The death of Leon Klinghoffer
I happened across an old post of mine (2006) about the Palestinian terrorist hijacking of a cruise ship in 1985, during which they murdered a disabled elderly American Jewish man in a wheelchair, named Leon Klinghoffer. The post was also about an opera made on the subject during the 1990s.
I decided to repost the gist of it because I am often struck by the fact that our current Israel/Palestine conflicts and reactions are intensifications of a situation that has been going on in similar fashion for a long time: the cruelty and brazenness of the terrorists, the fact that the legal system in various countries is inadequate and/or unwilling to punish them properly, and the widespread leftist sympathy for their cause and their heinous actions.
So here it is:
Last night [in 2006] was the opening of the controversial opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” at New York’s Lincoln Center. It was marked by protests:
Demonstrators, primarily associated with Jewish groups, plan to rally outside Lincoln Center with 100 wheelchairs, in honor of the slain handicapped Leon Klinghoffer, on whom “The Death of Klinghoffer” is based.
Klinghoffer was hurled from the Achille Lauro cruise ship by PLO terrorists in 1985 after it was hijacked. The opera, which centers on the terrorists who perpetrated the murder, has been accused of glorifying terrorism and incorporating anti-Semitic tropes.
The opera is not new; it was first produced in 1991, and has drawn protests wherever it goes. It’s not hard to see why.
As Thomas Sowell once asked, referring to Klinghoffer’s murderers:
What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish?
The answer, of course, is “terrorists,” and we’ve spent a lot of time and energy in recent years explaining them and fighting them. That they are also human beings doesn’t mean we need to sympathize with them.
I recall hearing the news of the hijacking and the shocking manner of Klinghoffer’s death at the time it occurred, but back then I was unaware of the almost immediate post-modern interest of some in understanding—empathizing with, and even sympathizing with—Klinghoffer’s murderers, or with their “narrative.” In the years since, and especially post-9/11, such enabling attitudes have become only too apparent.
“The Death of Klinghoffer” is an example of the genre. In the olden days, an opera on such a theme might have featured the terrorists as traditional villains steeped in evil, with thunderous and dissonant music to signify the horror of what they did. But in this version they are given sonorous and lovely melodies to sing and sympathetic words to utter. But it wasn’t enough to portray the murderers in a sensitive light; the Klinghoffers and their associates are portrayed less nobly:
More than 20 years ago, in his review of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s premiere of the opera, The New York Times chief music critic, Edward Rothstein, questioned the presentation of Jews and Palestinian Arabs as “symmetrical victims of each other’s hatreds.” Rothstein later wrote that the opera’s depiction of its Jewish characters reduced them “to petty triviality” compared to their Palestinian counterparts.
The opera’s librettist, Alice Goodman, is an interesting tale herself. Born and raised as a Jew in Minnesota, educated in literature at Harvard, married to a British poet, she became an Anglican priest and opera librettist.
You can listen to Ms. Goodman discussing the opera here, in a BBC interview that features a selection from it sung by one of the terrorists. Without even being able to decipher the words of the libretto, just hearing the music and the voice of the kidnapper makes it clear that he is being given a respect and a certain esthetic elegance and dignity that could only serve to elevate him in the eyes of the listener.
Ms. Goodman’s answer to the question of whether the opera is anti-Semitic or an apology for terrorism is an interesting one. She says no (no surprise there); she believes that the charges of anti-Semitism and the rest are a result of her showing the terrorists as “human beings.”
Well, terrorists are most decidedly human beings, as were Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and—well, every other human being who’s ever lived. We all know how Hitler loved dogs, and was a vegetarian. To be evil does not require that one be a devil; being a human being who does evil will suffice. But considering terrorists human beings does not require giving them a forum by writing lovely arias for them to sing.
