One day after reading a great peice by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post (linked from VodkaPundit), I see that Drudge has a report up looking at a recent interview Steven Spielberg gave to Time Magazine about his latest movie Munich. I won't say the two views are opposing, but that the point of the Krauthammer column shows in Spielberg's statements. First from Krauthammer,
Because we Americans tend to gauge Middle East success by White House signing ceremonies complete with dignitaries, three-way handshakes and pages of treaty provisions, no one seems to have noticed how, in the absence of any of that, there has been amazing recent progress in defusing the Arab-Israeli dispute.
Simply read the whole thing to see what he means. Then compare with what Drudge has up from the Spielberg interview,
“I don’t think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today,” director Steven Spielberg tells TIME in an exclusive cover-story interview. “But it’s certainly worth a try,” Spielberg says.
Since filming began in June, the movie (reported to cost around $70 million) “has been surrounded by rumors, criticism, and suggestions that Spielberg was too pro-Israel to make a fair movie,” according to TIME.
"I'm always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it's threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine," Spielberg says. "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end? How can it end?"
Here is more from TIME itself, but it requires registration, which I won't do. I'm looking forward to the film, and I consider Spielberg my favorite director. And I don't think his comments are wrong, per se, but it does speak to exactly that idea of what has worked and what has not over time, and who is actually noticing that. It just strikes me as an odd coincidence that he says something like this after I read what Krauthammer suggested. I doubt the film will do much to calm tension between Israel and the Palestinians. Hopefully, what Krauthammer has to say is correct. I have been impressed with Sharon's moves. It seems rather ironic that a man many find to be a warmonger type is the one that may have actually broken through and moved towards a lasting peace. We can only hope. That is all.
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