So you want to make a point about Israel, and you’re the Watertown New Repertory Theater, so what do you do? I know! You take a play about a young woman whose life was ended stupidly, defending the rights of murderers to keep on murdering Israelis, and you pair that with a play about a young man who lost his life while trying to rescue Israelis from terrorists. Because the two have so much in common. I mean, they both died. Young.
To no one’s surprise, the Netanyahu family told the New Rep where to go.
The family of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has forced Watertown’s New Repertory Theatre to cancel a planned run next spring of a one-act play about a 1976 hostage rescue mission because it was to have been paired with the story of a pro-Palestinian American activist.
“To Pay the Price” centers on Jonathan “Yoni” Netanyahu , the older brother of the former prime minister, and a hero in Israel. Yoni Netanyahu was the lone Israeli military person killed in the daring mission in which a planeful of hijacked Air France hostages on their way from Tel Aviv were rescued at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The play draws on Netanyahu’s letters and interviews with family and friends.
“My Name Is Rachel Corrie ” is a one-woman play about the American activist who became a member of the International Solidarity Movement, an organization that advocates for Israeli troops to leave the West Bank. In 2003 , Corrie died during a protest when she was hit by a bulldozer. She was 23 .
Iddo Netanyahu, the youngest of the three brothers and the one who handled discussions with the New Repertory Theatre, declined interview requests. In a statement released by New Rep, Netanyahu said that he feels “that there is an inherent incompatibility in the joining together, in one evening, of a play based on my brother Yoni’s letters with the play ‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie.’ “
Yes, the inherent incompatibility would be that one play is about stopping terrorists, and the other is about helping them.
And the theater is simply so upset at losing this mind-blowing juxtaposition of reality, that they’re going to pair the Corrie play with a play by an Israeli-American who fits the profile they’re looking for, and who thinks that Rachel Corrie’s actions were just—ducky. As an aside, isn’t it interesting how the left loves Israelis who hate Israel, but they hate Israelis who love Israel? Too bad there’s no end to fools.
Try to read this statement by the author of the Yoni Netanyahu play without wanting to slap him upside the head. With a brick.
“I deeply regret that this project will not go forward. I want to do everything I can to make this evening of theater happen; I want the audience to meet these two incredible people — Yoni Netanyahu. And Rachel Corrie. That this so necessary evening of theater will not happen saddens me,” Cohen said. “But then I am confident that, if not together, each of these two plays will make its way on its own. Young Israelis and young Palestinians are still dying; and, for as long as they do, ‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie’ and ‘To Pay the Price’ will have a vital and urgent story to tell.”
Once again, Yoni Netanyahu was killed while trying to rescue the hostages from the Entebbe hostage crisis. He was an incredible person. The same cannot be said of Rachel Corrie, who died while trying to defend Palestinian smuggling tunnels.
Via Jay.
If the author of the play about Netanyahu had an ounce of sense, he would have said that the plays need to be seen together so that people would realize how insane and idiotic Rachel Corrie was. He would have spoken of the contrast of a real hero to a person who should have been a candidate for the Darwin award.
Are you sure that Yoni isn’t the son of Bebe?
My brother is a commercial pilot who spent a year flying DC-10 cargoes from France to various African countries. One of those he visited was Uganda.
On the way to the hotel, the driver took him past the old hangar where the raid took place. Once Idi Amin was deposed, the Israeli government asked the Ugandan government to permanently close off the hangar, so that it might serve as a Memorial to Yoni Netanyahu and the murdered hostages. At either sunrise or sunset, the light shines through the hundreds of bullet holes in the hangar walls and cieling, and the effect is said to be quite moving.
Yoni was his brother. Click the link, Kathie. I swear, it won’t hurt.
I well remember the day of the Entebbe raid. For days we had heard of the hostage crisis, and shuddered when the German terroist hijackers and the Ugandans separated all the Jews from the others, a sinister portent. The French plane captain heroically tried to stay with them, to share their fate, but was forced to return to France with the other non-Jewish passengers and crew. Diplomacy, as usual, was accomplishing nothing in a crisis where Jews were threatened. On Independence Day I turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was that Zahal had flown in and rescued almost all the hostages. The relief and joy were indescribable.
It is characteristic of Zahal that the only man killed was a LCOL, leading from the front as is traditional. Yoni was a great and heroic soldier, his death a sad loss. But unless men like that fight, and sometines die, the murderers will have their way again. And the sniveling scum like Rachel Corrie will help them.