Kushner: Jewish culture and history and the suffering of Jews throughout history should not be an excuse to kill people and strip them of their humanity (European)
American playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner said that the Gaza Strip is subjected to a war of extermination, stressing that Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians, its occupation of the West Bank, the imprisonment of Gazans, and the erection of separation walls will not make it safe.
Kushner (68 years old) pointed out that Jewish culture and history and the suffering of Jews throughout history should not be an excuse for killing people and stripping them of their humanity.
The American writer warned that any military action in Gaza - which he had previously visited - would certainly cause heavy casualties among civilians “due to the extremely high population density.” He held Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firstly, and his coalition partners, secondly, responsible for what happened because they did not care about the mass slaughter in sector.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" on Monday, Kushner, of Jewish origin, said that what is currently happening in Gaza is terrible and has pushed him further to the left.
Kushner, who won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award, the most famous American theater award, has written about what Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israel since the 1990s, when he wrote his famous play “Angels in America.”
On the sidelines of the current performance of his play “Angels in America” in Tel Aviv, Kushner told Haaretz newspaper, “What happened on October 7 is incomprehensible in light of the warnings issued by leaders in the Israeli security services, but it cannot be said that the deeper reasons are "For the incomprehensible attack," he admitted that he did not expect an Israeli response with such cruelty, adding, "I foolishly thought that Israel would set moral limits for itself that it would not exceed."
Kushner expressed his happiness that the majority of Israelis do not trust Netanyahu, according to a recent opinion poll, but the poll disappointed him on the other hand, as this majority also believes in the legitimacy of what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza, and no longer believes in the two-state solution.
Regarding talk about “the spread of anti-Semitism” in the United States, he said that this talk “contains a great exaggeration and is behind an organized campaign from the right-wing Jewish movement there.” He explained that the matter "is not at all the dimensions in which it is portrayed."
He pointed out the existence of a large and organized campaign within the right-wing Jewish movement there “to paint a frightening picture that Jews are no longer safe for themselves in American universities,” adding that he had not seen “what statistically proves this absurdity.”
Regarding the boycott of Israel campaign, Kushner said that even if he did not join the boycott movement, he had become more accepting of its idea in the past few months.
Source: Haaretz