The Banality of Evil (screed) Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" at the trial of Adolf Eichman...many people, not reading her book, criticized her, saying killing 6 million Jews could never be called banal.But what she really noted in her book was that a man who was certified "psychologically normal" by psychiatrists, and who was, by all reports, a loving husband and father nevertheless could do his work without passion and arrange the killings of millions...Her book is a sad documentation of the collapse of morality against killing Jews in Europe would make needed reading today, as Jonathan Tobin reports on the "moral equivalence" found in Spielburg's movie on Munich........"In a Time magazine story on his movie, Spielberg said the insertion of a fictional conversation between the leader of the Israeli team and a PLO operative was essential to his vision of the film. In it, the Arab speaks of his longing to recover his family's dignity and property that he claims they lost to Israel.Without this and other elements that serve to break down the legitimacy of killing the men behind the attack on the Olympics, he says the film would not have been worth making. What Spielberg seems most proud of is the fact that those who seek to destroy Israel - and either slaughter or scatter its people - are not "demonized." They are, he insists, "individuals. They have families."TO WHICH we can only reply, "So what?" You could say the same of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the operatives of Hamas, and Fatah (from whom the members of "Black September" - a front for the PLO - came) who have cut down Jews in pizza parlors, bus stops and at Pessah seders. And even go on and include the German villains of Spielberg's World War II films.But the problem with this film isn't just an obsessive refusal to be judgmental about terrorism or the tedious speechifying that overwhelms the action. There's something even more insidious at play here.The main character, the Israeli agent Avner (played by Eric Bana), doesn't just lose his marbles because of a mission whose efficacy might well be debated. Spielberg's Avner rejects not merely a policy but Israel itself, which he abandons for the apparently more humane confines of Brooklyn, New York.Spielberg even uses an image of a still-standing World Trade Center to punctuate a scene in which Avner rejects Israel to lead us to falsely think 9/11 might have been avoided had America also abandoned the Jewish state. .....And, if you aren't old enough to remember the REAL Munich massacre, here are the details...
LINKPre-dawn gunshots in the Olympic Village. Muffled shouts as Palestinian terrorists burst into an apartment and seize Israeli athletes. A corpse tossed onto the sidewalk as a macabre calling card and another sportsman bleeds to death. A horrifying massacre hours later.These tragic events of the 1972 Summer Games are recalled in Munich, Steven Spielberg's new film about Israeli hit squads avenging their compatriots' deaths. The assault at the Olympic Village, which affected so many lives and still triggers disturbing flashbacks, heralded a ruthless new brand of international terrorism.From the moment the raid began at 5 a.m. on Sept. 5, 1972, to the shootout during a botched rescue at a suburban airfield around midnight, this traumatic incident violated every norm of common sense and decency....There was an excellent Hollywood film about this, and "made for TV" movies about the killing of elderly Leon Klinghoffer, and even a film about the flight attendent who survived
THIS hijacking...The fact that Italy released the killer of Mr. Klinghoffer (who lived free in Baghdad until the evil Americans took over that country) and the fact that Germany just released the killer of an American sailor killed in the above mentioned Hijacking says a lot about Europe, and the fact that the first major film about 9-11 has yet to be released, and will be directed by Oliver Stone says a lot about Hollywood...As for Hollywood, Lileks' satire says it best
LINK-------------------------------Update: As I have said in other screeds, I feel it is morally acceptable to kill in defense of life, and that includes execution (even covert execution) to prevent terrorists from killing again, especially given the (above) proof that "jailed for life" means nothing in certain european countries...
However, if there is an alternative that protects the innocent (like jailing for life) I am against the death penalty...
Tolkien's line, that we should not deal out death unnecessarily, is true...because terrorists can turn to peace, and repent of their actions...
DeValera was to be executed for the 1916 rebellion, but spared because he held an American passport, and later he was the one who rejected violence and guided Ireland to freedom...A similar leader who turned from violence was Nelson Mandella...
Of course, they were more into revolution than terrorism, but even the worst terrorist can repent...
Those who know the history of the west are familiar with Geronimo...who was a terror to Anglos, Mexicans, and non Apache Indians. He was captured and jailed for life in Fort Sill...yet he repented and because a Christian before the end of his life...
So the worst terrorist can repent and find God...there is always hope for repentence...
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