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 Hollywood
Surrenders to Terrorists
Lliberal Hollywood propagandaists deny terrorists are threat... America is...
[by Cliff
Kincaid and Roger
Aronoff] 1/25/06
Steven Spielberg
is a gifted and influential filmmaker. His latest creation, Munich,
about the aftermath of the bloody attack on Israeli athletes
at the Munich Olympics in 1972, is superbly crafted, as one
would expect. But that craftsmanship is combined with a confused
and morally ambiguous story, one that reflects an unfortunate
degree of moral relativism when the U.S. and the free world
need a clear understanding of the stakes involved in the war
on terrorism.
The "war
for the free world," as Frank Gaffney accurately calls it,
has intensified in scope as the fanatical Iranian regime continues
its program to develop and possibly use nuclear weapons. Judging
from the message of the Munich movie, Spielberg would
have the world accommodate rather than confront the Iranian
regime.
In real life,
in the years that followed the slaughter of the Israelis, a
large number of Palestinian terrorist operatives were eliminated
by Israeli Mossad agents. As noted by Neil C. Livingstone and
David Halevy in their book, Inside the PLO, the Israeli
operation followed the recognition that "new methods of fighting
back" against terrorists were needed and that Israel needed
to "carry the war to the terrorists." Only by making "the hunters
the hunted," Israeli officials reasoned, could Israel defend
itself.
Yet Time
magazine and many in the mainstream media have seized on Spielberg's
Munich as being a parable for the current U.S.-led war on terror,
and a rebuke to those who believe that violent acts of terrorism
must be met with force. Time, which made this a cover-story
event, calls Munich Spielberg's "boldest feat yet," and
a "masterpiece."
For his part,
Spielberg calls the film a "prayer for peace" and tells Time
that the film is about the human cost of a quagmire. He says
that the biggest enemy isn't the Israelis or the Palestinians,
but rather "intransigence," whatever that means.
Writing in
the liberal New Republic, Leon Wieseltier says the message
of the film is that "terrorists and counterterrorists are alike." He
adds, "This is an opinion that only people who are not responsible
for the safety of other people can hold."
In other
words, it is typical liberal Hollywood propaganda, designed
to convince the public that the real threat to America comes
from the Bush Administration, not the terrorists that it seeks
to capture or kill. Viewed in this context, the film has to
be seen as a direct assault on the Bush Administration for
using every option available in safeguarding the American people
from global Islamic terrorism.
No
Other Option
One of the
key lines of the film is when Israeli Prime Minister Golda
Meir says that "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate
compromises with its own values." It is true that Meir agonized
over the decision to send out teams to eliminate the terrorists.
As Livingstone and Halevy note, she "worried that the decision
to target individual terrorists might be morally corrosive
or somehow antithetical to Israel's liberal traditions." But
faced with a threat to its very existence, Israel had no other
serious option than striking back.
It is apparent
that the movie is not only supposed to be historical but meant
to send a message to Israel, the U.S. and the Bush Administration.
The film's website even says that "the film takes audiences
into a hidden moment in history that resonates with many of
the same emotions in our lives today." Spielberg intends to
convince us that responding to terrorism with military force
is hopeless.
The story
is said to be "inspired by" the events at the Munich Olympics
in 1972, when Black September, one of the most ruthless and
violent Palestinian terrorist organizations, took 11 Israeli
Olympic athletes hostage, before killing all of them. Two were
murdered by the terrorists at the Olympic village and the others
were killed by the terrorists at a German airport, where the
terrorists were expecting to be taken by plane to an Arab country.
On the tarmac, under fire from German policy, terrorists threw
a hand grenade into one helicopter with Israeli hostages and
opened fire on a helicopter with the others.
The bodies
of five dead terrorists, killed by German police, were sent
to Libya, where they were given a hero's funeral. Three surviving
terrorists were sent to jail in Germany but never stood trial.
When a German Lufthansa jet was hijacked seven weeks later
and the hijackers demanded freedom for the three terrorists,
the German government let them go.
The 1999
Academy Award-winning documentary, One Day in September,
examines these events in graphic detail. The film even says
the German government, which refused to permit any Israeli
involvement in a hostage rescue mission, colluded in the plane
hijacking and freedom for the three captured terrorists.
This is the
kind of appeasement policy that Spielberg seems to be advocating
in his film.
Film
Is Criticized
There has
been some excellent reporting on other problems with this film.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that "the movie is based
on a book in which there is no truth." It is based on a book
called Vengeance, by George Jonas, who relied on the
word of Yuval Aviv, said to be the inspiration for Avner, the
leader of an Israeli assassination squad. Aviv claimed to have
been a Mossad agent who parted ways with Israel over their
tactics used to seek justice. By most accounts, however, this
is not true. In fact Aviv's only security experience was working
as a guard, or screener, for El Al, the Israeli airline.
There are
other problems with the film. Contrary to its implication,
Israel didn't send one team to track down everyone. Rather,
it had its agents looking out for the people on their hit list.
When one was located, a team was dispatched.
