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"Spielberg’s movie bears little resemblance to the piece of mushy leftist agitprop its critics describe. It does not suggest that terrorists and counterterrorists are morally equivalent…many of those [Israelis] in Munich are, if anything, slightly unbelievable in their constant self-interrogation and closely guarded humanism…‘Munich’ is about… vengeance and violence…necessary, justified violence…It’s about the struggle to maintain some bedrock morality while engaging in immorality.
"Spielberg goes out of his way to be generous to Israel…The Munich massacre is but a prelude to the film, which follows a five-man assassination team led by Avner Kauffman (Eric Bana) as they track down and systematically kill a list of Palestinians provided by the Israeli government. The squad is scrupulous about protecting innocents – more scrupulous than their real-life counterparts who, in a notorious 1973 case of mistaken identity, killed an innocent Moroccan immigrant in Norway, an incident left out of ‘Munich’…
“The characters’ deep ambivalence about the revenge killings they commit is actually profoundly flattering to Israel…There’s never a moment or hint that the Palestinians didn’t start it by doing something awful. …I would guess that many Palestinians would find the movie unbearably self-congratulatory – its central concern, after all, is the effect of retaliatory Jewish violence on the Jewish soul, not on the Palestinian flesh…”
David Brooks of the New York Times "informed us that a film about targeted assassination is a ‘misleading way to start a larger discussion,’ because the tactic was one that Israel soon left behind.’ In 1972, Israel was just entering the era of spectacular terror attacks and didn’t know how to respond. But over the years Israelis have learned that targeted assassinations, which are the main subject of this movie, are one of the less effective ways to fight terror.’ Israel, he continued, ‘much prefers to arrest suspected terrorists. Arrests don’t set off rounds of retaliation, and arrested suspects are likely to provide you with intelligence, the real key to defanging terror groups.’
“As with so much Brooks writes, it’s hard to tell whether he’s being intentionally or accidentally misleading. Leave aside, for a moment, Israel’s many assassinations of Palestinian militants in the occupied territories in recent years, including that of Hamas leader Sheik Yassin in March 2004. As Aaron Klein – a captain in Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence – reports in his new book, Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response, the hit squads targeting the Munich plotters, far from being an immediate and short-lived response to that horror, continued operating for two decades. They killed Atef Bseiso, the last man on their list, in Paris in 1992…”
Full Article:
revisionisthistory.org/steinsaltz.html
"Spielberg goes out of his way to be generous to Israel…The Munich massacre is but a prelude to the film, which follows a five-man assassination team led by Avner Kauffman (Eric Bana) as they track down and systematically kill a list of Palestinians provided by the Israeli government. The squad is scrupulous about protecting innocents – more scrupulous than their real-life counterparts who, in a notorious 1973 case of mistaken identity, killed an innocent Moroccan immigrant in Norway, an incident left out of ‘Munich’…
“The characters’ deep ambivalence about the revenge killings they commit is actually profoundly flattering to Israel…There’s never a moment or hint that the Palestinians didn’t start it by doing something awful. …I would guess that many Palestinians would find the movie unbearably self-congratulatory – its central concern, after all, is the effect of retaliatory Jewish violence on the Jewish soul, not on the Palestinian flesh…”
David Brooks of the New York Times "informed us that a film about targeted assassination is a ‘misleading way to start a larger discussion,’ because the tactic was one that Israel soon left behind.’ In 1972, Israel was just entering the era of spectacular terror attacks and didn’t know how to respond. But over the years Israelis have learned that targeted assassinations, which are the main subject of this movie, are one of the less effective ways to fight terror.’ Israel, he continued, ‘much prefers to arrest suspected terrorists. Arrests don’t set off rounds of retaliation, and arrested suspects are likely to provide you with intelligence, the real key to defanging terror groups.’
“As with so much Brooks writes, it’s hard to tell whether he’s being intentionally or accidentally misleading. Leave aside, for a moment, Israel’s many assassinations of Palestinian militants in the occupied territories in recent years, including that of Hamas leader Sheik Yassin in March 2004. As Aaron Klein – a captain in Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence – reports in his new book, Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response, the hit squads targeting the Munich plotters, far from being an immediate and short-lived response to that horror, continued operating for two decades. They killed Atef Bseiso, the last man on their list, in Paris in 1992…”
Full Article:
revisionisthistory.org/steinsaltz.html