"I Would Die For Israel" - Interview with Steven Spielberg

SPIEGEL ^ | January 26, 2006 | SPIEGEL

[MillerCreek]

US director Steven Spielberg discusses his controversial new film "Munich," which deals with the aftermath of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. In an interview with DER SPIEGEL he talks about the moral aspects of dealing with terrorism and responds to critics who claim he's betrayed the Jewish people.

Editor's Note: Steven Spielberg's "Munich" opens in Germany and Israel on Thursday. In addition to this interview with the director, we have also posted DER SPIEGEL's cover story on the film as well as an editorial from the Sept. 11, 1972 issue of the magazine.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Spielberg, can you remember the hours of the Olympic massacre? Do you know where you were when you heard the terrible news?

Spielberg: Yes, I do. I was watching a "Wide World of Sports" live broadcast from Munich when the news suddenly flashed in, and the well-known sports commentator Jim McKay became a man for the hard facts of world politics. I was glued to the TV for the next few hours. I think it was then that I heard the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" for the first time - they hadn't been part of my vocabulary up to then.

(READ FULL INTERVIEW...)

[MillerCreek]

OF CONCERN, these statements:

SPIEGEL: You are celebrated enthusiastically by the critics, and you have also been slammed. But rarely has a director been attacked and vilified so personally for a film as you have now. You have been called a blind pacifist, even a traitor to the cause of Israel.

==>>Steven Spielberg: "Fortunately, the people who write that kind of thing are a small but very loud minority. It saddens me to see how narrow-minded and dogmatic some of the right-wing fundamentalists here in the USA are. I thank God that people who are important to me see "Munich" quite differently. Liberal American Jews, for example, but also some families of the victims from that time in Israel. They have embraced the message of the film.

[Mamzelle]

Bump.

[MillerCreek]

Moral Absolutes Ping List.

DISCUSSION ABOUT: SPIEGEL Interview with Director Steven Spielberg about his film, "MUNICH"

In this interview, Spielberg states that he regards "some of the right-wing fundamentalists here in the USA" as being responsible for "vilifing" his film, and says he "thank(s) God that people who are important to (him) -- those he refers to as "Liberal American Jews" -- "see this film differently" (and "embrace" it).

The screenwriter he used for this film has said he "hates America" in other media (Tony Kuschner, a homosexual activist (through his work), also wrote "Angels In America").

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[joesnuffy]

I guess if selling out Israel to the Islamofascists,the USA to the Communistas and promoting Fidel's Cuba as paradise is patriotism...

Then Stevie is without a doubt,one of the most patriotic of his generation..

[NormsRevenge]

"I Would Die For Israel"

He's about to get his chance.

We're waiting.

[Lexington Green]

With more 'patriots' like Spielberg,, there will be no Israel... or America

[joesnuffy]

Stevie's message to the world and Israel...

Nazis & MuslamoFascist terrorists who murder your children by 'suiciding' their own...are the moral equivilant of Jews who would fight back against such terror...

By this same logic...Nazis and their victims in the death camps are morally equivilant

imo

[MillerCreek]

WORSE, here's an earlier quote from screenwriter of, and collaborator on "MUNICH" and friend to Spieldberg, Tony Kuschner:

QUOTE BEGINS:

...The gay civil rights movement, for one thing. The theater has always been home to a disproportionate share of gay artists because the environment was tolerant and, perhaps, because their lives already involved illusion, role playing and disguise. Many artists have come out of the closet in life and insist on doing so in their work.

Says Destiny's Kramer: "Ten years ago, we would have been fashioning heterosexual material. Now people just won't lie."

AIDS has given gay male playwrights a clarity and tenacity of vision that comes from facing mortality. "Gay writers have life and death to write about," says Kramer, who chronicled his early activism in The Normal Heart and confronted having the AIDS virus in Destiny.

Above all, as Congress and the states debate gay civil rights and President Clinton prepares to certify the role of gays in the military, many gay writers see their milieu as inherently dramatic. Like Jews, blacks and women in prior decades, gays have promoted their struggle for equality into the spotlight. Says Angels author Tony Kushner: "We're at a historic juncture. In a pluralist democracy, there's a moment when a minority obtains legitimacy and its rights are taken seriously by the other minorities that together make up the majority. That's happening now for gays and lesbians. We're winning, and that gives things a certain electricity."

QUOTE ENDS

[MillerCreek]

Homosexual Agenda Ping List.

DISCUSSION ABOUT: "SPIEGEL Interview with ('MUNICH' Director) Steven Spielberg"

Screenplay for this film written by homosexual activist writer Tony Kushner

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[MillerCreek]

Perhaps that's the awful truth as to actual motivation.

[Richard Kimball]

I was just thinking, that's why he loves the terrorists. They're going to help him fulfil that prophecy. Spielberg is also a fan of Castro, which makes me wonder why these "creative types" always seem to love the first people that would shut them down and put them in prison.

[Galveston Grl]

"I Would Die For Israel" He's about to get his chance.

More like he's willing to make Israel die for his wacked out, "Hate Israel" liberalism.

[Brian Allen]

<< "I Would Die For Israel" - Interview with Steven Spielberg >>

No one wants you to die for Israel, you useless cinematic schnook, you celuloid shlumiel, you picture-hall putz!

But none of us would mind if you began to show some sign you might live for Israel.

BUMPping

[MillerCreek]

Ha, my reaction, exactly. I also wondered if but what Spielberg might consider dying for GOD instead. I think that's the point of Israel. Worshipping nationalism is a form of idol worship and we KNOW what God has to say about those who worship a golden calf, and those who did.

Spielberg's concept of Jewishness is defined in his embrace of liberalism. Note that he "loves" those he refers to as "American Jewish liberals" (something close to that)...in that they "got" his film. And he spoke with his "rabbi" -- he is affiliated with a Reform temple in L.A. and his "rabbi" from there, certainly. So, what Spielberg is saying is that he's a political person who is also Jewish. He doesn't mention God, nor Judeo Orthodoxy, which he rejects, apparently, as being among the "right wing" he thinks are not reliable.

I'm rather disgusted by his failed reasoning and certainly by his wan usery of a bogus, faux concept of "Jewishness" in this sense.

[MillerCreek]

Spielberg arrives in Havanna, Cuba

"Spielberg, who is Jewish, met descendants of survivors of Auschwitz and later laid a stone in a memorial to Holocaust victims at the city's Jewish cemetery. Cuba's Jewish community has dwindled to 1,500 members from 15,000 before Castro's 1959 revolution.

"'This culture, the people of Cuba are exploding with passion, talent and self-respect,' he told the audience that received him with a standing ovation.

"'I feel so much at home here...In only two days I have been enriched and I have gotten so much out of Cuba,' he said."

"Spielberg attacks US policy on Cuba"

...speaks out against U.S. embarg on Castro's communist dictatorship, which many liberals in the U.S. likewise also do.

[Brian Allen]

At a personal level, it gets worse . My beloved [Producer] son often works with/for him. And I see him - and most of his crowd - around.

[pray4liberty]

Does your stomach turn?

[pray4liberty]

"I Would Die For Israel" - Interview with Steven Spielberg

Put up or shut up, Steven. Go over there now. They need you.