Jerusalem (CNS) – Yasser Arafat's PLO was directly responsible for the assault on Israel's athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, one of the men who oversaw the attack has confirmed 27 years later.
Posted on 12/16/2005 11:02:47 AM PST by pcottraux
Spy vs. spy: The morality of "Munich" December 14, 2005 Steven Spielberg's political spy thriller "Munich" opens next week, but it's already come under fire from some who think... well, I can't really tell what they're thinking. These attacks don't really seem to be about the film, but are more precisely framed as paranoid fantasies about Spielberg himself, or reactions to comments he made about the film in an exclusive TIME magazine interview.
Roger Ebert will review "Munich" -- the actual motion picture -- when it goes into nationwide release December 23. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about it after that, too. But for now I'd just like to take a look at the misinformation two non-movie critics have spread about the film in advance of its opening. It's not so much that I disagree with their interpretations of "Munich"; it's that the movie itself plainly refutes what they say about it.
First, Jack Engelhard (author of "Indecent Proposal") published an scathing tirade which begins with this: It remains to be seen, literally, if Steven Spielberg has switched sides, from kosher ("Schindler's List"), to treyf. His movie, "Munich," will be opening in a few days and early word has it that he has indeed gone "Hollywood." This means that he's joined the trend to the Left, and that's the way to go if you want to do lunch in that town again. ...and builds to this: Jews pioneered Hollywood. If, as our enemies say, we own Hollywood, well, here's the plot twist -- we have lost Hollywood, and we have lost Spielberg. Spielberg is no friend of Israel. Spielberg is no friend of truth. What's most extraordinary about this (or perhaps not, in this era of Fox News feel-casting) is that Engelhard says not one thing about the movie "Munich." Because he doesn't appear to have seen it. That, however, does not stop him from making ad hominem attacks on Spielberg, or nonsensical generalizations about "Hollywood" like this one: In Hollywood today, where David is Goliath and Goliath is David, you never want to be labeled a conservative or a fan of Israel. Hollywood is all about being trendy and Israel is not the trend. You won't get invited to the right parties and you won't win any Oscars if your heart bleeds for a nation that is always on the verge of being wiped off the map.
My problem? If Uris could not get "Exodus" funded in an atmosphere that still reeks of "Durban" (and where is the movie about all that, Steve?) then Spielberg should not be green-lighted for "Munich." Sure, Hollywood, go ahead, make your day. Show us their side of the story, but what about our side?
Where is the counterpoint? If you are trending toward political themes, yes, that is your right, but where is our Right, in which decidedly I mean the Right side of politics that has us walking with a target on our backs, meaning those of us who differ on moral equivalency and other trends? OK, can I read that again? Note to Mr. Engelhard: Steven Spielberg has, in fact, won Oscars. One of them was that "kosher" film you mention called "Schindler's List," which, again, you give no evidence of actually having seen, but it came out in 1993 -- same year as "Indecent Proposal." Although he'd had difficulty winning Oscars before that, "Schindler's List" proved to be -- what was your word? -- "trendy."
As for the question, "Where is the counterpoint?" -- anyone who does bother to see "Munich" will soon recognize that it's all about counterpoint -- between attacks and counter-attacks. No, it makes no argument for "moral equivalency" (that phrase is the first refuge of a con-artist), but it is fundamentally concerned with the concept of what some call "necessary evil" in war, and in self-defense. As Golda Meir says in the film (and you'd know this even if you'd only seen the trailer): "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." That said, it will not be surprising that anyone who thinks Israel is somehow exempt from the history of civilization, or beyond internal struggles with deeply held values, wouldn't have the slightest idea of what "Munich" is about.
As for the ridiculous and arrogant "no friend of Israel" crack (based on... what?), surely Israel is by now old enough to decide for itself who its friends are without Engelhard's guidance. When questioning morality becomes a casualty of the Politically Correct '00s in the hands of demagogues like Engelhard, I hate to think how that affects the great soul-searching Jewish religious and cultural traditions -- those that insist upon the necessity of, well, asking the Big Questions of oneself, one's country and one's religion.
The rest of Engelhard's tantrum just reads like a schmear of long-fermenting sour grapes, with his egomaniacal pronouncements about what movies should be made (his) or should not be made (Spielberg's) in what he calls "Hollywood" -- which, from his description, is a far-off fantasyland of anti-Semitic lunches and parties to which he has not been invited.
