On Oct. 20, a panel discussion was held at Ladue Chapel on the theme “From Klinghoffer to Ferguson and Beyond.” Sponsored by the Lee Institute, it aimed to promote dialogue among diverse groups seeking constructive change in highly conflictual situations such as Ferguson. When I first read the Jewish Light’s announcement of the event, I felt that such forums were well-intentioned and worthwhile. However, I found the title of the panel somewhat odd and troubling. In particular, what was the connection between Klinghoffer and Ferguson? In attending the discussion, my puzzlement and dismay only deepened.

Leon Klinghoffer, of course, was a 69-year-old disabled Jew who, after being shot in the head, was thrown overboard, still in his wheelchair, into the Mediterranean by Palestinian terrorists during the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship. 

The controversial opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” was performed a few years ago in St. Louis and more recently in New York, with the controversy revolving around the fact that the composer explicitly said his goal was to “give voice to all sides” in the hijacking. 

As Klinghoffer’s children put it, in defending the New York Metropolitan Opera’s decision not to simulcast the opera nationwide, the memory of their father “is trivialized in an opera that rationalizes terrorism and tries to find moral equivalence between the murderers and the murdered.”  

David Harris of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) said that what was in question was not the right to stage the opera, but the judgment of the producers in doing so. He pointed out that the opera was misnamed because the incident involved not merely death, but murder – and not just any murder, but the most barbaric imaginable. 

I find myself agreeing with the critics. I fully get the importance of dialogue, along with a function that art serves: to “provoke.” I also get the need to understand both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a member of the committee overseeing the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Through Film” series sponsored by the Jewish Community Center, I have urged that we ensure that both sides are represented in the movies selected. 

But both sides represented in the Klinghoffer affair, one of the most monstrous acts committed in recent memory? Really? Sure, the murder is not condoned, but it is treated as something to be “understood”  and “explained” – that is, worthy of serious reflection and, alas, even sympathy.

I am reminded of the obscene rationalization I hear so often from academic colleagues who say that  “terrorism is the weapon of the weak,” which ostensibly offers an excuse for explicitly targeting babies in pizzerias, not to mention wheelchair-bound elderly Jews. 

The Klinghoffer murder is unacceptable, period – no need to understand it, which only enables further such atrocities at a time when humanity needs to be sending an unequivocal message that such behavior is beyond the pale. 

I do not consider the opera anti-Semitic, just morally obtuse as a vehicle for exploring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Those who defend it as art are disingenuous. 

After all, ask yourself whether we would ever, in the name of art, tolerate, much less celebrate, an opera that showed both sides (pro-life and pro-choice) in the bombing of an abortion clinic. It would be shocking if we sought to discern the “nuances” and the “context” surrounding the incident from the perspective of the perpetrators and to organize a “discourse” around it.

Strangely, many of the same people who supported giving both sides a hearing in the Klinghoffer death were not as inclined to air both sides in the death of Michael Brown, the young African-American man fatally shot by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. The death of Brown, 18, sparked continuing demonstrations in Ferguson and beyond; a grand jury decision whether to bring charges against Wilson is expected soon. 

I had predicted to friends before the Oct. 20 event that “I doubt on that evening we will see both sides given equal weight in the ‘discourse’ about Ferguson” and that, in effect, “Officer Wilson and what he represents will be portrayed as a greater evil than the terrorists, unworthy of a two-sided discussion.”

I was not defending Wilson, simply noting the hypocrisy of “Klinghoffer” devotees.

Sadly, the prediction was accurate.  During the Q&A, I asked panel member Timothy O’Leary, general  director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis, whether he would have any problem performing an opera about Ferguson that showed both sides. He said he would find that morally objectionable, thus (perhaps unwittingly) admitting to a double standard. 

Although much was made, and rightly so, about the racism that continues to plague the St. Louis region, nobody on the panel bothered to state the other side of the argument – that contrary to many protestors and media, none of us should be rushing to judgment about Wilson’s guilt without all the facts. As we await the grand jury verdict, the truth is that we still as yet have no way of knowing for sure whether he was a racist cop who overreacted to a misperceived threat or was properly defending himself in a struggle against a young man who allegedly committed a strongarm robbery at a convenience store. 

If you simply assume that Wilson is a symbol of institutional racism and police brutality, then you are engaging in the very stereotyping that demonstrators have criticized. One can surely sympathize with the family over the loss of their son and can condemn racial profiling, yet at the same time admit that we remain uncertain whether this particular shooting had anything to do with race except in the most oblique way.  

The Ferguson case would seem at least as complicated as the Klinghoffer affair, even more so, yet did not appear to rate the same level of artistic “exploration.”

As we look “beyond Ferguson,” we need to work harder at better understanding the many conflicts in our community and world and working toward solutions. 

J. Martin Rochester, Curators’ Teaching Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is author of 10 books on international and American politics, including the forthcoming “New Warfare:  Rethinking Rules for An Unruly World.”  In addition to teaching courses in international politics, international organization and law, and U.S. foreign policy, he has served as Chairperson of the Political Science Dept. at UM-St. Louis.