I was beginning to find your argument about Spielberg’s anachronistic treatment of the Munich killings persuasive, until I came to this:

“And because there is no evil, Spielberg gets the Israeli fighters wrong. Avner is an American image of what an Israeli hero should be. The real Israeli fighters tend to be harder and less sympathetic, and they are made that way by an awareness of the evil implacability of those who want to exterminate them.”

Here you are promulgating the prime fallacy of our age – and for that matter, of every people in every age who have been involved in intractable conflicts – that our brutality is a justifiable response to the crimes of our enemy, while theirs stems from inherent evil. How often have you and like-minded pundits and politicians excoriated anyone who dares to suggest that Islamic terrorism is a response – however unjustified – to injustices suffered by Arabs or Muslims? Why then do attacks against Israel or America justify virtually any response? The logic seems to be, “Because we are the good guys, we have the right to do evil.” Or alternatively, “Because we are the good guys, nothing that we do could possibly be evil.”

Your attempt to distinguish between violence that leads to peace and violence that only leads to more violence is a worthy effort, but it can easily be turned on its head. How simple it is for Islamic militants to argue that their violence – in defense of the rights and dignity of their people, or to achieve a godly world order, or whatever – is justifiable, while violence by American or Israeli occupiers in defense of their imperial interests is not.

Strangely, you seem to be missing the point even as you waltz right past it:

“In Spielberg’s Middle East, there is no Hamas or Islamic Jihad.”

Precisely. Have you considered the possibility that without the increasing brutality of the Israeli occupation beginning with the rise to power of Likud in the late 70s these groups might not exist, just as there would be no Lebanese Hizbullah without the Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon? Perhaps Spielberg’s message is not wrong, just too late.

Best regards,

James Toney

Columbus, OH