who exclaimed:
“You are the greatest. You should be the President.”
The Met synopsis shows little that one can find objectionable. I wonder how many of the picketers have seen the opera, or have much, if any, knowledge of its story line. The opera’s premiere was in 1991 in Brussels, Belgium and its American and New York premiere was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. None of these earlier renditions drew protests or were controversial. It is difficult to understand why it has become so controversial now, 23 years after its premiere.
Does the comment attributed to Joseph Stalin “A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic” apply? Or is it that Jewish lives have so much more value than Palestinian ones.
Yishuv (or later Israeli) soldiers killed roughly 800 Arab civilians and prisoners of war. Most of these killings occurred as villages were overrun and captured during the Second phase of the Civil War, Operation Dani, Operation Hiram and Operation Yoav.
… the "worst cases" were the Saliha massacre with 60 to 70 killed, the Deir Yassin massacre with around 100, Lydda massacre with around 250 and the Abu Shusha massacre with 60-70. In Al-Dawayima, accounts of the death toll vary. Saleh Abd al-Jawad reports 100-200 casualties] Morris has estimated "hundreds" and also reports the IDF investigation which concluded 100 villagers had been killed David Ben-Gurion gave the figure of 70-80. Saleh Abd al-Jawad reports the village's mukhtar account that 455 people were missing following the al-Dawayima massacre, including 170 women and children.
In 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission, appointed to investigate the incident, found that Israeli military personnel, aware that a massacre was in progress, had failed to take serious steps to stop it. The commission deemed Israel indirectly responsible, and Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, bore personal responsibility "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge", forcing him to resign. (Ibid)
During the fight for Jewish statehood, extremist military groups sometimes resorted to the use of terrorist tactics. One such instance occurred in 1948 when members of the Jewish underground organization LEHI killed UN Peace Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte to protest his diplomatic efforts to modify the Palestine partition plan.
Bernadotte, a Swede with family ties to the Swedish King, gained international recognition through his work as head of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II. Bernadotte used his position to negotiate with Heinrich Himmler and saved thousands of Jews from concentration camps, although many argue that he could have done more had he been less cautious in negotiations.
Yitzhak Shamir reputedly played a role in planning the assassination; however, he was never tried and years later was elected as Israel's eighth Prime Minister.
Can you believe it? Groups hiding arms in places of worship, schools, even kindergartens. Welcome to pre-state Israel, where comparisons with Gaza are not welcome.
… the British, who were the rulers of the land, prohibited the possession of weapons. They were therefore concealed in a hiding place under the foundations of the first public building. In that building was a grocery, a clinic and a kindergarten. The entrance to the secret weapons storage was underneath the kindergarten toilet.
…The British, by the way, searched Rishpon and found nothing. They did not consider the possibility of blowing up the kindergarten because it might be used to store weapons.
…There was no Jewish settlement in the country that did not have a “slik” – as these storage sites were known – all in the heart of “civilian population concentrations,” of course. At Ein Ganim there was a slik in a synagogue…
…Schools served as training installations, even as weapons production workshops.
But all we hear is the Palestinians this, the Palestinians that and the slogan "Israel Has the Right to Defend itself."
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