Ms. Goodman says she speaks not just as the librettist, but as a priest, when she recognizes the perpetrators as human beings with ideals—wrongheaded, yes, but idealistic nevertheless—as though idealism somehow has a value in and of itself. She acknowledges that the music and the words she and her collaborator wrote for the terrorists who killed Klinghoffer were lyrical and heartfelt, and she understands that this fact created “a dissonance difficult for some people to take.”
Indeed. I guess we’re not all highly evolved enough to understand the convoluted mental gymnastics required in comprehending how that doesn’t constitute some sort of sympathy and apology—if not for the devil, then for the human beings who perpetrated this heinous act.
NOTE: More background on Klinghoffer’s death here:
Holding the passengers and crew hostage, [the Achille Lauro hijackers] ordered the captain to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons, including the Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar.
The next day, after being refused permission by the Syrian government to dock at Tartus, the hijackers singled out Klinghoffer, a Jew, for murder [after separating out the American and Jewish passengers into a special group], shooting him in the forehead and chest as he sat in his wheelchair. They then forced the ship’s barber and a waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Marilyn Klinghoffer, who did not witness the shooting, was told by the hijackers that he had been moved to the infirmary. She only learned the truth after the hijackers left the ship at Port Said. PLO Foreign Secretary Farouq Qaddumi said that perhaps the terminally ill Marilyn Klinghoffer had killed her husband for insurance money. However, the PLO later accepted full responsibility for murdering Mr. Klinghoffer.
Initially, the hijackers were granted safe passage to Tunisia, but U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered a U.S. fighter plane to force the get-away plane to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy. After an extradition dispute, Italian authorities arrested and later tried the Palestinian terrorists, but let Abu Abbas fly to Yugoslavia.
I highlighted the above for two reasons. The first is the statement of Farouq Qaddumi. The second is the action of President Reagan.
I wonder if Qaddumi is given an aria in the opera, too.
By the way, this is what happened to Abu Abbas. I hadn’t known these facts when I wrote the original post; I just discovered them:
Muhammad Zaidan (10 December 1948 – 8 March 2004), also known as Abu Abbas or Muhammad Abbas, was (with Tal’at Ya’qoub) a founder of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) Organization. …
On 14 April 2003, Zaidan was captured by American Special Forces in Iraq while attempting to flee from Baghdad to Syria. Italy subsequently requested his extradition. The Pentagon reported on 9 March 2004 that Zaidan had died the previous day, of natural causes, while in U.S. custody. The PLF accused the Americans of assassinating their leader. The U.S. authorities agreed to give Abbas’ body to the Palestine Red Crescent Society for burial in Ramallah on the West Bank. However, his burial there was blocked by the Israeli authorities, and he was buried in the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Damascus instead.
The wheels of justice grind slow, but sometimes they don’t appear to grind at all.
This is who they wanted to trade him for
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/19/lebanon.israelandthepalestinians
}}} The answer, of course, is “terrorists,” and we’ve spent a lot of time and energy in recent years explaining them and fighting them. That they are also human beings doesn’t mean we need to sympathize with them.
I honestly think this PoV is part of the main issue. By saying “they are human beings” I think it calls for a measure of equanimity with regards to them.
They are “Human Beings” only in that they share our biology.
They are not Civilized by any means.
They are rabid, mad dogs, and should be put to death wherever they are found.
Not all “terrorists” — just ones who do this kind of inhuman, uncivilized thing. Killing babies. Murdering the handicapped. And yeah, throwing gays off the roof of buildings. Forcing young girls BACK into a burning building because they aren’t wearing the proper headdress.
These are not the actions of anyone vaguely civilized.
And, I’m sorry — anyone who does them has no rightful claim upon the protections of civilization.
Try them, yes, to be sure they did what they did, of their own choice. But after that, put them out of our misery. Painlessly — this is not vengeance.
But you have to know when it’s time to shoot the dog, that he’s a lost cause.
US $0.02 < — Mine, and worth every penny.
OBloody:
No, they are not mad dogs. That’s a metaphor. The truth is that they are evil human beings.
