And? so? Murder is murder, Death is death and killing is killing. So some people are not happy because they want to be able to kill and still feel righteous about it. Sorry folks God says "Don't kill". He doesn't say "Don't kill this people or that people only". Murder is murder and pretty words doesn't change that fact or make somebody rise from the grave. If you kill you are as good as they are.

Sorry folks God says "Don't kill". He doesn't say "Don't kill this people or that people only".

"Sorry folks God says "Don't kill". He doesn't say "Don't kill this people or that people only"."

Thy shall not murder, there is a distinction between killing in capital punishment and murder. What the terrorist did was murder. The Israelites brought about the capital punishment for the murderer.

I haven't seen the movie yet so I am not going to comment on it.

One thing to remember though is that Israel outlawed the death penalty. Yet, the same government sends its agents to kill people (Palestinians) without even a trial.

If they could locate the suspects, one wonders why couldn't the Israeli government work with the host countries in order to have them arrested?

One of the victims of these extra-judicial assassinations was the brother of the Gypsy Kings founder Chico Bouchikhi.

It is the famous music band that I am talking about.

On July 21 1973, a team of Israeli hitmen shot dead a Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchikhi, as he walked home from the cinema with his pregnant wife in the resort, 110 miles north of Oslo.

Ahmed is the brother of Chico. The Gypsy Kings has for decades boycotted Israel because the Israeli government refused to even apologize or admit to its crime against this innocent man.

This is the kind of news that you never read on mainstream US media.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,193475,00.html

I am not sure if the movie featured the case of Bouchikhi.

The reviews in Europe were not all positive. Mr. Morley seems to have omitted quoting Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian who calls the movie "swathed in a very middlebrow and self-importantly long thriller"

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I plan to do so. However, I do have to say that Robert Fisk's endorsement of it gives me some pause. Also, I'm wary of the moral relativism and directorial license that Mr. Speilberg has reportedly brought to the story. For example, I've herad that, in reality, Israel used several teams (not one) to hunt the Munich perpetrators and that their training and methodology weren't exactly conducive to deep soul-searching throughout as to whether the retaliation was right or wrong.

Anyone who equates the Palestinians' kidnapping and murder of the Israeli athletes with Israel's subsequent killing of those very Palestinian murderers (and their accomplices) has no moral compass.

As to the Gypsy King's brother, mistakes were made that should not have been made. But there's a difference between killing someone for their religion or ethnicity in order to get publicity for your "cause" (what "Black September" did) and killing someone (what Israel allegedly did) who you mistakenly/negligently believed was the ringleader of the Munich terrorism.

Jeremy - WHAT is the difference - innocent people were murdered in BOTH cases. Gee, I'm sorry, I made a mistake but I was trying to do the right thing? That's not defensible by any stretch of the imagination. There is no difference - each party (Black September or Israeli assasin squads) has arrogantly assumed that their cause matters more than a human life. Ever here that little nugget about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?

wow, its amazing that this is the public consensus of the israeli response to the black september attack!!!

i'm incredulous that only one person thinks that Israel has not only the right, but the responsibility to defend its citizens!

they were not even soldiers, they were athletes at the OLYMPIC GAMES, not committing the sins that get jews in israel killed (like eating pizza at a restaurant, taking a bus to work, watching a movie, and other clearly military targets)

now that hamas has won control of the PA, its not going to get any better, and the israeli decision a while ago to build the fence seems very prescient

It would have been better to bring those responsible for one of the worst terrorism acts of all time to justice before a free and fair court, but that wasn't possible. Anyone that attacks people taking part in scared symbol of peace like the Olympic has removed themselves from humanity. Any group that continues to endorse the Munich Attack's should never be negoiated with beyond the point of if you give up your hostages we will give you a fair trail for your crimes. Anyone that aids, supports or even negoiates with such a group has betrayed mankind.

