding that Israel release Kuntar along with 49 other terrorists.
On July 16, 2008, Hezbollah exchanged the remains of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, for Kuntar and four other prisoners. Kuntar is hailed as a hero by Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and is now organizing a Hezbollah terror cell on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Please tell the General Manager at the Met that:
The Opera is no place for propaganda masquerading as art.
(Insert is Excerpt from a statement written by Morton Klein, President of the Zionist Organization of America, June 13, 2014)
Writes Morton Klein,
"The Hebrew words for art and artist, 'ooman' and 'oomanoot' related to the concept of truth. The words have the same root as 'Amen'—which means 'let this prayer be true.' Art should be truthful. It should not be used to spread anti-Semitic falsehoods which incite more hatred of Jews in an era in which innocent Jews are frequently being violently attacked.
If an opera attempted to justify the lynching or murder of an innocent black, gay, or Hispanic man with false stories about blacks, gay people, or Hispanics, the Met would never dream of staging such a racist or bigoted opera. Maligned Jews deserve the same consideration that the Met would give to any other group.
'The Death of Klinghoffer' is particularly dangerous at this juncture. We are living in perilous times. Jews and Christians are being targeted and attacked throughout the world. The growth in anti-Semitism has been particularly explosive.. In New York City, physical attacks on Jews tripled last year. 'Knockout game' attacks specifically target Jewish children and elderly Jews in Brooklyn. This past April, on the eve of Passover, a gunman attacked a Jewish Center and a Jewish retirement home in Overland Park, Kansas. Although his intent was to kill Jews, all the victims were Christian.
In this increasingly perilous environment, one would hope that America's great cultural institutions would at the very least 'do no harm.' Unfortunately, however, the Metropolitan Opera's eight planned prime time performances of the 'The Death of Klinghoffer,' which maligns Israel and justifies the murder of innocent Jews, is certain to add fuel to the raging fires of racist Jew hatred."
Just recently:
On August 9, 2014 in Miami, Rabbi Joseph Raksin was murdered while walking to the synagogue in the morning on the Sabbath.
On August 19, 2014 in Brooklyn, a group of teenagers beat a 9-year-old Jewish boy in an unprovoked attack.
On August 26, 2014 in Manhattan, a young Jewish couple was attacked on E. 63rd St. and 2nd Ave.
On September 7, 2014 in Brooklyn, a Jewish father and his 5- year- old son were attacked as they walked together to the young boy's school.
On October 13, 2014 in Brooklyn, a group of approximately 75 young men rampaged through and "trashed" a kosher grocery store, assaulting one of the employees.
On October 15, 2014 in Brooklyn, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was attacked as she walked home from the grocery store.
"The opera 'The Death of Klinghoffer' opens by purveying a lie that has incited anti-Semitism and attacks on Israel for the past six decades since its rebirth. The opera's opening caption is 'May 15, 1948, the day after Israel's creation.' In fact, the Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years. That day was the day of the establishment of the State of Israel with sovereign borders.
The opening libretto contains defamatory falsehoods which malign Israel and the Jewish People. Jews did not drive Arabs from Israel or raze Arab homes in 1948. Instead, Jewish leaders begged the Arabs to remain in their homes and to live together in peace. Reports from the British headquarters in Haifa, Israel, at the time, confirmed: 'Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and their businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe.'
In fact, the 'Arab refugee problem' was created by the Arab High Committee (AHC) and the leaders of seven neighboring Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen). In 1948, the Arab leaders urged Arab civilians to temporarily leave Israeli areas so that the invading Arab nations' war to annihilate Israel's Jews could proceed unencumbered by a local Arab civilian population. For example, Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Said declared: 'We will smash the country [Israel] with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.'
It was well known at the time that Arab leaders were responsible for Arab departures from Israel. The Economist reported on Oct. 2, 1948: 'There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors [resulting in most Arabs leaving Haifa] were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit….It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.'
(For numerous other reports demonstrating the Arab leaders' responsibility for creating Arab refugees and related contemporaneous events, see the well-documented book, Batttleground, pp. 12-37)
If seven Arab nations had not invaded the fledgling State of Israel in 1948 in an attempt to murder all its Jewish citizens and destroy the State of Israel, there would never have been a single Arab refugee. The Arabs alone created the problem. In addition, at Arab leaders' request, Britain helped with the voluntary Arab evacuation, providing trucks for a relatively orderly process. The Arab departures bore no resemblance to the falsified scenes and lyrics in 'Death of Klinghoffer' depicting Arabs fleeing for their lives from allegedly brutal Israelis.
Another lie promulgated by the opera occurs immediately after the opening scene is contained in the caption of the next scene: '1985: 3.7 million Palestinians in Exile.' In fact, a detailed analysis of before-and –after Arab demographic data, by Dr. Walter Pinner, revealed that the number of legitimate Arab refugees was 367,000 as of 1966 – less than one-tenth of the ultra-magnified propaganda numbers in 'The Death of Klinghoffer.' Moreover, even inflated British Arab population data was very close to Dr. Pinner's numbers.
Moreover, by contrast to the fewer than 400,000 self-exiled Arab refugees, approximately one million Jews were forced to flee their homes in Arab lands by Arab anti-Semitic pogroms and decrees during the same time period."
Activist emails sent to my list are L'Ilui Nishmat Yisrael ben David Aryeh ob"m (Izzy - Kaplan) and Howard Chaim Grief great activists and lovers of Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the Torah. Yehi Zichronum Baruch. May their memories serve as a blessing.
