There has bee a lot of talk about the new, and as of yet, unseen movie “Munich” by filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
First, a word about Mr. Spielberg. Although a non-observant Jew (a Tinok SheNishba) He is none-the-less a hero in a town that is usually concerned with anything but heroics. Hollywood is all about money and self indulgence. Although he one of the wealthiest and most successful people in Hollywood, Mr. Spielberg is not about that. Ever since his magnum opus, “Schindler’s List”, he has been elevated into in a category all to himself. He took the subject of the holocaust and made it front burner more than anyone else. That movie with its vivid images of the horrors of the holocaust combined with the heroics of a single individual non-Jew who rose to the occasion was one of the most honored films in history.
But Mr. Spielberg went beyond that. He donated all the profits from that movie to the holocaust museum and the preservation of the testimony of as many survivors as possible through his Survivors of the Shoah Foundation.
And this makes it all the more perplexing as to why he made this particular film at this particular time. For those who don’t know, Munich is about the events that took place after eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by Arab terrorists at the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich, in which the Israeli government, of Prime Minister Golda Meir mounted a secret war of revenge against the murderers.
This event may or may not have been the most moral decision Israel ever made but that is beside the point. How can anyone judge a government decision of over 30 years ago by today’s standards? Why this film and why now? ...and of all people to write a screenplay about this movie... why Tony Kushner? Who is Tony Kushner? Here is a pertinent quote:
“(Israel) was founded in a program that, if you really want to be blunt about it, was ethnic cleansing, and that today is behaving abominably towards the Palestinian people”. (Yale Israel Journal: September 28, 2004)
I cannot imagine why Steven Spielberg chose this man for this job. But it can’t have been one of his more lucid moments. To chose this man to write a movie about a controversial event in Israel’s history seems to be at the very least, a lapse in judgment. How could any real balance be written into a script by a man who thinks that the country he is writing about was founded through ethnic cleansing a term formerly used only to describe the actions of Nazis?!
In the current climate of world hostility towards Israel (with the very important exception of the United States, thankfully) and in this great battle against Islamic terrorism it would seem prudent to not make a movie that can only generate even greater hostility to Israel than currently exists. Israel does not need any more condemnation and to bring up this piece of history now in a major motion picture by perhaps the greatest living director in the world is an act which lacks any common sense at all. What makes matters worse is that the respectability of director Spielberg lends prestige to this movie it might not otherwise get. The fact that he is Jewish adds and undue credibility to it and the fact that he is so identified with his great contribution to preservation of the memory the holocaust makes it almost impossible to accuse him of anything but the noblest of motives.
Mr. Spielberg has responded to criticism about this movie by saying:
"I'm always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it's threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine," he says. "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end? How can it end?" (Time magazine: December12th)
This is a morally repugnant view because of its moral equivalency. He is in essence saying “The cycle of violence must end.” ...as if to say each side is guilty of the same violence for equally valid reasons. The implication of such statements is that if one side stops the other will no longer respond. Then there will be Shalom Al Yisroel, peace on earth; good will towards men. But only the most naive person would see the Israeli Palestinian conflict in those terms. I don’t want to get into a whole discussion about it but suffice it to say that terrorist suicide bombers blowing up innocent civilians is in no possible way equivalent to Israel’s justified targeted executions of terrorist leaders responsible for suicide missions. But this seems to be how Mr. Spielberg sees things.
To be fair, the movie is as of yet unseen except by a few critics and the reviews as I understand it have been mixed. I will have to wait and see. But in my opinion this was not a wise move for a man who has done so much for his fellow Jews.
