If the potential for a distorted view of the history of the first century was so great in “The Passion,” why is the ADL so disinterested in a slanted view of the events of the last 35 years?
Shouldn’t the fact that the movie portrays Arab attacks on Jewish targets as being merely a response to Israel counter-terror operations – the horrendously
misleading cliché about a “cycle of violence” – restrained this leader’s praise?
Arab terror directed at Israeli and Jewish targets predated the Munich atrocity and, contrary to the film, subsequent attacks were not predicated on Israel’s counterattacks. Palestinian terrorism continues whether Israel is making peace or making war – or whether it’s undecided about what it should do.
That’s why an insistence on the truth ought not be treated as a minor detail to be dismissed. So rather than watch Spielberg’s fable of moral equivalence, the public would be far better off reading a new book that tells the real story of the response to the Munich tragedy.
Aaron J. Klein’s Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response is a dispassionate account of the security blunders that allowed the crime to succeed, as well as the subsequent efforts to hold the Palestinians accountable for their deeds.
Klein’s book is a powerful antidote to the fraudulent Vengeance by George Jonas, which Spielberg used as his primary source. Klein, an Israeli who works as a reporter for Time magazine, interviewed the actual participants in the Mossad’s counterattack, something Spielberg didn’t bother to do. And unlike the protagonist of the film, the Mossadniks admit to no misgivings about their efforts to track down key figures in the hierarchy of Palestinian terror.
But that story, while riveting, doesn’t tell the story that Spielberg want us to hear. The real problem here is that “Munich” is not the work of a wacky extremist like Mel Gibson or even a talented conspiracy maven like Oliver Stone. It is a movie made by a man who has been lionized by the Jewish community for an award-winning film about the Holocaust.
Seen in that perspective, maybe taking on Gibson and “The Passion” as Foxman did wasn’t as daring as it seemed at the time. Maybe the real test of institutional courage comes when the director of “Schindler’s List” puts forward an offensive film – not when it’s done by an easy mark for the organized Jewish world.
With major Israel and American Jewish personalities on Spielberg’s payroll, it would take guts for a group to challenge this film. But that’s a test the ADL has failed in this case.
When all is said and done, like “The Passion,” “Munich” is just a movie, and even if it wins some Oscars, it will be gone soon enough from theaters. But if the defenders of the Jewish community and Israel have understood anything in the past, it’s that a defeat in the world of ideas and popular culture can be as dangerous as one on the battlefield.
It’s just too bad that some of our leaders were unprepared to fight when the battle didn’t look like an easy one.