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In the December 11 issue of the New York Times, David Brooks published a different kind of criticism of Spielberg's film ("What 'Munich' Left Out"), one that also exhibits a bizarre view of history and morality. But at least Brooks had the good sense to actually see the film before writing about it.
Brooks says that Spielberg gets it all wrong: "The real Israeli fighters tend to be harder and less sympathetic, and they are made that way by an awareness of the evil implacability of those who want to exterminate them." OK, I don't disagree that "Munich" bends over backwards to make the Israeli protagonists (and they are the protagonists) sympathetic and morally scrupulous, perhaps even to a fault. These are surely the most humane spy-assassins you've ever stumbled across -- presented (initially) in stark contrast to the anonymous Palestinian Black September terrorists who murdered the 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972. But they -- and Golda Meir and Mossad -- are scarcely unaware of the implacability of the enemy they face. That is the premise with which "Munich" begins. (There had been this thing called "the Holocaust" a few years earlier...)
And, it turns out, this starting point is essential to the moral and dramatic tension "Munich" creates. The film's "counterpoint" (in Engelhard's apposite word) is developed as a shadowy espionage strategy game, a violent, deadly escalating series of reprisals and counter-reprisals between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As one character chillingly puts it, watching a TV image of blood being mopped up on the floor of the Athens airport: "Now we are having a dialogue." (Again, I've seen the film, but you can pick up this sense of the moive's trajectory even from the trailer.)
What the film does -- in the tradition of John le Carré and other masters of the spy thriller -- is to track the grueling psychological journeys undertaken by the invisible covert operatives who actually do the politically untouchable dirty work their governments and/or intelligence agencies want done, with the full understanding that neither national officials nor ordinary citizens want to know anything about it -- not beforehand, not while it's going on, not afterwards. Not ever.
It's easy (and natural and maybe even necessary, for some) to demonize the enemy, especially when he wants to wipe you and yours from the face of the Earth. But if you have a conscience, you may feel compelled to ask where you should draw the moral line that distinguishes what you consider "Us" from "Them." When you're talking about killing people, it's that self-awareness that, theoretically at least, keeps "us" sane, and from becoming the thing we are fighting against. (This is at the heart of arguments about the use of torture, civilian "collateral damage," and other aspects of the post-September 11 "war on terrorism" today -- and Spielberg is explicit about drawing those parallels, especially in the use of the figure "11" in the final shot.)
Brooks condescendingly claims that Spielberg, the guy who brought us Ralph Fiennes' Amon Goth, somehow doesn't understand evil: In Spielberg's Middle East, there is no Hamas or Islamic Jihad. There are no passionate anti-Semites, no Holocaust deniers like the current president of Iran, no zealots who want to exterminate Israelis.
There is, above all, no evil. And that is the core of Spielberg's fable. In his depiction of reality there are no people so committed to a murderous ideology that they are impervious to the sort of compromise and dialogue Spielberg puts such great faith in. That second paragraph is just flat-out wrong (and the ideology Brooks describes is even dramatized in a memorable conversation between the leader of the Israeli team and a member of the PLO). Various Palestinians in the movie do, in fact, state their unmitigated desire to destroy Israel and all its people.
The movie is set in 1972 and 1973. Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- both dedicated to the obliteration of Israel -- did not develop until the 1980s, but they had their predecessors in Palestinian politics. So what is Brooks getting at? Spielberg has said (perhaps idealistically) that a legacy of recriminations and finger-pointing have historically led to more recriminations and finger-pointing. Brooks translates that into: In Spielberg's Middle East the only way to achieve peace is by renouncing violence. But in the real Middle East the only way to achieve peace is through military victory over the fanatics, accompanied by compromise between the reasonable elements on each side. Again, this is a gross oversimplification and misrepresentation of the movie, and reality. "Munich" offers no blanket renunciation of violence, nor does it ever suggest that there is any "only way to achieve peace." Only the those afflicted with Brooks' binary vision would ever conceive of such a fantastical thing. Indeed, for Brooks the problems in the Middle East are easy to identify and solve, so he lays 'em right out for us: Recent history teaches what Spielberg's false generalization about the "perpetual motion machine" of violence does not: that some violence is constructive and some is destructive. The trick is knowing the difference. Yes, and that's quite some trick, isn't it? As evidence to support his contention that, since 1972, Israel has found arresting suspected terrorists to be more effective than killing them, he offers this version of recent history: Israel much prefers to arrest suspected terrorists. Arrests don't set off rounds of retaliation, and arrested suspects are likely to provide you with intelligence, the real key to defanging terror groups.
