City University of New York Blocks Honorary Degree for Anti-Semitic Playwright Tony Kushner

At NYT, "CUNY Blocks Honor for Tony Kushner."

And see Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, "Tony Kushner, an Extremist, Can’t Represent CUNY" (via Maggie's Farm):

Following our consensus decision to table the honorary degree nomination of Mr. Tony Kushner it is worthy to note that Mr. Kushner repeats the ugly charges against Israel for which he is known in a letter to the City University Board of Trustees and the media, in which he attempts to defend himself. He is disingenuous and dissembling.

If his libelous statements against Israel were made by anyone outside the Jewish community, that person would be correctly labeled an anti-Semite. When you hold the State of Israel – a nation in a struggle for its survival from the beginning, a target for the misogynist, racist, anti-western, dictatorial regimes which surround it – to a standard you would hold no other nation under normal circumstances, let alone under such exigencies – and when you spew libel against our sole regional democratic ally for “crimes” concocted by delegitimizers, you are an anti-Semite.

More at the link above.

And it turns out that Kushner's views on Israel are informed by hardline BDS types, including Norman Finklestein, who Weisenfeld cited when calling out Kushner.

And right on cue the Israel-hating left has jumped to Kushner's defense, at Lawyers, Guns and Murder and Mondoweiss. Plus, some overtime action from Justin Elliot at and Salon: "School blocks Kushner honor over Israel" and "Fight over Israel and Tony Kushner heats up" (via Memeorandum).