Posted on 06/28/2005 7:12:34 AM PDT by kromike
Stephen Spielberg's "Balanced" View of Terror By Debbie Schlussel FrontPageMagazine.com | June 28, 2005
Much is being made about Steven Spielberg's upcoming inaccurate, revisionist history and "balance" (code for morally equivocating Islamic terrorists with their victims) in his new film, Vengeance -- about the Israeli Mossad's tracking down of Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. But anyone who knows the history of this movie, based on a George Jonas book of the same name, should not be surprised.
Jonas admits he has only one "source" for most of the information in his book and that many of the incidents could not be verified. Many of his "facts" were refuted by testimony in a Norwegian trial of Mossad agents who were caught accidentally killing a Moroccan waiter there. Spielberg has not contacted anyone in the Mossad, the Israeli government, or the agents who were involved in the operation, some of whom discredited Jonas' book.
As I wrote in a column on Spielberg's Vengeance, last summer, Spielberg halted production to avoid upsetting terrorists during the Olympics. Just out of respect and "sensitivity" for terrorists' wishes. Then, Spielberg realized this was a bad P.R. move and had his publicist claim the reason was something almost as absurd, but much less believable: that Spielberg was just too upset each day--sobbing while reading pages of the script--to continue. Right, and the sob-scenes in E.T. also made him halt production. Not.
One wonders if Spielberg's "balance" will involve visiting the family of Cleveland-based parents of David Berger, the handsome, American-born, Israeli Olympic weight-lifter, who was among the murdered athletes. Don't count on it. The film, starring the outspokenly pro-Palestinian Ben Kingsley, is bound to be no different than the "balanced" Oscar-winning documentary, "One Day in September," which -- as I wrote in another column -- showed the murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes from the victims' families' and Palestinian terrorists' points of view--as an action thriller.
Spielberg's "Vengeance," appears to be an indictment of our current War on Terror. According to Reuters, Daniel Craig, who stars in the film, told an entertainment magazine that "it's about how vengeance doesn't...work -- blood breeds blood." The one accidental assassination -- of the Moroccan waiter in Norway -- is being used to discredit the entire operation, which was a successful War on Terror. There will always be accidental deaths in fighting terror, but that does not mean there should not be a strong and swift response to it.
Don't hold your breath for real balance, such as Spielberg visiting terror-host state Syria (on the State Department's terrorist list) to interrogate and film Jamil Al-Gashey, the only surviving murderer of the Israeli Olympic athletes. He enjoys a life of safety and freedom under the protection of Syria's government, where he moved because, as he said, he didn't want his daughter to grow up without a father. No biggie that he killed the fathers of several daughters of the Israeli athletes. Don't look for any of that in "Fighting Terror is a Bad Idea, as Told by Steven Spielberg."
Question: Why did Spielberg make the Nazis look bad, and even melt to their deaths, in "Raiders by the Lost Ark"? Where was the balance then?
SS veils his preoductions in secrecy. There's not much that gets out and certainly not enough to make assertions like the ones Schlussel was making. Again if I'm wrong when I see the movie I'll admit it. I'd bet the farm I'm not though.
Not knowing the meaning of "kapo", I had to google it. The Wiesenthal site describes it in such dark terms. I don't know if the spielster is willing to become one of them.
Destined to be a liberal cult classic.
I think that Palestinian terror is viewed with tolerance by liberal elites and considered to be morally ambivalent by Hollywood because it is a Third World movement by "oppressed minorities."
It is controversial in Hollywood to portray "oppressed minorities" as evil - take for example The Sum Of All Fears in which the enemy is deArabized into acceptably demonizable Russian neo-Nazis. Or in Kingdom of Heaven when the enemy is really evil Europeans, etc., etc.
It's the same mentality that dribbles into real life, as when clues to the true identity of the DC snipers went unpublicized and the search was on for a disgruntled white conservative.
The phenomenon of self-hatred is alive and well in Hollywood.
"One Day in September" is VERY anti the terrorists. It's a good movie. It's main point seems to be the utter incompetence of the vaunted German police/security forces. You must have some strange colored goggles on to miss the sympathy for the victims this movie demonstrates clearly and unmistakably.
Tenuous connections, indeed.
From her previous article on this film: Spielberg halted production "because he didn’t want to anger and incite terrorists." Meaning incite them to attack the Olympics that were ongoing at the time.
Cowardly? Yeah, maybe. "Halted production to avoid upsetting terrorists"? That makes him sound like a co-conspirator. It's a pretty vicious smear.
This article is easily as bad as the worst liberal tripe out there. There are plenty of things that Debbie could criticize Spielberg for, if she has an axe to grind (and clearly she does) - but this is a big, big stretch.
It's from Schlussel's column. I've seen ODIS and don't know what she's talking about either.
Time will tell..
We'll know when it comes out.
When Elia Kazan received a standing ovation for his Lifetime Achievement Oscar, in 1999, there were some who remained seated and wouldn't applaud, such as Ed Harris, Nick Nolte and Richard Dreyfuss, and some who didn't have the balls to take a stand, so they remained seated but applauded, such as steven spielberg.
And Warren Beatty of all people gave Kazan a standing ovation. Kazan gave Beatty his big break.
IF they palis kill one of thier own colaterally, they just figure if he was holy he'll go to heaven and if he was not who cares anyway. And if it's a woman or an infidel or a jew, all the better.
Sad, but true. I totally lost all respect for the Palis when they ghoulishly danced for joy and passed out sweets on 9/11. Their culture appears to be filled with hatred, murder, lies, emotion vs logic, blood-thirsty violence, child-sacrificing, more lies and deluded thinking...
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