Time includes
a shameless plug for an upcoming book called Striking Back,
by Time reporter Aaron Klein, who claims that the Israeli counterattack
was ineffective. He insists that the Israelis "had to settle
for smaller targets, killing activists who for the most part
had nothing to do with the Munich massacre and leaving alive,
to this day, some who were involved." It's true that Israel
didn't get all of the top terrorists. But this is really an
argument for a more effective counter-terrorist strategy.
According
to the best information, Israel killed some-where between 18
and 20 terrorists over a 20- year period, ending the pursuit
at the time the so-called Oslo peace process began in the early
1990's. In one case, an Israeli squad killed an innocent man,
an Arab mistaken for a terrorist operative.
Tony Kushner,
the award-winning playwright chosen by Spielberg to write the
film, has a long record of hostility towards Israel, though
both are Jewish. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kushner
has called the creation of the state of Israel "a historical,
moral, political calamity" for the Jewish people. He said that
Israel has engaged in "a systematic attempt to destroy the
identity of the Palestinian people." And he has called Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, recently incapacitated by a stroke,
an "unindicted war criminal."
Blaming
Israel
In the Time
magazine story, 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...There's
been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that
region. Where does it end? How can it end?"
Spielberg
chooses to ignore the fact that Israel, because of its aggressive
policy against terrorism, has reduced the number of terrorist
attacks by up to 90 percent, through targeted assassinations,
heightened intelligence, and a security fence designed to keep
the terrorists out.
The real
problem with the film is the moral equivalence, as Spielberg
talks about "intransigence" and complains about "response to
a response," as if Israel is at fault for trying to defend
itself. What he seems to forget is that Israel is fighting
for its very existence against an Arab/Muslim bloc of nations
that still preaches hatred and destruction of Jews and Israelis.
Roger Ebert,
who gave the film a big thumbs up, says about Spielberg's approach: "By
not taking sides, he has taken both sides." But how can that
be morally correct or defensible?
It is certainly
true that Israel has made mistakes. And Israeli policy across
the board cannot be defended. But the country is still a democracy,
while the Arab/Muslim countries that surround it are not.
Enemy
Has No Regrets
The nature
of the enemy can be seen in the report by The Times of London
that Mohammad Daoud, who led Black September, says he still
doesn't regret the athletes' deaths. They were soldiers, as
he viewed it. The article referred to his 1999 book, Palestine:
From Jerusalem to Munich in which Daoud, who now lives
in Syria, "claimed that [PLO chief Yasir] Arafat, who professed
no prior knowledge of the Munich operation, had been fully
briefed beforehand and had given the mission his blessing."
The word "Munich" has
long been synonymous with the appeasement that pushed Hitler
into more aggressive actions leading up to World War II. Now
Steven Spielberg is giving it a new meaning: that if we reason
with the terrorists or give them what they want, they won't
blow up innocent women and children.
Should the
U.S. have gone after al Qaeda after 9/11? In Spielberg's mind,
retaliation is inherently more counterproductive than it is
necessary. His "solution" apparently is appeasement—the same
policy that encouraged Hitler's global aggression. He seems
to be opposed not only to invading Iraq but Afghanistan, where
al Qaeda was based, as well.
As for Israel
and the Palestinians, the real answer is for the other Arab
states to help the Palestinian people achieve a better life
and not blame Israel for all of the problems in the region.
Israel has eagerly embraced peace when given the chance to
do so by Egypt and Jordan. The reason Israel still controls
the areas where some of the Palestinians live is for security
reasons, certainly not a desire to control these people. Israel
does not want to occupy the Palestinian territories. It is
clear that, if the Palestinians would only lay down their arms,
and end their culture of hatred for the Jews, Israel would
reward them with aid, technology, and a state of their own.
Spielberg
has created a film that the Left is trying to use to make the
argument that our current war on terrorism is a "quagmire," that
Bush has been "intransigent" and abusing his power, and that
we are "compromising our values" by pursuing the enemy with
every available option. When Spielberg made Schindler's
List, about saving Jews from Hitler's regime, there was
no moral equivalence between good and evil. There shouldn't
have been in this film either.
MORE
MEDIA "MISSTEPS" AND MISDEEDS
USA Today's
headline called it a "media misstep." Many papers reported
that the West Virginia miners were alive when all but one was
dead. But the January 5 story by Mark Memmott under the headline
was more accurate, calling it a "collective failure" by the
media. Quite simply, many in the media were caught reporting
something that just wasn't true.
It harkens
back to the case of Mitch Albom, the popular sportswriter
and author of Tuesdays with Morrie, who wrote about
a couple of basketball players who had told him that they were
planning to attend the NCAA Final Four semifinal game last
year, wearing their Michigan State green colors. Albom submitted
the story on Friday, writing as if the game on Saturday had
already occurred. In the meantime, however, the two players
changed their plans and didn't attend the game, thus exposing
Albom's story and a dirty little secret of journalism.
As USA
Today's Peter Johnson put it at the time, "Researching
and putting together stories before an event takes place
is not unusual in daily journalism. Predicting what's going
to happen saves time on deadline, although editors and reporters
are expected to confirm the facts."
