"Shifting Sands" Part II

Scott Johnson at PowerLine has "more on 'Munich" wth a devastating review by Mitch Webber. Webber:

The most misleading line in Stephen Spielberg's Munich comes near the beginning. Israel's prime minister, Golda Meir, tells her cabinet, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." The implication is that Meir was reluctant to hunt down the terrorists responsible for the Munich massacre, and that doing so was contrary to Israeli, and civilized, values.

The truth is just the opposite. Meir understood that Israel's chief obligation is to ensure that Jews will never again be slaughtered with impunity, simply for being Jewish. Holding mass murderers accountable is not a compromise; it is Israel's reason for being.

The most misleading omission from Munich is Germany's response to the massacre. Germany released the Black September terrorists less than two months after they had killed eleven innocent civilians. Israel had to hunt down Black September, because Germany didn't value Jewish lives enough to capture, try, and imprison those who kill Israelis on German soil. (Also missing from the film is any mention of Germany's refused to allow the Israeli Olympians their own security detail, despite credible threats to their safety, and Germany's refusal to let Israel conduct a rescue operation.) Meir said that she was "literally physically sickened" by Germany's capitulation. She continued, "I think that there is not one single terrorist held in prison anywhere in the world. Everyone else gives in."

It is a great review, well worth reading and Scott's comments are very relevant. What is missing, however, is to note that Spielberg may have had another motivation and that is to condemn the U.S. reaction toward terrorism as another compromise with cvilized Western values. If Spielberg had no message, he was either incredibly naive to rely on the screenwriter or, more likely, I suspect, he was bought and paid for by people who wanted to promote that view, condemning both Israel and the U.S.   Think of it as a Scott Ritter film with a multi-million dollar budget.