Spielberg has made a complex film about a complicated and emotional topic and he should get a medal for it. He is the greatest master in the history of cinema and, true to his art, he made a movie which examined all aspects of a human trauma. I feel sorry for those who didn't understand it, but not for some of his harsher critics, who remind me of George Bush's simplistic "You're either with us or agin us" philosophy.

Moral ambivalence seems to be the norm for some here. Killing is wrong regardless of the circumtances. When people decide to take the path of war, unfortunately, they cannot control who gets killed and how war is going to be conducted.
I think that Spielberg does not trivialize the horrible assasination of the Munich athletes, but humanizes both sides of the conflict. Israeli agents cannot be seen as killing machines and the Pelestinian militants cannot be seen as bloodthirsty extremists. The film takes this conflict beyond the rhetoric and shows that the conflict is about humans vs. humans, and not about abstract terms such as "good vs. evil." Regardless of what fundamentalists on both sides would like us to believe, violence will not solve the conflict.

Does everyone know that the film is "inspired by true events", meaning fiction? It starts with the reality of the Munich massacre and then becomes fiction. I did not know this until I read a few reviews, after which I decided not to see a movie that seems to depict reality be in reality presents fiction.

Here is what one review says:
"Munich, which is based on George Jonas' book Vengeance, claims to have been "inspired" by true events, which places it into the category of fiction. Key events occurred, but all of the character interaction is made up."

So be careful if you are using the movie as a telescope back into history. I really hate it when Hollywood mixes reality and fiction. It blurs the truth for everyone. Stick to the historians view of what happened, not Hollywood's.

FromMacondo:

I appreciate your point about about "moral ambivalence', but what about the problem or "moral equivalency"?

While I agree that "good versus evil" is most often too simplistic, isn't it true that certain actions, particularly those taken by the Israeli teams who iced the Munich assasins, is somewhat more justifiable than the pointless murder of athletes, or say, a few thousand people working in a pair of office buildings?

Also, it seems as if Israel's retaliation served an additional purpose - to prevent the Munich assasins from repeating their actions. If European authorities at the time were inclined to issue arrest warrants at the request of Israel and prosecute them to the fullest extent, then perhaps Israel could have chosen another course. However, at the time, the Europeans didn't seem so inclined to do so.

FYI, the movie does explicitly mention that the team we see is only one of many teams.

As Grade 9 Kid -- really? -- noted, the proper translation of Exodus 20:13 is "Thou Shalt Not Murder". It's one of the things the editors of the KJV got wrong. (That section is full of crimes for which the penalty is death.)

The movie was great movie-making but didn't seem to take its historical context far enough into its consideration. Whatever else is true, the connection of the team's actions to the murders by Black September is, at best, tenuously within the minds of the team members. Instead of executioners, they are portrayed as hunters.

We in the USA know how Germany treats their terrorist prisoners that are captured and convicted fairly. Mohammed Ali Hamadi convicted of killing a US Navy diver and sentenced to life in prison just got "paroled" after 19 years.

Something is obviously lost in the translation of "parole", because Germany's idea of "parole" is to let the felon go free into Beriut without any supervision whatsoever.

Don't trust the weak-willed Europeans to do anything that requires a modicum of intestinal fortitude.

With comments like that and then you wonder why Hamas won? It would have been a miracle if they hadn't won. Like a german woman just told on CNN Europe crisis report she would vote for Hitler if he dilvers germany from what she considers curent economic crisis and she doesn't give a damn about jews. We have our problems and Jews should not expect more sympathy from the world than the palestinians. They are not special in anyway and should carry the consequences of their actions. The Holocost is not a "do whatevet you want for free" card.

I see the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd is out in force again on this one. Interesting: for them, it's 'terrorism' when Palestinians murder Israeli civilians, but 'just punishment' when Israelis murder Palestinian civilians. Amazing how these guys are able to maintain such double standards

I saw Munich and I felt that it was a brilliant movie.