Over the past few years Israeli forces have used arrests, intelligence work, the security fence and, at times, targeted assassinations to defeat the second intifada. As a result, the streets of Jerusalem are filled with teenagers, and the political climate has relaxed, allowing Ariel Sharon to move to the center.[!] So, it seems there are strategic advantages and disadvantages to any number of tactics, eh? That shouldn't come as news to anyone. But Brooks would have you believe that "preferring" to arrest terrorists rather than assassinate them is roughly the same as just not assassinating them at all. And yet, in his next paragraph, he acknowledges the obvious -- that "targeted assassinations" are sometimes still used. So his point is... what? Characters in "Munich" wonder why some suspects couldn't be arrested rather than assassinated. But the movie doesn't pretend to hold definitive answer those questions any more than Brooks does.
I'm happy to hear that Israel's mixed-method approach has been so successful (gee, I thought everybody was limited to just one tactic apiece when it came to war) but... about that security fence. According to an Anti-Defamation League Op-Ed last year, it has worked spectacularly well at preventing suicide-bomb attacks on Israelis. But even the ADL doesn't see it as any kind of victory or resolution -- just a defensive maneuver to buy time: Israel's security fence is temporary and will have no effect on the status of the land on which it is constructed.... When Israel has a partner with whom it can achieve peace, and who is willing to crack down on terrorism, the fence can come down. Until then, Israel has no choice but to protect its citizens and strive to ensure its national survival. So, the West Bank Fence, like any anti-terrorist measure, can be said to have its benefits and its costs. It cannot realistically be labeled as simply and entirely "good" (because it helps prevent Israelis from getting blown up) or simply and entirely "evil" (because it isolates Palestinians, creates what some call an apatheid system, and closes the door on what some Israelis say is the idealistic founding vision of Israel as a land where Jews and Palestinians can live together in peace). That is what a moral dilemma is all about, and that it what "Munich" is about. What it is not about is assigning blame for one thing or another to one side or another because, at this point, that would be not only counterproductive but -- after 55 years -- impossible to sort out. Too many tangled threads have been spun -- not just since 1972, but since the 1940s.
Perhaps Brooks is pretending to be unaware of it, or assumes the audience will be, but the history of terrorism between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East goes back long before 1972, although some Black September members claimed the Olympic massacre (on live satellite television) first brought their "cause" to the attention of an apathetic world -- a position the film refers to several times.
One of the Israelis in "Munich" says, almost under his breath as I recall: "How do you think we got the land in the first place? It wasn't by being nice." For perspective here, it helps to remember -- for just one example -- that the militant Zionist organization Irgun (listed by the British as a terrorist organization, and headed by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin) blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91. Terrorism -- or, if you prefer, the killing of civilians whether as intended targets or acceptable "collateral damage" -- has been used by extreme factions on all sides over the years.
When Golda Meir says, in the film, that it is necessary to strike back at the Palestinians to show that Israel is strong and that (I paraphrase) "the cost of killing Jews just got much more expensive," it's an argument that's familiar to us today. Brooks would insist that the only way to approach this is to ask: Is she 100 percent right or 100 percent wrong? Well, the movie does not say, because it does not see the world in such an unrealistic black-and-white way (although it certainly acknowledges that there are people who do -- like the character played by Daniel Craig).
"Munich" poses harder, more pragmatic questions that you are urged to ask, and try to find answers for, yourself. Praise or criticize what you see in the movie as you see fit. But to attack it for failing to offer the comforting and phony moral absolutes that it manifestly refuses to endorse -- that's just nonsensical. Or, perhaps, it's better to say it reveals more about the viewer's values than it does about "Munich" or Spielberg's.
For opinionaters like Jack Engelhard and David Brooks, there are no hard questions. The concept of "evil" begins and ends with the childlike charge of: "You started it!" or "You've done worse!") (whether it's actually true or not). It's troubling to raise moral issues while you're fighting a war -- especially when you know you're "good" and those who oppose you are "evil." Engelhard and Brooks would like to throw up the phony "moral equivalency" penalty flag and stop the deadly game right there. To them, it's so easy: 1) just find the essence of undiluted evil in the world; 2) then, anything you do to eliminate it is unquestionably and unambiguously good -- because (all together now) "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," so that which is done in the name of fighting evil must be good. Never is anyone ever faced with a choice between anything less than pure good and pure evil. (BTW, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is far more sophisticaqted than that.)
