Blaming the Victim?

Regarding your piece on “The Death of Klinghoffer” (“Opera Out of Terrorism,” Sept. 1), here are some questions for director Peter Sellars:

Sellars has repeatedly said that the new work does not “take sides.” Does he really believe that the 1985 murder by Palestinian terrorists of an elderly, wheelchair-bound American tourist aboard an Italian cruise ship, the subject of the opera, is just “a total tragedy where nobody comes off particularly well”?

Is Sellars saying there is a moral equivalence between the terrorists and their victims? Leon Klinghoffer was killed solely because he was Jewish.

How do the opera’s sponsors, including the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, justify such smug moral relativism? At a time when real people are killed solely because of their race and religion, it is irresponsible not to take sides.

MARK HOROWITZ

Los Angeles