This JTA news item came across our desks this week under the headline, “Spielberg defends his film”:
Steven Spielberg lambasted members of the Jewish community who came out against his film “Munich.”
Speaking as part of a roundtable in the latest Newsweek magazine, Spielberg said criticism leveled at him and screenwriter Tony Kushner over the depiction of Israel’s hunt for the Palestinian masterminds of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre is unfair. Some American Jews, he said, “have grown very angry at me for allowing the Palestinians simply to have dialogue and for allowing Tony Kushner to be the author of that dialogue. ‘Munich’ never once attacks Israel, and barely criticizes Israel’s policy of counterviolence (sic) against violence,” he said. “It’s the most questioning story I’ve ever had the honor to tell. For that, we were accused of the sin of moral equivocation. Which, of course, we didn’t intend – and we’re not guilty of.”
The controversy, Spielberg added, “made me feel a little more aware of the dogma, and the Luddite position people take any time the Middle East is up for discussion.”
Some of the thoughtful criticism we’ve seen of this Spielberg-Kushner fiction include articles from the following: David Twersky, Leon Wieseltier, David Brooks, Andrea Levin, Yale Kraemer, Walter Laqueur, Victor Davis Hanson, Edward Alexander, Edward Rothstein, Samuel G. Freedman, Bret Stephens, Richard Baehr, James Bowman, Suzanne Field, Walter Reich, Jonah Goldberg, Mona Charen, Charles Krauthammer, Stefan Kanfer, Judea Pearl (father of the slain Daniel Pearl), George Jonas (author of the book this film was supposedly based on), Alan Dershowitz, and Rachel Neuwirth, to name just a few.
If these are the Luddites Spielberg is talking about, then count us in.
One more thing. In numerous Kushner-Spielberg presentations and the representations by their highly paid Hollywood flacks, no one has tried to make the case that this film is honest. None, absolutely none, have argued that what was portrayed was the truth. That’s because this movie is not a true representation of what happened after Munich. One exchange that stands out as quoted by Rachel Neuwirth: “Spielberg plays fast and loose with history most clearly when he brazenly substitutes his own political voice for Golda Meir’s documented statements. On September 12, 1972, she told the Knesset: ‘We have no choice but to strike at the terrorist organizations wherever we can reach them. That is our obligation-to ourselves and to peace. We shall fulfill that obligation undauntedly.'”
Golda Meir’s unwavering commitment and sense of duty are moral universes away from the equivocating words Spielberg puts in her mouth: ‘..every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate comprises with its own values.’
All the “prayer for piece” equivocations aside, a film that is so dependent on distortion to get its message across is irreparably flawed.

–nrg

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