Brooks calls this "reality" and Spielberg's vision a "fable." Next week, I urge you to see the movie and make up your own mind about who is telling fairy tales.
Other valuable background: "One Day in September," the Oscar-winning 1999 documentary about the 1972 Olympic massacre. ""The 50 Years War-Israel and the Arabs," a 1999 PBS Frontline documentary series available on DVD. Vengeance, the book by George Jonas which provided the basis for the "Munich" screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. Aaron J. Kleins newly published account of the Israeli response to Munich, Striking Back.
Bingo! When demmonizing mass-murdering Stalinist international socialists becomes as popular as demonizing mass-murdering Hitlerite national socialists, we'll know that our culture has finally taken a turn toward toward intellectual honesty.
One of the biggest lies in popular culture is the idea that National Socialism is a "right-wing" phenomenon.
Correction: 6 million Jews dead ... the National Socialists killed 11-12 million total people in Hitler's death camps.
When I was in highschool, this was common knowledge ... somehow, in the last decade or so, half of Hitler's death camp victims got dropped down the memory hole. The result is a half-truth; worse than an outright lie.
In the name of all that's holy (or at least in the name of intellectual honesty and historical accuracy) let's not participate in the dishonesty of half-truths ... Just say "no" to holocaust-denial.
Arafat authorized the creation of the Black September terrorist organization and was essentially its secret chief executive officer. But he had it set up in a way that he could claim plausible deniability for its actions even though he had to personally approve all of its major operations. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I even think that he made the statement at some point that Black September WAS the PLO/Fatah.
"Spielberg's track record is the best in Hollywood."
Yep. An amazing talent for reaching massive audiences with brilliant cinematic storytelling technique. Lots of people in Hollywood claim to know what "works." But Spielberg is the only one to have proven it so consistently over time.
Steven Spielberg hired Tony Kushner last year to rewrite the script of a movie about Israel’s clandestine - and lethal - response to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Kushner has been quoted in an interview with the Times of London, where he declared:
I deplore the brutal and illegal tactics of the Israeli Defense Forces in the occupied territories. I deplore the occupation, the forced evacuations, the settlements, the refugee camps, the whole shameful history of the dreadful suffering of the Palestinian people; Jews, of all people, with our history of suffering, should refuse to treat our fellow human beings like that...I think the founding of the State of Israel was for the Jewish people a historical, moral, political calamity.... I wish modern Israel hadn’t been born.Spielberg says this in an interview with Time’s Richard Schickel, on the non-judgmental tone of his new movie:
I think the thing I’m very proud of is that [screenwriter] Tony Kushner and I and the actors did not demonize anyone in the film. We don’t demonize our targets. They’re individuals. They have families. Although what happened in Munich I condemn.That's liberal psychobabel at its gaudiest, and could be as equally non-judgemental of monsters such as Hitler, Stalin, or Pol-Pot. The film’s intended message can be gleaned from this little gem from Time’s cover story:
There is an entirely fictional scene in the movie in which [the leader of the Israeli hit squad] and his Palestinian opposite number meet and talk calmly, with the latter getting a chance to make his case for the creation of a homeland for his people. That scene means everything to Kushner and Spielberg..... Without that exchange, 'I would [said Spielberg] have been making a Charles Bronson movie - good guys vs. bad guys and Jews killing Arabs without any context. And I was never going to make that picture.'For all pragmatic purposes, Spielberg's intent is to portray Palestinian terrorists as calm, reasonable human beings, and muddying any possible distinctions between the good guys and bad guys. That he and Kushner flat out have to depend on an entirely fabricated scene to do just that, well, at least with E.T. and Jurassic Park viewers knew they were getting fiction. This is not so emminently true with Hollywood productions like The Manchurian Candidate remake, or network televisions The Commander in Chief. You can argue until the cows come home with some people about Farenheit 911, but it won't make a lick of a difference. "Did you see it? No? Well, then you don't know what you're talking about." To them, Roger Moore's vomitus is akin to Holy Writ.
Not much of anything is said concerning the guilt of the Israeli athletes in Munich. What did they do to deserve being murdered, and in Germany (of all places), less than thirty years after the Holocaust? That's black sarcasm at its best, and irony at its most horrific. Of course Israel's response to that was guided by a Zionism then at its height rather than the self-loathing and abasement that exists among the Israeli elite today.
