On Munich, murder, and the power of propaganda

As'ad Abu-Khalil writes: "Spielberg on Munich: the humanization of Israeli killers, and the dehumanization of Palestinian civilians. Or the Celebration of the Israeli Killing Machine. And who is retaliating against whom in the Arab-Israeli conflict? THIS is the question.

"It reminds me of a line that George Carlin—yes, that Carlin—used to use in his comedy routine and went roughly like this: 'why do “we” call Israeli terrorists commandos, and we call Palestinian commandos terrorists?' That line never got a laugh the two times I saw him use it with a live audience. The thrust of the Spielberg movie is simple, fanfare notwithstanding: Israeli killers are conscientious and humane people, while Palestinians are always--no matter what--killers.

"And typical of US movies where Arabs appear, Arabs when they speak Arabic never need subtitles. We need them when people speak in French and German, but Arabic is not important. It is not important to know what cheap natives say; we only need to know what expensive people say: Europeans and Israelis. And do you notice that Hollywood still portrays Israelis as Europeans: they still don’t want to accept that some half of all Israelis come from Asian and African countries. This makes it easier for the White Man to identify with them."

Also check out Jack Shaheen's book Reel Bad Arabs on Hollywood vilification of them A-Rab types. You can listen to an audio interview with Shaheen here.