No Small Thing
Early in the 20th Century, being “slightly” anti-Semitic was considered fashionable. Some of the best and the brightest people in western society routinely engaged in temperate abuse of Jewish culture, stereotyping Jewish bankers as greedy and emphasizing the so-called “Jewish habits” in a kind of social banter.
When confronted, these artists, socialites, politicians and such claimed they were only “slightly” anti-Semitic.
Social toleration for public displays of anti-Jewishness ended with World War II and the revelations of Nazi atrocities. Although some people complain about the sudden unacceptability of open anti-Semitism as political correctness gone amok, most understand that being slightly anti-Semitic – like being slightly anti-black or anti-Asian – is simply a cover for bigotry.
This came to mind again when I was writing reviews of Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Munich, and how easily it is for people to slip from slightly to definitive, and often, those people who hide their prejudice turn their heads when public action against killers like those terrorists in Munich is necessary.
Not highlighted enough in Spielberg’s film was the fact that despite the slaughter, Germany insisted on continuing the games, and the UN refused to pass a resolution condemning the act, and many Arab nations refused to fly their flags at half mast to mark the death of the athletes. Many Germans involved in the pathetic efforts to rescue the athletes may even have harbored secret hatred of Jews.
And it was partly because of these events that Israel felt it had to take radical action.
While Munich showed American Athletes helping the terrorists to get over the fence into the Israeli quarters, a relatively innocent gesture since they believed the terrorists were athletes playing hooky, in truth the terrorist had help from inside the compound, collaborators who gave a pass key that allowed them to get into where the Israeli athletes were sleeping.
What is missing from the film Munich is the intensity of rage that was focused at Israel during those years: The Arabs had lost two wars on the ground, so expanded the battle field. Munich marked the beginning of a new kind of warfare, one – as Spielberg’s images rightly pointed out – that led directly to the toppling of the World Trade Center.
Although I have been a consistent and very public advocate for poet Baraka’s clearly anti-Semitic poem several years ago, I fully understand the danger of allowing to have lies and distortions printed or spoken unchallenged.
Misinformation has a tendency to become many people’s truth and a reason to justify their bigotry.
Spielberg’s film comes late in a long conversation over Israel, anti-Semitism and public sympathy for bigots.
One of the clearest voices in this conversation has been writer Leon Uris, whose fiction has raised valuable questions over the years.
One book in particular, QB VII questions whether a person can be slightly bigoted and whether or not a person can be a good person and still have this tendency.
In a brilliant fiction involving a court case, Uris turns the world upside down by creating in us sympathies for a man whose only flaw is a slight prejudice.
The fact that the character is vindicated for war crimes, and that he continues to do good deeds for natives in the South Pacific imbeds greater sympathy for his virtue in us.
Then step by step, Uris takes apart this false front and unveils the true monster beneath the surface. While you can prove any argument you want in fiction, Uris provides a strong argument that there is so such thing as “slightly” prejudice and that public acceptance of such behavior can lead to world horrors like the Holocaust.
This argument takes on even more significance when coupled with public statements coming out of countries like Iran where its leader raises doubts about the Holocaust and suggests Israel should cease to exist.
I guess I expected Munich to offer something new in the conversation, but in some respects, the film fails to make the reasons for the hatred clear enough.
While Spielberg clearly hoped to become a bridge over the chasm of hate that separates Arabs and Jews, he fails to show us what the chasm is or why it exists so becomes a kind of bridge over murky water.
So instead of being a clear voice ringing out in the discussion, it is a murky one offering no new insights nor takes definitive stand the way Uris has. For me, that’s the biggest disappointment in the film. Even if I disagreed with it, I wanted to hear something definitively said.
This is less a criticism than a reaction, hoping against hope that someone like Spielberg or George Lucas with their media potency might be able to break through the barrier of prejudice when all the mounted political forces on the planet could not. Perhaps he still can. We can only hope.