New York – Politicians Join Protest Outside Met Over Opera

New York – Politicians including former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Peter King have joined a crowd of demonstrators outside the Metropolitan Opera to protest an opera they say glorifies Palestinian terrorists.

About 400 people stood behind barricades Monday, chanting “Shame on the Met.”

The Met is putting on performances of “The Death of Klinghoffer.”

The opera is based on the 1985 killing of a disabled Jewish passenger on the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship hijacked by four members of the Palestinian Liberation Front. The 69-year-old was shot in his wheelchair and pushed overboard.

But opera expert Fred Plotkin says the work depicts the Klinghoffers as the moral backbone.

The Met has canceled its live November movie theater and radio broadcasts of the work, saying it might trigger anti-Semitism overseas.

Earlier in the day, a rabbi led Jewish teens in a prayer vigil.

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