Review of: Munich
Name of Reviewers: Collins McCraw and Reem Talebagha
Description
Synopsis: After the events of the Munich Massacre in 1972 where eleven Israeli athletes were killed by a Palestinian group called Black September, the Israeli government chooses to retaliate by using the concept of “an eye for an eye” and forming a black-box operation in which a team of five is assembled to kill all involved. The target list consisted of eleven Palestinian names.
The members of the group consisted of five Israeli men. Avner, the main character of the film, is assigned as group leader. The other four men: Carl, Steve, Hans, and Robert, all have specific duties in the assassinations which compliment their respective talents. In order to assist in these assassinations, Avner and his team get their information not from the Israeli government, but from an informant named Louis, who is paid handsomely for his information.
As the group continues their search for the perpetrators of the Munich Massacre, they themselves begin to be hunted by the CIA, KGB, and PLO, and by the end of the film, only two members of the group remain.
After the operation is halted, Avner is congratulated for his good work, but consistently has regrets and guilt for his actions. He returns to Brooklyn, New York in hopes of starting a new life with his wife and new-born child, but often fears for the lives of he and his family. The film ends with an Israeli official confronting and meeting with him in Brooklyn about returning to Israel and re-joining Mossad, the Israeli group that formed the five-member assassination team. Avner refuses and the film fades out with the two men walking away. The post-script shows that nine of the eleven men on the original target list were eventually killed.
Extremist Portrayed/Described: Two different extremist groups were portrayed. The main group was Mossad, which is the Israeli secret defense force. Their mission at the time was to assassinate members of Black September who were responsible for the Munich Massacre. The Israelis were represented as clean shaven and well dressed men. Their plans were strategically planned and carried out. The other group of extremists portrayed were members of the Black September and other Palestinian extremists. The mission of these Palestinian extremists was to ultimately, recover Palestine as their homeland and govern it as Muslim. After all, this movie was set in 1972; only five years after the Jews reclaimed Israel/Palestine. The Palestinians were portrayed as not as clean or organized as the Israeli group. They seemed to be reckless and savage at times.
Extremist Activities: There were several different extremist activities that took place throughout the film. The first was the original assassination of the Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympic Games. This attack was carried out by a Palestinian group involving mostly automatic weapons. The other extremist activity comes from Avner and his group in the assassinations of several Palestinians. Their forms of assassination were mainly through gunfire and several through hidden bombs.
Role of Religion in Extremist Activities: The role of religion was the whole purpose of the extremist activities. Ultimately in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the problem is a dispute over land. The Israelis and Palestinians both have textual evidence to support their claims that their group is the rightful owner to the land of Israel/Palestine. Five years before the Munich Massacre occurred; the Israelis had retaken the land that is currently Israel. For this attack to occur, it was solely based on religion. The Palestinians think the land is theirs and the Israelis think the same, and as we have seen in the 35 years past these events, the conflict does not seem to be calming down any.
Portrayal/Description of Non-Violent Religious People: There are not many non-violent religious people portrayed in the film. Avner’s wife is perhaps the only one portrayed. She has no clue what her husband is doing while he is gone, but she is portrayed as a very gentle Jewish woman who does her Jewish duty of being the caretaker of their child.
Other Pertinent Information:
Evaluation: Munich is an excellent film which presents both historical and stereotypical sides of religious extremism.
In order to provide an accurate, historical representation of why these events happened, the movie should have been set five years earlier in 1967 when Jews/Israelis re-took the land of Israel for themselves from the Palestinians. The movie begins in 1972 with Black September, the Palestinian terrorist group, killing eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. This automatically frames the Palestinians as the “bad guys” for the whole movie, when historically; both sides are really the “bad guys” because in order to claim Israel as their nation again, Jews spilled gallons of Palestinian blood five years earlier. This portrayal of the Palestinians as the ruthless and reckless murderers is also a very American/Israeli mindset. In contrast, the five Israel assassins are portrayed as very calm and simply “just doing their job.”
Historically, this movie is also accurate. These events did happen and extremist activity like this continues to happen between these two groups. In his book, Terror in the Mind of God, religious extremism scholar and expert Mark Jurgensmeyer describes thoroughly the idea of the satanic enemy. In this theory, Jurgensmeyer says that these groups lash out and kill each other because of respect for one another. He says that to show superiority, groups must match each other’s extremist activities. This is precisely the case in Munich. The Israeli black-box operation’s whole purpose was to seek revenge for those eleven athletes who were murdered and to send a message to Muslim extremist splinter groups saying “retaliation will occur if you hurt our people.”
An example of the true hatred and thought processes of these two groups that is displayed in the movie and which Jurgensmeyer describes is a conversation that Avner has with Ali, a member of the PLO. Ali says, “Eventually the Arab states will rise against Israel -- they don't like Palestinians, but they hate the Jews more. It won't be like 1967, the rest of the world will see by then what the Israelis do to us, and they won't help when Egypt and Syria attack. Even Jordan. Israel will cease to exist.” Avner responds, “This is a dream. You can't take back a country you never had. I'm the voice inside your head, telling you what you know is true. Your people have nothing to bargain with. You'll never get the land back. You'll all die, old men in refugee camps, waiting for ‘Palestine.’” This is precisely the mindset and bias of both religious groups towards each other. Both want the same thing: the land of Israel/Palestine.
In his article, Explaining Fundamentalisms, Gabriel Almond describes several other options as to why religious people become extremists. The two that seem to apply to Munich are Civil Society and Social Structure. In his civil society argument, Almond states that for many religions, the state and religion go hand in hand. When those two things begin to be separated, it can lead to extremist activities. As seen in the film, this is definitely the case. Muslims had their country, Palestine, taken away from them and the only way to try and get it back is through extremist activity. In his social structure argument, Almond states that there are certain fault lines that can be crossed in order to produce extremist activities. For example, and in relation to the film, once the Jews reclaimed Israel, they also reclaimed the social structure of the country and became wealthy while the Palestinians were left to fend for themselves, causing them to revert to extremist activities.
Both Mark Jurgensmeyer and Gabriel Almond have theories on religious extremism that fit perfectly into Steven Spielberg’s film, Munich. Ultimately, the disagreement between the two extremist groups portrayed have with one another is over the land of Israel/Palestine. While some stereotypes are furthered in the film, for the most part, it is historically accurate. Both Jews and Muslims have scriptural evidence that supports Israel/Palestine being their land. This conflict since the setting of this film has continued in the same direction and extremist activity is still very prevalent today.