Kushner: Israel supporters repulsive;
Israel a disgrace.
New York – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), who includes Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis among its former presidents, criticized Brandeis University for planning to give anti-Zionist playwright Tony Kushner, an honorary doctorate at its commencement on Sunday, May 21, 2006 in the Gosman Sports Center there.
In addition to all the other anti-Israel Chomsky-like Tony Judt (NYU)-like, Said (Columbia)-like statements already publicly exposed that were made by playwright Tony Kushner, there is another one. In the book, Conversation, edited by Robert Vorlicky, University Michigan Press, 1998, pp. 83-84, Kushner said, “The biggest supporters of Israel are the most repulsive members of the Jewish community and Israel itself has got this disgraceful record…Israel is a creation of the U.S., bought and paid for…There are lots of beautiful little orange groves and olive groves which the Palestinians had before the Jews were there, and some very attractive European-looking cities, too…
Kushner has also made other numerous egregious statements viciously condemning Israel and decrying its very existence. He called Israel’s founding a “mistake,” saying “it would have been better if Israel never happened.” He also condemned Israel for “ethnic cleansing” and “behaving abominably and denounced, “the shame of American Jews for failing to denounce Israel.”
Kushner also “deplored the brutal and illegal tactics of the IDF” and “the deliberate destruction of Palestinian culture and a systematic attempt to destroy the identity of the Palestinian people.” He is also on the board of an organization that supports boycotting Israel and divesting from Israel, opposes the security fence, a unified Jerusalem, or military aid to Israel, recommends Norman Finkelstein’s notorious anti-Israel, anti-Jewish books.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein, Board Chairman Dr. Michael Goldblatt, Chairman of Executive Committee, Dr. Alan Mazurek, said, “We urge Brandeis to rescind the honorary doctorate you plan to present to Tony Kushner next month. Don’t enhance the reputation of anti-Zionist activist like Kushner, which will only diminish the reputation of Brandeis.”