Human beings can be evil – much much more evil than mad rabid dogs, who are not evil at all, just sick. To call evildoers human is to recognize that human beings have moral choices and moral capacities and are therefore capable of evil, unlike mad dogs.
Some things never change. I remember Klinghoffer.
“The wheels of justice grind slow, but sometimes they don’t appear to grind at all.”
They ultimately grind, but sometimes it’s just not during this life.
The irony is that the terrorists also would agree with that statement. But their sense of what deserves justice has been badly warped.
The fact that Goodman became an Anglican priest tells those in the know what kind of Anglican she is. This would be consistent with her inability to portray evil as actually evil.
Yeah, what Kate said. I really, really hate to say it, but women make lousy priests and pastors.
OldFlyer and I in 100% agreement.
I know what you are saying Neo, however, by their actions they will be known.
Gazans are the absolute dregs of humanity. A majority favor rule by Hamas, which still holds hostages, BTW.
You’re right Neo, they always say “it depends on context” which of course is their way of saying ” You’re not as smart as us”.
an opera about a cold blooded murder, how charming, well there was the barber of fleet street, but they didn’t give him any respect
we have seen besides the work of the plf the work of fatah at munich, the abu nidal outfit in Vienna and Rome, context behind murder I think not
This goes back the Arab/Muslim culture which is a shame-honor one. The contrast with Western culture is too great. They should avoid contact with each other. The “sudden jihad syndrome “ is an example of why.
“They are “Human Beings” only in that they share our biology.
They are not Civilized by any means.
They are rabid, mad dogs, and should be put to death wherever they are found.” ObloodyHell
Entirely true. But such as they would not long trouble the world if not for the many within civilization whose moral cowardice compels them to seek to appease. Way deep down, at their very core is a desperate fear that only appeasement will keep the crocodile satiated.
‘we are fighting not only against men, but powers and principalities’ the return of the old gods, some of whom were Canaanite, Phoenician et al,
re Abbas, we discovered some years later, that a particular figure, Mansur Al Kassar, who had become famous as the unofficial mayor of Marbella, had been behind supplying weapons to the PLF, among others, there were some suggestions, it was some of these transactions that jonathan pollard noted that
drove him to spy for israel,
Awaiting a follow-up opera about October 7….
Just wonder what they’ll call it…
Miss Rape? Dear Disembowelment? Hostages Ho!? Nova NOW!? Just Justice? Incineration-Liberation? Some/all of the above?
(With all the current staging technology available, should be eminently doable…and a tremendous contribution to high art in the 21st century… On the other hand, still waiting for that opera on Pol Pot…so maybe not…)
The fact that Goodman became an Anglican priest tells those in the know what kind of Anglican she is. This would be consistent with her inability to portray evil as actually evil.
Kate:
The San Francisco Episcopal Church I attended in the 2000s would hit the Sunday after 9-11 and feel obliged to make some sad vacuous noises about unspecific hate and violence.
9-11 became the Date Which Must Not Be Named. Funny in its way.
I’m sure she’s simply a lovely person.
Not sure why she decided she HAD to become an Anglican priest…but if the Anglicans want her they can most certainly have her…
And though her sense of values may be a bit dodgy, her heart is in the right place—after all, who amongst us hasn’t been charmed by or infatuated with a dashing terrorist with a cause?
Indeed, mercy and a good heart are the greatest of all virtues…. That and REMEMBERING ALWAYS that we are ALL—all of us—created in the image of the Almighty.
(Besides which, Klinghoffer was only a Jew—and an old one at that. Too bad about the wheelchair, though….)
Not terrorists. Muslims. Following their political system . They don’t terrorise. They kill.
Alice Goodman – daddy issues big enough to stump an entire busloads of shrinks?
Also, what’s with the tribe in Minnesota? This Goodman chick, Tom Friedman. As a Midwestern Jew, I recommend ceding the state to Canada.