Interestingly enough though, the guy makes no reference to the chief financier of The Munich Massacre, Abu Mazen, who just so happens to be the present leader of the Palestinian Authority. Keep in mind also, our own elected leaders not merely engage with this old terrorist, they've outright rolled out the red carpet before him to our White House and our Capitol.
Those currently in power in Hollywood want a world in which there are no absolutes of morality. A world of gray...so that the Self-Centered-Desire-Of-The-Moment can be fulfilled without interference of conscience... They will side with "Bad" Guy in "Black" because darkness covers the real ugliness of the events... Think about some of the tabloids' reports of late night clubs and how totally ridiculous & perhaps even disgusting to themselves the celebrity patrons would look if the floodlights suddenly came on & the music stopped.
The difference between the violence done by Islamic Terrorists and violence done by the Israelis... Well, Israelis do not strap bombs onto mentally disabled children. Or for that matter pay parents to have a child become a suicide bomber. Terrorists do not need to be understood, they need to truly meet the One God...
You know, though, I'd probably go see a Jame's Bond 9/11 movie, but only if Gene Simmons was cast as James Bond (now runs away in all haste and fear of life before things are hurled!). But then it wouldn't be a Roger Moore James Bond movie would it? O.k., nothing to see here, just move along...
Well said.
Have either of you noticed that in a terrible way, Nazis used to be the most useful villains in movies, but they have been replaced by...CORPORATIONS!!!
Good analysis. A good retort to EMerson's intellectual-ness, which I'd like to see more of.
Oh, wait, how could I not ping YOU to this one?
I am not a big fan of his, though I've enjoyed several of his movies. But pretending he is anything but the biggest boy on the block in Hollywood career-success-wise is just silly.
Mel Gibson has directed two big hits and one minor one. Many directors can say the same.
Jackson has directed a trilogy that's been beloved for decades and has a huge fan base. Don't get me wrong, I loved the LOTR movies and never read the books, so I'm not slagging the guy. But there are enormous flaws in the trilogy, which is probably my favorite fantasy movie (I count it as one, as does Jackson).
Potential major competition? Sure. But come back in 30 years and we'll see. Spielberg's been directing huge hits since the mid-seventies, and Jackson and Gibson probably won't even live long enough to topple his record.
On a personal preference, I prefer those two to Spielberg, but they're not even in his league.
By the way, I read your vanity... and I agree with what you wrote. Now, let me read this article.
Durban was the UN Conference that declared the Zionism was racism and Israel a racist state.
This movie has less to do with Munich and more to do with our response to 9/11. How he portrays the Israeli response is how he sees our response.
To me, you can't equate the two. What Black September did was loathsome. They had death coming especially since the West did not care to exercise justice. The Germans let them the surviving terrorists go. Just let them go, even though there was a "hijacking" to cover up the fact.
No one defends Israel... and when she defends herself, she is hammered as being immoral or worse more repugnant than the terrorists, who broke into an Olympic village and murdered 12 athletes. The guilty are the Palestinians... and any attempt to portray it any other way is wrong. To me... it's that simple.
ROTFLOL! I love the jar-o'-fat!
I just love this...
First of all, Israel got the land by international decree...It's called the Mandate...Which was changed without due process three times.
Second of all, say what you want about the Irgun, (whether they were or were not a terrorist organization is a matter for history.) For the record...even though out last postings ended up in insults... I do not believe that the Irgun were terrorists. They are not equated with Hamas or any of the other terrorist groups that attack Israelis on a daily basis. The Irgun attacked government and military for one reason... the British were denying the Holocaust survivors access to the land because the British had decided to back the Arabs in the dispute over the land. In fact, (and I know that you are well aware of this) the British answer to the Holocaust was for the Jews to go back and rebuild Germany.
As for the King David Hotel... there is much confusion about what happened. The Irgun has always stated that they made phone calls announcing the bomb and giving the British plenty of time to evacuate. But, for the Irgun, the very survival of Jews were at stake. After 6,000,000 dead, the Irgun had every reason to have that concern.
The Palestinians don't have the same concern. If they would sit down and negotiate and give up their passion for the entire land, they would have their state. But, they don't.
Not the same...And to put the Irgun and Black September in the same moral equivelent category is plain wrong...
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