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Listen to Mayor Rudolph Guliani!
"The first amendment here operates to protect both parties. The Metropolitan Opera has a first Amendment right to put on this Opera, if it wants to. People have a right to go see it, if they want to, if it's their choice. But, what seems to have been forgotten is equally, all of us, each one of us here, and many many more, have just a strong first amendment right to make our position clear. We have a right to protest and warn people that this work is a distortion of history and helped in some ways to foster a three decade long feckless policy of creating a moral equivalency between the Palestinian Authority - a corrupt terrorist organization, and the State of Israel - a Democracy ruled by law. (applause)
For me this is a complicated issue. I've been an opera fan 57 years......As an Opera the music and the chorus's are quite excellent. John Adams who wrote it is one of our great American composers. However, as a story, attempting to account an appalling terrorist murder of a man in a wheelchair who was thrown into the Mediterranean simply because he was Jewish, it's a factually inaccurate and extraordinarily damaging piece to an appropriate description of his problem. It did great damage to the relationship of Israel and Palestine AND it supports terrorism. (applause)
.As one who had occasion as United States attorney to investigate Yassar Arafat, I can say with certainty, that this murder was a pure act of terror for which there were no justifiable brief, it was part of a overall campaign of numerous terrorist acts of which this was just one, intended to make Arafat and his organization, bigger players on the world stage, this was not done as the Opera suggests, for the purpose of helping the Palestinian people. This was done for the purpose for furthering the goals of Yassar Arafat, the PLA, the terrorists and the crooks who are part of PLA. (applause) I speak here to warn people that this is a distorted work. This murder was not because people were upset about their conditions in Palestine. This murder was ORDERED! This murder was ORGANIZED! This murder was PLANNED! It was not an act of people who are oppressed. This was the act of an organized group seeking international recognition by throwing a man in a wheelchair into the ocean and killing him. This was done in order to get recognition, in order to create moral equivalency, and in order to obtain money - and shamefully in worked!
The terrorist killers who murdered Leon Klinghoffer were set free just a short while later and not brought to justice. Arafat, got himself a place at the international bargaining table. He made fools of all of us, for years, by taking our money, but never agreeing to doing anything to bring peace to the Middle East. The truth should be told that this Opera didn't create, but it certainly contributed to a romanticized version of the Palestinian cause and a romanticized version of terrorism (applause) which led the American Administration to give hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestine. That money did not get to the Palestinian People. THAT MONEY WAS STOLEN BY ARAFAT AND THE OTHER MEMBERS OF FATAH and if somebody would go take a good look in the South of France, they would find some of it in Mrs. Arafat's bank account.
So when people tell you that conditions in Palestine are terrible, and what Israel did to them, It's what their leaders did to them. THEIR LEADERS STOLE THEIR MONEY IN THE MILLIONS AND HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS - AND THIS OPERA DOESN'T TELL THAT STORY! (applause)
The truth should be told that Arafat was offered everything he wanted by President Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak, but he turned it all down. he turned down everything he was always seeking. Why? because he preferred the con game he was playing. He preferred the money he was getting, the money he was stealing, to the peace and security of his own people....It completely fails to tell the story of how this was a very well planned, a very well executed murder of advancing the purpose of the PLA.
....in the overall context of the work it doesn't do anything to ameliorate the impression that there was sympathetic justification for the killing of Leon Klinghoffer and that's a sin to do so! And it completely, completely, fails to tell the story that this was very well planned and very well executed murder for the purpose of advancing the PLA.
My position on this issue may differ from others. We recognize that people differ. The first Amendment. the marketplace of ideas. ...
The Met, and those who decide to go to see this production, have every right to do so and it would hypocritical and anti American for us to interfere with that and stop it. But we also have a right just as strong and just as compelling to point out the historical inaccuracy and the historical damage this contributed to. Hundreds of millions of dollars going to Arafat, some of which is still with Mrs. Arafat as I pointed out and most of which never to to the Palestinian people.
It also contributed to years and years of pursuing a plan for peace that was never realistic and it never worked - because it was based on a false premise of moral equivalency and a romanticized version of terrorism - that has led to a world where terrorism has only become as we know - sitting here today years later, - this romanticizing of terrorism has only made it a greater and greater threat and it has too often been justified as the expression of a legitimate political philosophy. (applause)....
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Sincerely,
Robin Ticker
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.
Most of these emails are posted on Shemittahrediscovered.blogspot.com
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Sincerely,
Robin Ticker
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.
Most of these emails are posted on Shemittahrediscovered.blogspot.com
Personal emails to individuals will not be posted to my blog.
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