Posted on 12/27/2005 7:53:53 AM PST by Hildy
GAZA(Reuters) - The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.
The Hollywood director has called "Munich", which dramatizes the 1972 raid and Israel's reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his "prayer for peace".
Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but did not take part and does not feature in the film.
He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.
"If he really wanted to make it a prayer for peace he should have listened to both sides of the story and reflected reality, rather than serving the Zionist side alone," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Daoud said he had not seen the film, which will only reach most screens outside the United States next month.
But he noted that Spielberg arranged previews in Israel, where some have accused "Munich" of lacking historical accuracy.
Several Israeli historians have also complained about what they see as a moral symmetry in the film between slain Olympians and the Palestinians assassinated by the Mossad spy service.
"Spielberg showed the movie to widows of the Israeli victims, but he neglected the families of Palestinian victims," said Daoud. "How many Palestinian civilians were killed before and after Munich?"
MOSSAD ASSASSINS
The Munich attack was "one of the pivotal moments of modern terrorism" he told Los Angeles Times in rare interview last week.
Daoud used different terms.
"We did not target Israeli civilians," he said.
"Some of them (the athletes) had taken part in wars and killed many Palestinians. Whether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier."
Spielberg's producer, Kathleen Kennedy, told a preview audience at Princeton University that a Palestinian consultant was used for "Munich". She did not say who it was.
"I do feel that we spent an enormous amount of time in discussion and put effort into exploring a fair and balanced look at the Palestinians that were involved in the story," she said, according to an official transcript of the event.
Historians noted that "Munich" presents Mossad assassins as having hunted 11 members of the PLO, while other accounts put the final Palestinian toll at as many as 18.
Daoud survived a 1981 shooting in Poland that he blamed on a Mossad mole in the rival Palestinian faction of Abu Nidal.
Though Israel allowed him to visit the occupied West Bank after 1993 peace accords, and Mossad veterans say the reprisals are over, Daoud said he feels he could still be targeted.
"When I chose a long time ago to be a revolutionary fighter I prepared to be a martyr. I am not afraid, because people's souls are in God's hands, not Israel's," he said.
ping
Nice try Steve, back to the drawing board.
Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus.
One can only imagine the number of rats we could catch
if we took Damascus.
I wouldn't go that far but the film, MUNICH, certainly deserves ridicule and rejection.
I was reading earlier that Spielberg is said to have been afraid to appear having made a film that didn't support Israel and so tried to cover all perspectives to a point of irrelevant relativism BUT what that "fear" indicates to me is that he was aware he was, in fact, making a film that didn't support Israel and was trying to still maintain popularity despite it.
Like saying, "I'm not REALLY doing (whatever objectionable/wrong)" while continuing to be observed doing it.
I see, so Mohammed didn't target Israeli civilians because there's no such thing as Israeli civilians. Why the hell is this goathumper still breathing?
Ha, Spielberg's been advised by a former Clinton White House staffer on this film...among other liberal, political advisors.
Look what they have wrought.
Fox aired a recorded interview with him this morning. He was backpedaling rather briskly and not being very convincing.
How appropriate the movie is titled "Munich," a name synonomous with appeasement.
I don't know, but that should be fixed.
Is this stupid little rant by Daoud supposed to make people pretend that Spielberg has not created a pali-propoganda hit peice against Israel?
Like other liberals, Spielberg made the mistake of thinking that these murderous bastards are just misunderstood.
That is what EVERY Palestinian believes. Since a two-year-old might eventually grow up and might possibly join the Israeli military, the two-year-old is not a civilian.
agreed, but his moral equivocating harms all civilized peoples
I saw the movie on Sunday - or at least the first two hours. It was upsetting to me that Spielberg put so much effort in portraying the Palestinians as nice, cultured people that just do what the Jews did too? At least he was not hostile to Jews - the way he was more than willing to justify the Palestinians. When you are in a surviving mode you should not try to justify your enemies motives - if you do you will not survive. Every time people like Spielberg (who mean well) offer a hand they lose their teeth. They take whatever offering of peace Jews offer and it only wet their appetites as it proves their strategy of terror works. In that part of the world they respect only a strong hand - the peace offerings is a sign of the weakness.
good question
maybe we could get a group rate on him and that muzzie who killed Petty Officer Robert Stethem the Germans just released
Hildy I'm shocked. Don't you know Spewburg is just asking Jews all over the world to give suicide bombers a hug? It'll make the arab "final solution" that much easier for them to accomplish! And Stevie, well he'll be living large in his gated multi-million dollar house with armed guards to protect his family!
I can't take credit for the movie title, as it was from the comedian "Zak" on the HBO special Comedians of Comedy. IMHO, it fits the possible NEXT Spielberg film:
"Schindler's List 2: Let's Get This Party Started"......
From the "tone" of the Pali terrorists comments on "Munich", "Schindler's List 2: Let's Get This Party Started" STILL might not go "far enough" to suit him....
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