Should the Met Mount the Kinghoffer Opera Because It's Great Art?

Jonathan S. Tobin thinks not because of the opera's ulterior motive:

The libretto of “Klinghoffer” rationalizes terrorism, denigrates Jews and treats the plight of the Palestinians as morally equivalent to the Holocaust. Whether or not one accepts the notion that Adams’ creation is a musical masterpiece, as the Met insists, the point of the piece is one that is not merely offensive. It is, in its own way, a part of the global campaign of delegitimization of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. As such, the decision of one of the world’s leading arts organizations as well as one of the great cultural institutions of the city with the world’ largest Jewish populations, to produce this atrocity, even if won’t be shown around the world, is deeply troubling.

I liked the comment which follows a YouTube video about the opera's "background":

In a sense, Adam's Klinghoffer thing is "archetypical": namely as an almost textbook example of one of the most sickening pieces of hate propaganda, ever writ. It only has The Eternal Jew as a serious rival. enjoy

No thanks. I'd rather pour molten lava into my ears.



Update: An Arab member of Israel's parliament "explains" the motives of those who kidnapped three Jewish teenagers, a rationale that sounds like the one which underpins the Klinghoffer opera:

“They are people that cannot see any way to change their reality, and they are forced to use these means until Israeli society wises up a bit and sees and feels the suffering of the other,” Haneen Zoabi said in a interview on Tuesday morning with Radio Tel Aviv.

Spoken by someone who can't see that they are people motivated by pure, unadulterated Zionhass.