Letters to the Editor
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Can I get a bathroom pass?
Started reading your piece and right out of the gate I had to say, "Whah??" What the hell is "fuzzy-headed liberal naiveté?" I feel like I'm in an 8th grade debate class when you guys talk like that. Please use your grown up voice when writing. I know it sounds cute and gives off the sense of you being in the know about those "moral relativist" liberals but it doesn't say anything really.
"What are you talking about?" is what I want to ask when I read something like that. Was it that liberals kept insisting that there were no weapons of mass destruction? That the occupation was creating a violent, terrorist breeding mess and the armed forces needed to be withdrawn immediately? Maybe it was when liberals were sounding the alarm about the patriot act and warned of potential abuses (spying, guantanamo, etc)? What????
Maybe you writers and editors pat each other on the back for your risk-taking-in-your-face phrasing but if you don't back it up with information and facts it's just hollow. Or worse, 8th grade sounding.
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Norway was a different team than Avner's
According to the book the movie was based on, George Jonas's Vengeance, the hit squad that killed the waiter in Norway was a different one than the one portrayed in Munich.
I was a little surprised to see a movie based off of Vengeance. Jonas' research into the mechanics of each hit operation is thorough, but there were a few things said by "Avner" that I couldn't believe. Apparently, one of the team's most valuable sources was a shadowy information-brokerage group that had done business with the Palestinians before, and after the first couple of hits, they had no problem giving up the locations of more of their (presumably profitable) customers for free. Avner's story of his falling out with the Mossad also sounded sensationalized-- you'd think a spy agency would appreciate the value of a little finesse over heavy-handed threats. Unfortunately, assertions like these are difficulte to corroborate even when true.
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Yes I read the review
Here are some relevant quotes:
"'Munich' is about the way vengeance and violence -- even necessary, justified violence -- corrupt both their victims and their perpetrators. It's about the struggle to maintain some bedrock morality while engaging in immorality....his film...does mourn the way Israel has compromised its values in the fight against terrorism, while leaving open the question of whether the compromises were worth it. 'Some people say we can't afford to be civilized,' says Golda Meir (played by Lynn Cohen) early in the film, after the murder of the Israeli athletes. 'I've always resisted such people. Today I'm hearing with new ears.' Meir makes a conscious decision to cross a moral line. 'Munich' is about the implications of that choice, and its unintended consequences.'"
Hmm. Goldberg right here falls into the Manichean view -- "innocent and pure" Israeli "victims" needing to make some "hard moral choices" about "necessary, justified violence." Never mind that Jewish nationalists began murdering innocent Palestinians way back when. I mention Qibiya - that was in 1953! And Qibiya is rather late in the story. The Jewish and Arab nationalists crossed the moral line from the beginning of the conflict. The original sin is nationalism in my view, but that is a far more complex discussion. And never mind the fact that most security experts, even in Israel, agree that Israel's policy of revenge assassinations, far from being "necessary, justified violence" was and is horrifically stupid policy (e.g. read the interview with the 5 former heads of the Israeli Shin Bet from two years ago).
One can't expect historical accuracy from films like "Munich" and I don't criticize Spielberg for making an ahistorical movie. This is entertainment not a documentary. But Goldberg's article is about the neo-cons take on the movie, not a review of the movie's artistic merits. In that context, to state as fact that the Munich massacre is when Zionism crossed a moral line is ahistorical bullshit. And to quote a fictional Golda Meir to justify that "fact" is truly sad.
"The characters' deep ambivalence about the revenge killings they commit is actually profoundly flattering to Israel. It is impossible to imagine such doubt, and such an ardent desire to adhere to a higher standard than that of one's enemies, among the film's terrorists."
This is the flip side of the Manichean view. If Jewish Israelis are "good" then Palestinean Arabs are "evil" without any moral conflicts or ambivalence about the path they have taken (cf. "Paradise Now" which I would argue with JJGoldberg is far closer to the "Israeli head" than Spielberg's puff piece) Again, I'm not criticizing the film. I am criticizing Goldberg for taking the moral universe of the neo-cons as the reality of the conflict, and then arguing with them at the boundaries of that moral universe. By the way, the vast majority of Jewish Israelis (excluding the religious settler faction), even if they strongly disagree with my political stance, would agree that "Israelis good Palestineans bad" is a ridiculously simplistic view of the universe.
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No..
Goldberg right here falls into the Manichean view
Goldberg is describing the movie's view. She's not falling into anything. She's countering what she perceives as an inaccurate attack on the film's sensibilities by describing them, not defending or advocating them.
Yes, of course I got sucked back into this nonsense.
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Trying to Calm My Fearful Mind...
Read "Calming the Fearful Mind : A Zen Response to Terrorism," by Thich Nhat Hanh. He's the only one making any sense whatsoever in this insanity.
He says:
"When we react out of fear and hatred, we do not yet have a deep understanding of the situation. Our action will only be a very quick and superficial way of responding to the situation and not much true benefit and healing will occur. Yet if we wait and follow the process of calming our anger, looking deeply into the situation, and listening with great will to understand the roots of suffering that are the cause of the violent actions, only then will we have sufficient insight to respond in such a way that healing and reconciliation can be realized for everyone involved."
I'm trying very hard to be Zen about all of it... but I'm FAR more terrorized and afraid of King George and his cronies than I ever was of Osama Bin Laden. My fearful mind refuses to be calmed when every day brings more news about our own home-grown and elected "terrorists..."
-- One Disgusted Washingtonian