I take offense with the comment that Spielberg has no moral compass. In the movie, he sets out to show the complexities of Isreali-Palestinian relations. What is wrong with humanizing the Palestinian murderers? They are human. Without understanding the forces that are creating terrorists, how can we attempt to stop it? This is a point that is clearly made in the movie. The protagonists explains how everytime they killed one of the murderers, two, three others pop up to take their position. This cycle of hate and death will not be broken unless we try to address the root causes and you cannot possibly do that unless you stop dehumanizing them.

The movie actually does state that there were several teams sent into Europe to accomplish the job.

I completely agree with one of the critic's characterization of Spielberg's evolution. I think this movie reflects the vast majority of Isrealis who are tired of the violence and death and who are increasingly feeling that they are turning their back on their Jewish faith and identity by giving into hate.

And the beauty of the movie is that he never takes away from the horror of the massacre itself. He reminds us of that wrong at every turn. But he does explore the morality of the Isreali government's action in response to it.

It was a brilliant movie.

"Thy shall not murder" That's a modern translation. It is in fact "Thou shalt not kill".

But the point of this movie isn't that what the Mossad did was wrong, but that there are human costs in everything you do. Killing, even justifiable killing takes a toll on the people asked to do it. What's wrong with showing that?

Steve:

I sincerely appreciate your comment.
However, I think that moral equivalence is "too relative" of a concept. It depends too much on the eye of the beholder. It is unsettling, though, that for many what is right and wrong, or morally permisive, is based simply on the Old Testament or the Koran. Religions, in my opinion, should contribute towards individual spiritual development, but not to dictate foreign policy or justify extremism.

"Don't trust the weak-willed [Europeans] to do anything that requires a modicum of "intestinal fortitude.""

I believe the "terrorists" you are against Mike preach a similar message. "Intestinal fortitude" led the Germans to commit some of the worst attrocities in history. fortunately, they have changed.

Sorry, John...You are absolutely wrong. The proper translation is "Thou shalt not Commit Murder" There is no prohibition in the bible against killing, when justified.

Whoops...FromMacando: I inadvertantly referred to "moral equivalency" in my post. Actually, I intended to refer to "moral relativism", where one attempts to justify, say, the North Korean regime by saying that South Korea has its faults too; or that a nuclear Iran is justified because the U.S. has nukes. In other words, I intended to say that Speilberg should not go out of his way to humanize Black September (or find justification in their actions) simply because Israel has its faults also. My fear is that the impact of the acts themselves (the murder of the Israeli athletes) are being rationalized, whereas they should be unambiguously condemned. (No more "That was wrong, but...")

I understand your fear Steve. And I respect your point of view.

In my view, one should never justify killing, period. We should not delude ourselves rationalizing why is acceptable to kill under certain circumstances or a determined group of people. I'm not a "peacenik", but I understand that the minute people decide to opt for the path of violence, they cannot pretend to have control over the outcome or put boundaries to it.

What we should attempt to do more often, though, is to try to understand why people opt for violence. Once we understand the conditions that force humans to act violently, we probably could move beyond name calling (teerrotist, zionist, etc) and try to search for real solutions.

All the movie does is show the world that the people out there fighting are people. Not mindless killing machines. Each one has family, has beliefs, has hopes and dreams. They are people with emotions. The I/P conflict cannot be reduced to Good vs. Bad, it's impossible, overly simplistic and flat-out wrong.

We all need to understand why one side does what it does. We need to understand their beliefs to understand why they are willing to kill themselves or kill others. We need to know how they view themselves, how they view eachother, what they believe others think of them. Ignorance is an incredibly deadly thing. We need to be able to see from more than one point of view, even if we don't agree or adhere to them.

One persons Hero is anothers Villian.

Remember the end of Independence Day? The Hero flew his plane into the spaceship to blow it up. He did his part to save the world and fight for what he believed in a what he loved.

Sadly, America is the alien invaders in some peoples minds.

Munich shows that terrorism isn't something that is simply in the news, it is serious and it is costly. For those who have seen the movie, Spielberg drives that point home with the closing view of New York.

