Your forgetting "Schindler's List", which at least presaged the birth of Israel. How Spielberg could do both of these is difficult to imagine. Oh, now I understand: Schindler's list was done in 1993... Clinton was president... It's Bush's fault!!!! We used to support Israel during Clinton's Administration, but now they must be the equivalent of terrorists because they embrace and support Bush's middle east initiatives.
I wouldn't call the Clintoon's makeout sessions with the Arafats supporting Israel, but it is interesting the point out the different political climate. While Israel is positively regarded at the end of Schindler's List, the film is not about Israel. If the film had continued, to show how Jews had to fight to defend the existance of Israel, then we probably would have seen a similar "both sides are naughty" "cycle of violence" story from Spielberg.
Well, as the son of a holocaust , I have some questions about Spielberg's Hollywood bent, that began with Schindler's List. Although I saw the film and thought it was brilliantly done, incredibly moving and poignant, I wondered then, as I do now: why does one of the world's most successfull director/producers choose to take such an oblique approach to these subjects? In Schindler, Spielberg tells the story of the Holocaust by telling us the story of the "good German". In other words, by telling the story from the point of view of the exceptional case, rather than the rule.
In Munich, which I have not seen and do not plan to see, it gets even more puzzling: why tell a story of ism in the Age of from a morally obtuse and equivocal viewpoint?
In the Schindler case, an equally uplifting tale could be told about the heroism and humanity of the concentration camp inmates: there are countless stories of the superhuman self-sacrifice made to help each other, the powerful human spirit of survival shown in the clever and desperate schemes to obtain a bit of food, escapes plots, attempts and failures and any number of angles so that the film wouldn't have to be an unmitigated pall of and despair.
Munich sounds like a real stinker in terms of moral equivalence. Having an opportunity to make a clear moral statement in a time when that would truly useful, Spielberg crapped out, Hollywood style. This was a picture for a Kerry administration, appreciative of the "moral complexities" between ers and the cops who tracked 'em down and evened the score.
You forget that the entire Left, Jewish and non-Jewish, "pro-Israel" and anti-Israel, takes the Holocaust as its foundation ("only we can prevent this from happening again"). Even Jews who hate Israel invoke the Holocaust, so it's no mystery.
The Holocaust has been removed from Jewish history entirely and turned into a a foundational "myth" of the Left.