Gibson...Now Spielberg?

If Mel Gibson's upcoming movie "Flory" about the Holocaust is not raising concerns in the Jewish community, then Steven Spielberg's movie Munich--about Israel's attempt to avenge the murder of Israeli's at the 1972 Munich Olympics--is picking up the slack.

There seem to be a number of concerns.

One of the issues seems to be the background used for the movie. According to Warren Bell at The Corner:

Meanwhile, according to this article from Haaretz [no longer available online] the film is based in part on a book which has been seriously discredited. The book "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team," by Canadian journalist George Jonas, is "strewn with mistakes" to start with, but more importantly, it relies heavily on a very shady source named Yuval Aviv, a man who among other things seems to falsely claim to have been a Mossad agent. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that Aviv was exposed in 1989, giving Spielberg and his team no excuse for basing any part of his story on him or the book.

It's not clear what kind of mistakes are at issue, but Debbie Schlussel claims that

Jonas admits he has only one "source" for most of the information in his book and that many of the incidents could not be verified. Many of his "facts" were refuted by testimony in a Norwegian trial of Mossad agents who accidentally killed a Moroccan waiter, there, and were caught. Spielberg has not contacted anyone in the Mossad, the Israeli government, or the agents who were involved in the operation, some of whom discredited Jonas' book.

It still is not clear just how many 'facts' were refuted and what they were. Besides, even if Jonas only used one source, that does not mean that Spielberg did as well. Cliff Vaughn at EthicsDaily.com writes:

Spielberg and company have stressed that Vengeance is just one source of several that the script relies on.

"While people think this is based on 'Vengeance,' I'm telling you that there were also memoirs from involved parties from both sides," said Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy, according to the Variety article. "They did tremendous research on this."

A July 5 press release from Levy’s DreamWorks office said “the narrative is based on a number of sources, including the recollections of some who participated in the events themselves.”

No other sources have been publicly named.

Another issue raised is the screenwriter, Tony Kushner. In a review for The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier writes:

The film has no place in its heart for Israel. I do not mean that it wishes Israel ill; not at all. But it cannot imagine any reason for Israel beyond the harshness of the world to the Jews...Zionism, in this film, is just anti-anti-Semitism. The necessity of the Jewish state is acknowledged, but necessity is a very weak form of legitimacy.

All this is consistent with Tony Kushner's view that Zionism, as he told Ori Nir of Haaretz last year, was "not the right answer," and that the creation of Israel was "a mistake," and that "establishing a state means f___ing people over."...No, Kushner is not an anti-Semite, nor a self-hating Jew...

A better idea of where Kushner is coming from and how he feels about Israel is in the actual interview itself in Haaretz:

"Look, Israel exists and it should continue to exist. I have never,
anywhere, said - neither has any of the contributors to the anthology
that I have just co-edited - that the State of Israel should be
destroyed or abolished or outlawed. I certainly don't believe that.
That is not to say that I think that tying the fate of the Jewish
people and the history of the Jewish people to nationalism and British
colonialism and Western imperialism was a good move. But it happened.
It was probably inevitable, an inevitable consequence of European
anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. And consequently Israel is there and
will continue to be there and must be protected and I have always said
that and written that. My opposition to the Sharon government is that
its policies are killing a lot of Israelis - Jewish Israelis."

A last issue is what Spielberg's goal is--or should be.

Captain's Quarters thinks that Spielberg may be

Spielberg doesn't intend on passing judgment merely on Israel for going after the terrorists that targeted its civilians. If these reports are accurate, he intends on passing judgment on America for going after the terrorists that targeted our civilians on 9/11. Spielberg has long opposed the Iraq War and the Bush administration for its efforts to eliminate the threat of Islamofascist terror and tyranny.

Make no mistake -- if Ross and Craig are correct, then Spielberg wants to use the murders of eleven Israeli athletes to issue an anti-Bush polemic. The film will be used as an argument for inaction and introspection instead of fighting the bloodthirsty lunatics that deliberately target and kill civilians. It will provide the ultimate in moral-relativist thinking and terrorist apologetics.

Soccer Dad, on the other hand, has advice of what should be in the movie:

The success of the movie from my standpoint will be based on how much background Spielberg uses. He should use the hardhitting journalism of Sports Illustrated:

Though he didn't know what the money was being spent for, longtime Fatah official Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen could not be reached for comment regarding Abu Daoud's allegation. After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it." Today the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

If Spielberg is unwilling to shine a light on Abu Mazen's role the movie will be a waste.

With so many expectations--most apparently negative--the Jewish community might be too busy to worry about Gibson's movie.

Yeah, right.

Update:

The NY Sun has an article on Spielberg and his movie. On the question of Israel defending itself, Spielberg made the following statement:

In the Time magazine cover story, Mr. Spielberg is quoted as saying, "I'm always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it's threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine."

He muses, "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end? How can it end?"

Quagmire? Beware the 'Q' word.

See also Spielberg's Toughest Critic

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