Munich-bashing

Salon has an excellent article by Michelle Goldberg about the pre-emptive strike against the new Steven Spielberg movie about the Israeli response to the massacre of its Olympic athletes in 1972. What I like about the movie is just what the extremists find most threatening. Everyone in the movie is trying to protect his or her home and family. That does not mean that the point of view of the movie is that all judgments or actions taken for that protection are equally valid. But the movie does explore the moral and psychic costs of retaliation on people of honor and integrity. Many people would love to have seen this be an "Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker Go After the Palestinians" shoot-em-up, but that would have been a disservice and a dishonor to the people who have died and the people who have killed in this conflict over the years and to those of us who are developing evaluating our countries' policies on terrorism today.