Roadkill Journal

VIA Drudge, we have a link to Spiegel Magazine:

“Spiegel Interview With Steven Spielberg

"I Would Die For Israel"”

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,397378,00.html

The subject, as expected, is Spielberg’s new movie, “Munich.”

Within the original article are two more must read links. The first is a rather long analysis by Spiegel, kind of a Munich, then and now work. Very interesting if a bit tedious:

“The Morality of Revenge”

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,397183,00.html

Then there is an editorial from Spiegel, September11, 1972:

“The Worst Night in the History of the Federal Republic”

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,397370,00.html

I don’t follow movies, so this intellectual tempest snuck up on me. I realized Spielberg is Jewish, of course. Reading the original article, I’m struck by how much I agree with someone who “would die for Israel” – something I certainly wouldn’t do.

From the article:

“SPIEGEL:… You have been called a blind pacifist, even a traitor to the cause of Israel.

Spielberg: Fortunately, the people who write that kind of thing are a small but very loud minority. It saddens me to see how narrow-minded and dogmatic some of the right-wing fundamentalists here in the USA are.

SPIEGEL: The main charge against "Munich" is political or, if you wish, ideological: you are accused of morally equating the Palestinian terrorists with their Israeli pursuers.

Spielberg: That is utter nonsense. Those critics are behaving as if we all had no moral compass. Naturally, it is a terrible, despicable crime when, as in Munich, people are taken hostage, people are killed. But probing the motives of those responsible and showing that they are also individuals with families and have their own story does not excuse what they did. Wanting to understand the background to a murder doesn't mean you accept it. To understand does not mean to forgive. Understanding has nothing to do with being soft; it is a brave and very robust attitude to take.

SPIEGEL: Your opponents say that you "humanize" terror.

Spielberg: Do these critics really mean that terrorists are not human beings? I try not to demonize them. Again, this has absolutely nothing to with relativizing their acts or sympathizing with them.”

BRAVO!

I think I’ll be doing something I haven’t done since Jurassic Park: Buy a Spielberg movie.