I'm appalled by the comment on "weak willed Europeans". Don't they teach in school about WWI and WWII?

WWI 9 million casualties and WWII 20 million casualties.

I think after 30 million people killed you might get some prespective on what is important.

Unfortunately terrorsits are people also and unless we are ready to resort to genocide to wipe out the Palastinians people we will at some point have to do something to address thier grievances.

The same is true of the Israeli, if we want to stop murdering/killing/capitol punishmening people we need to address their grievances.

Israel has the right to its peaceful existance, the Palastinians need to acknowledge that. The Palastinians have the right to thier own state, without the extra juridistictional execution of thier leaders.

I thought the movie adequately and seriously broached the whole moral/immoral aspect of the Munich tragedy, but Speilberg virtually takes everything (including the moral dilemma of the lead character) from a previous and excellent flick, "The Sword of Gideon" (1986).I haven't seen any credit or reference given to that movie. What was original was the gratuitous full frontal nudity scenes.

It has been my experience that virtue is an individual achievement, and, in groups, it tends to be diluted. I am going to throw a couple of quotes from Moshe Dayan from Avi Shlaim's excellent book "The Iron Wall".
At the funeral of an Israeli farmer killed by Arab Marauders in 1956, he said, "let us not today fling accusations at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred for us? For eight years now, the sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived"
While he understood the reason behind the conflict, he was a very ruthless man. "As early as June of 1950 he defended at the meeting of the Mapai secretariet and members of Knesset the policy of collective punishment against Arab villages suspected of harboring infiltrators and saboteurs. Harassing the village, including women, children, and elderly people, he said, "is the only method that proved itself EFFECTIVE, not justified or moral, but effective, when Arabs lay mines on our side."
Major Ariel Sharon carried out that policy at the village of Qibya in Jordan. "sixty-nine civilians, two-third of them women and children, had been killed.
Saddam Hussein is now on trial for his life for the murder of 160 people in retaliation for an attempt on his life.
The major difference between Sharon and Saddam Hussein, is a matter of scale, he had a bigger village on which to enact revenge.
Are the Arabs saints? of course not, But Israelis are not ready to be canonized.

I for one am glad I saw the movie before reading all this crap and all these "reviews" which amount to using the movie's clout as the sounding board to push one side of a divided issue.

With a movie this complex it's perhaps more useful to walk in with as little information and as open a mind as possible.

Perhaps it gets a little long tracking 11 perpitrators. But maybe that drives the point of the long, repetetive, dizzying and destructive nature of a violence-bred solution.

No side comes out looking clean in this movie. I guess much to the dismay and chagrin of many, that's too close to reality to effectively be able to take sides.

Good movie, minus some unecessarily gratuitous images that didn't help drive the story too much.

As has already been expressed, I feel the movie's courage and brilliance lie in its depiction of the cycle of vengeance so out of control in Israel/Palestine. Spielberg should be praised for having the "intestinal fortitude" to make a film that so effectively depicts the futility of this state of affairs.

Secondly, to ask the question "Were the Israeli assassins morally superior to the Arab terrorists?" is to set up a false dichotomy and is a classic example of how debate on the Israeli/Palestinian issue is frequently limited to such irrelevant comparisons.

Seems to me the key question to ask is simply "What motivated the Palistinian terrorists to commit such a heinous crime?" The answer (which could have been explored far deeper in the film) is that the terrorists were motivated by the exact same emotions as were the Israeli assassins. That is to say, the Arabs were spurred on by their outrage over the deaths of a huge number of innocent Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces (with American munitions, it should be noted).

It is an indisputable historical fact that far more innocent Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army than have innocent Israelis by Palestinian terrorism. The universally accepted ratio is 3 to 1. Universally accepted, but rarely reported.

One of the most powerful and dangerous myths in the world today is the common definition of terrorism as including only those acts commited by sub-national groups and exluding those acts commited by governments. Dropping bombs indiscrimately into populated neighborhoods is just as heinous an act of terrorism as the killing of the Munich atheletes.

