Munich: Spielberg Proves His Worth – Weighed in the Balances and Found Wanting

Munich:  Spielberg Proves His Worth – Weighed in the Balance and Found Wanting

I will confess for starters that I am not much of one to watch movies – no, not even the porn movies that seem to be so popular these days.  Okay.  I watch a movie now and then:  But if I never see another movie, it will be just fine with me.

In sum, I am rather poorly positioned to pose as a movie critic.   Thus, I will rely on the views of a movie critic whom I much admire – Jack Cashill – to set forth the egregious flaws in Spielberg’s recent disaster, Munich.   (Cashill’s column is wryly entitled, “Brokeback Munich.”)

Spielberg – who has been almost universally lauded for his work on Schindler’s List (a film I own, but have yet to view) – has, in Cashill’s view, missed the mark when it comes to portraying the ongoing battle against Islamofascism on the part of Israel.

In an apparent bid to be politically correct (and, possibly, to make more money?), Spielberg frames the Israelis and their Palestinian foes as moral equals.  Even worse, Spielberg goes out of his way to make the Palestinians to appear “human.”  This is something, as Cashill points out, that Spielberg apparently (and, rightly) never felt necessary in his treatment of the Nazis in Schindler’s List.

Most telling of all, Cashill points out that – in his preparation for Munich – Spielberg curiously placed his script in the hands of one Tony Kushner, whose character and work Cashill paints as follows:

. . . a hard-core leftist, homosexual activist, self-hating Jew, and avowed enemy of Israel. Kushner's wildly over-esteemed AIDS play, "Angels in America," poked a nasty little thumb in America's eye. In "Munich," although he takes a few cheap shots at America, his obvious target is Israel – "a historical, moral, political calamity," as he has claimed elsewhere.

So, there you have it:  Two “critically-acclaimed” US Hollywood Jews have collaborated to make Israel look bad and the Palestinian terrorists look human.  Seems like these days Israel cannot even look to liberal American Jews for moral support in her struggle against those sworn to destroy her.

To paraphrase a biblical phrase, “Can anything good come out of Hollywood (anymore)?”

Or:  To paraphrase another biblical phrase: Spielberg has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.