To say I am embarrassed to be defending Tony Kushner is an understatement. I was one of very few gay men with HIV who found Angels in America to be pretentious, boring propaganda, and like most propaganda, endless and laden with stereotypes and cartoon figures. In the internecine fights in the gay movement in the 1990s, we were on opposite sides. I'd rather have pins stuck in my eyes than attend his new play, ominously titled "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures," which like other Important Plays, clocks in at four hours. His sad attempt to exonerate traitors like the Rosenbergs was once perverse; now it just seems at odds with reality. I have no beef with him personally, I should add, although after writing all that, he may feel somewhat differently toward me.
Nonetheless, I really despise the way he has been used by an extremist who has no business being on any board at CUNY. It's only about an honorary degree, and Kushner must be able to wallpaper his living room with them by now. But it's also about a mindset and an argument that truly need to be debunked and tackled and refuted.
The argument is that any criticism of Israel is extremist and a function of anti-Semitism if you are a goy and self-hatred if you are Jewish.
Given the growing religious radicalism in Israel, its corrupting refusal to give up land conquered in war, its insistence on populating that land with its own people, and its brutal bombardment of Gaza two and a half years ago ... how on earth can criticism of these actions and policies be self-evidently motivated by anti-Semitism or extremism?
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-mind-of-jeffrey-s-wiesenfeld.html