In my humble opinion, until and unless the citizens of Israel (and the U.S.) accept this truth, and then take responsibility and force their leaders to control their own state terrorism, this horrific cycle of vengeance is likely to continue, in Israel/Palestine, throughout the Middle East, and in the U.S.

Thoughts?

Why is it that in these Israeli-Palestinian debates everybody overlooks the fact that for the last four generations Palestinians have been kicked out of their bulldozed homes to live in tent cities? A whole nation is being erased by invaders from Europe and North America. Is that not terrorism?

Spielberg's foreign policy, Brad Pitt's foreign policy, Bono's foreign policy (most recently, yodeling between the legs of Phil Knight)- they got foreign policy, you got foreign policy, everybody got a foreign policy - Hooah USA, Darfur Darfur Darfur.

The kidnapping and later killing of Israeli athletes by that Palestinian faction in Munich did nothing to promote the just cause for an independent Palestinian state.The act was horrific and counterproductive.Palestinians in the West Bank remain to this day under occupation and acts of armed resistance to this occupation are now termed terror.The Western media does not want to compare between state sponsored terror that Israel pours daily on the Palestinians living under military occupation in terms of ; murder squads,targeted assasinations,imprisonment without trial ,curfews,landgrabs,crop destruction,house demolitions,building and expanding illegal settlements, and the terror the Palestinians inflict on the Israelis in the form of stone throwing which later evolved into the regrettable form of resistance ,the suicide bomber.It is asymetrical warfare where the weaker side resorts to more violent means to make up for the difference in the balance of power.The Palestinians however are wrong in the use of the suicide bomber because it is indiscriminate in its target ,and it does not advance their just cause for an independent Palestinian State.However we do not see the world nor the Western media reacting negatively to Israel's state sponsored terror the way they do to the Palestinian armed resistance,nor do we see any diplomatic pressure put on Israel to abide by the UN resolutions that were passed more than 30 years ago against Israel to release its hold on the occupied West Bank and vacate all the illegal settlements.

I appluad anyone who has the courage to protray historical events with the complexity of the events. Arabs have been protrayed so one dimensional. Spielberg sees that old ways of handling the conflict inthe middle-east is not going anywhere. I would challenge any film maker wanting to protray that region (honestly) to spend real time in both camps...I also would challenge anyone who loves Israel to give them tough love. You don't let your kids run in the street that is dangerous. Israel's policies has hurt them and has helped create extremism. It is time for a new solution so that children in Israel have a chance and children in Palistine get a chance to grow up and not become terorists whether sponsored by the state or an idealog.

For goodness sake,don't get your knickers in a twist, you must not take these films seriously. This type of film is based on historical events it does not mean it contains any historical facts never mind present them in an unbiased and balanced way.
Needless to say the reality of the Palestine/Israel situation is an ongoing tradgedy which I believe could be solved were the U.S.A to take the appropriate draconian action.

Spielberg's movie is good entertainment, not good history.

Just as the USA would kill Bin Laden if we could, so too did Israel target those who murdered their people. And rightfully so.

Carol,

How many foreign people did the US government kill?

I should add that the killings are still going on as we speak.

Of course when foreign people are dying, it doesn't really matter much...as long as the economy is doing alright.

Mr. Spielberg is a very talented movie director, this does not necessarily make him a great philosopher.
I wonder how he would treat 9/11 if he made a film about it. Would he dwell on the humanity of the men who hijacked the planes and caused the death of thousands?
Or would he try to show how America was compromising its morality by trying to prevent more attacks on the nation and its people.

I've just read all the comments posted up to now, & was richly rewarded by the many voices. There are still the one-dimensional warrior types who answer violence with violence, but also listen to the more developed people! who rise above the obvious & destructive animal instinct, & arrive at a truly transcendent spirit, one celebrated by the truly religious people of the world, a spirit that would enclude all of us humans. Especial thanks to Macondo & Stone.