Making
Up "Facts"
Where USA
Today crossed a line in the mine tragedy story was in
writing that "The men were taken by ambulances to a nearby
hospital for examination. There was no word on the miners'
condition." And the writer of that story, Tom Vanden Brook,
also had a feature story on page three, which said, "The
survivors were taken by ambulance to a local hospital for
examination." The problem is that none of this ever happened.
Vanden Brook anticipated that it would have happened by the
time people had read it. That was bad journalism. But
this story isn't the only recent example of where the media
have failed the public.
Remember
the false News-week Koran-in-the-toilet story? Now the magazine
has been forced to eat crow again—in another story involving
a toilet, or what was thought to be a toilet.
The magazine's
January 9, 2006, issue published a correction about referring
to Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham accepting a "chamber
pot" or toilet. It turns out that the "19th-century Louis Philippe
commode" that Cunningham accepted among his illegal gifts was
not a "commode" in the sense of a toilet. The Louis Philippe
Commode was actually a chest of drawers.
In another
embarrassment, the Sacramento Bee on December 27 reported that
a University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, student doing a research
paper for a history class had been visited by agents of the
Department of Homeland Security. The student had reportedly
requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's "Little Red Book" through
interlibrary loan for a paper on communism. The agents told
him that because the book was on a "watch list" and because
the student had spent time abroad, they wanted to talk to him.
Was this the result of the Bush-authorized NSA spying program?
No, it was a complete hoax—and it was exposed as a hoax before
the Bee wrote it up.
In fact,
Boston Globe reporter Jonathan Salzman said that the story,
first reported by the New Bedford Standard-Times, "was
picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on
left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed
piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe." Kennedy
had "cited it as the latest example of the Bush administration's
intrusion on civil liberties," the Globe said.
One problem,
the paper noted, is that the Department of Homeland Security
does not have its own "agents." Brian Glyn Williams, an associate
professor of Islamic history, had provided the story from the
student to the New Bedford Standard-Times.
Ehrlich
Has Last Laugh
In Maryland,
a prominent critic of Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich has been
forced to resign after pleading guilty, in effect, to plagiarism.
Columnist Michael Olesker, who was a darling of the liberals
for his vicious attacks on Ehrlich, had been using material
for his columns from stories in the Washington Post and New
York Times and even his own paper, the Baltimore Sun, without
attribution or credit being given. "I made mistakes" is what
he told his own paper in a story about his resignation.
Ehrlich had
been so disgusted by Olesker's journalistic antics that he
had banned state officials from talking to him and another
journalist from the Sun. The paper had sued over the ban.
It turned
out to be a case involving far more than a few "mistakes." And
Olesker's editors at the Baltimore Sun have egg all over their
faces for having stood behind him when the first evidence of
his plagiarism surfaced.
On December
24, the Sun had run a correction about one of Olesker's columns,
saying similarity in wording between his column and a story
from the Washington Post had resulted from Olesker simply being
confused about what was written in his notes. Sun City Editor
Howard Libit gave Olesker the benefit of the doubt, insisting
that "these kinds of things" had not come up before when reviewing
his work. It turned out that Libit and other Sun editors had
not been looking hard enough.
The first
case of "borrowing" material, in what the Washington Post labeled
an "attribution issue" rather than plagiarism, was uncovered
by Kevin Dayhoff in an article for thetentacle.com, a website
serving Frederick County, Maryland. When additional cases were
uncovered by Gail Dechter of the Baltimore City Paper, Olesker
was forced to quit the paper.
Illegal
Leak
In a more
serious matter, the Justice Department has launched an investigation
into how the New York Times illegally obtained classified
information about the NSA spying program on al-Qaeda operations
on U.S. soil. Questions still persist about the timing of the
publication of the story. The paper held it for a year. Was
it timed to boost sales of a book by the Times reporter, James
Risen, who co-authored the story? New York Times Public Editor
Byron Calame calls the paper's explanations of its delay in
publishing the NSA story "woefully inadequate" and admits that
he has had "unusual difficulty" getting answers. Risen has
made numerous media appearances to promote sales of his book
but won't talk about why his story was delayed.
NPR
Gaffe
Over at National
Public Radio (NPR), ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin wrote a year-end
column about examples of "questioned and questionable journalism." Ironically,
he then proceeded to commit a journalistic gaffe of his own,
casting his own credibility in doubt.
Discussing
the George Clooney movie, Good Night and Good Luck,
about CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, Dvorkin said that Murrow "fought
for high standards and fearless reporting even in the face
of political and economic pressures that worked to tame and
intimidate journalists and their news organizations."
In fact,
as Wes Vernon noted in our last AIM Report, Murrow had a vendetta
against anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy because one
of Murrow's close friends had been questioned about his communist
ties and committed suicide. That friend, Laurence Duggan, turned
out to be a Soviet spy in the State Department.
Dvorkin's
column on Murrow demonstrates how a myth about a journalistic
icon can be accepted without examining the facts of the case.
This is not a good trait in an ombudsman—or a journalist.
What
You Can Do
Send thesse
linked cards or cards and letters of your own choosing to James
Risen of the New York Times, Oprah
Winfrey, and Steven
Spielberg. -one-
copyright
2006 Accuracy in Media
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