Comments on: Please allow me to introduce myself: the Klinghoffer case and sympathy for the terrorists

By: Zangen Test

Zangen Test — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 21:44:05 +0000

It’s such as you understand my mind! A person to grasp a great deal of about this kind of, such as you published the publication inside it or anything. I have faith that simply may possibly make use of a number of g. h Zangen Test. for you to tension the content home a bit, having said that aside from that, this can be great blog. An incredible examine. I am going to certainly come back.

By: Steve Ducharme

Steve Ducharme — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 02:17:12 +0000

My god all this hideous moral equivalence. I guess I’m just a well educated neanderthal. Helpless wheelchair bound man on vacation:Good. Terrorists who kill him:Bad. Solution: Kill the fucking terrorists as expeditiously as possible. Sleep like a baby.

By: quickjustice

quickjustice — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:17:11 +0000

And Goodman’s English accent? Her mother was an English immigrant, first to Canada, then to America.

By: quickjustice

quickjustice — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:25:12 +0000

1. The libretto was composed long before 9/11/01. At that time, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro was considered an anomoly, an unusual expression of Palestinian anger and outrage. Goodman is a painstaking researcher, and chose to explore the theme of, and tensions implicit in, the Jewish-Palestinian conflict. For that she had to give the Palestinians voices expressing their grievances. Jews also were depicted in terms I viewed as sympathetic. (Goodman’s family includes Holocaust victims and survivors). This was the artistic point of the opera.

2. The hijackers of the Achille Lauro killed no one except Leon Klinghoffer. Leon Klinghoffer was a foul-mouthed, wheelchair-bound Jewish-American man who fearlessly confronted, bad-mouthed, and provoked the hijackers, who were young Palestinian men armed with automatic weapons. That didn’t justify their murder of him, which was by rolling him, in his wheelchair, over the side of the ship, but it explains it. Klinghoffer was no physical threat to those hijackers, but he clearly threatened them in other ways.

3. The moral ambiguity of the opera is a reflection of the facts on the ground, and of its pre 9/11 context. The hijackers were criminals, but they killed no one in the hijacking except Klinghoffer, who aggressively provoked them. That provocation, through verbal abuse, does not justify the murder, but it explains it. Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish-American man, refused to submit to the hijackers, and used the only weapon available to him to defy the hijackers, his tongue. He paid for his defiance with his life.

I respectfully suggest that Klinghoffer, despite his fate, was hero as well as victim. Was there meaning in his death beyond the cruelty of the hijackers? The opera raises the question, but remains ambiguous on this point. How much of Klinghoffer’s death was due to the cruelty of the hijackers? How much to his Jewishness? How much to his being an American with a sharp tongue?

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 10:03:11 +0000

Sorry, but I don’t think I get the point. Are you saying that the ends justifies the means, that it was worthwhile to make Klinghoffer into a sleaze to communicate a more important point? That isn’t being cruel to be kind, that’s dishonest propaganda.
Joanne | 08.27.06 – 2:03 am | #

No, what people mean is that by being kind to terroists, who are cruel, you are necessitated into being cruel to the helpless, Kling.

By: Tatterdemalian

Tatterdemalian — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 21:06:53 +0000

“Sorry, but I don’t think I get the point. Are you saying that the ends justifies the means, that it was worthwhile to make Klinghoffer into a sleaze to communicate a more important point?”

For the people who wrote the play, it was. These days, people don’t even need justification for their ends, and in most cases, expecting them to provide any is considered racist, sexist, or whatever -ist happens to be most convenient.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 13:42:28 +0000

David Horovitz newer was devoted Stalinist, he vas devoted trotzkist, and this was many, many years ago. He never concealed this fact, and, as a lot of other ex-leftists, became devoted debunker of leftist illusions, delusions and hoaxes.
Wiki is not opinion chat – it is source of factual information, and each fact is scrutinized by many people of different worldview for its correctness. That what Internet is for. There is many links to different sources so everybody can check it for himself. Part “controversies” of this article clearly demonstrate just what I noted: reliability and objectivity of HRW is very doubtfull, many experts in human rights issies with worldwide reputation directly accused it in anti-Israely bias and poor standarts of fact-checking.

By: Joanne

Joanne — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 11:58:08 +0000

Tatterdemalian took the following question I posed:
“In order to show the hijackers in a better light, why did they have to demonize Klinghoffer?”

And he/she offered this answer:
“In order to be kind to the cruel, one must necessarily be cruel to the kind.”

By: Tatterdemalian

Tatterdemalian — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 02:28:15 +0000

“That the people here cannot accept the idea that any Israeli soldier has ever acted cruelly – even in a single instance – says a great deal about the fragility of your esteem.”

Again with the imaginary people. Maybe you should talk to us for a change.

By: HLVS

HLVS — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 01:47:02 +0000

1. Frontpagemag is run by a devoted Stalinist who’s made it his misison to hurl whatever accusations he can think up ay people he doesn’t like. I once took a college course described as Front Page Mag. It was innacurate in every particular.

2. NGO Monitor’s sole purpose is to attack NGO’s who say unfavorable things about Israel.

3. Wikipedia? Now that’s low. I could edit it to say that the Israelis eat babies and then post it as ‘proof’ if I liked.

By the way, no one has yet given even a yet that they actually read the Human Rights Watch report in question.