Does that mean it shows Israelis killing Palestinian athletes participating in international sporting events?
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Posted on 06/26/2005 8:42:53 AM PDT by TheOtherOne
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Steven Spielberg, famed for Hollywood blockbusters, is keeping mum about his latest project, a dramatization of tit-for-tat killings that followed the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian guerrillas.
Such is the secrecy that even the Israeli spymasters who commanded the reprisals after the Munich Games have been left out in the cold.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.netscape.cnn.com ...
But Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad in the 1970s, broke his silence after "Vengeance," purporting to be an expose based on the confessions of a Mossad ex-assassin, was first published.
According to the book, Israel largely abandoned its agents mid-mission in Europe, where several were hunted down and killed by Palestinian counter-espionage teams -- an account not borne out by news reports nor the protocols of the Norwegian trial.
Zamir told the New York Times in 1984 that the version of events in "Vengeance" was "not true" but did not elaborate. While standing by his source, Jonas admitted that "certain details of the story were incapable of being verified."
What an odd choice of words.
Does that mean it shows Israelis killing Palestinian athletes participating in international sporting events?
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If true, appalling. But it's hard to know what the truth is at this point.
FEATURE - Spielberg thriller leaves Israeli spies in the cold
Sat Jun 25, 2005 09:40 PM ET
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Steven Spielberg, famed for Hollywood blockbusters, is keeping mum about his latest project, a dramatisation of tit-for-tat killings that followed the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian guerrillas.
Such is the secrecy that even the Israeli spymasters who commanded the reprisals after the Munich Games have been left out in the cold.
Five retired Mossad agents, all of whom served in key intelligence posts during the hunt for Palestinian guerrilla chiefs in Europe and the Middle East to avenge the slaying of Israel's 11 sportsmen, voiced surprise at hearing of the film.
"I know nothing at all about this project," a former Mossad director who declined to be named told Reuters.
Entertainment reports say the film, provisionally titled "Vengeance" and due to reach cinemas in December, is based on a book of the same name whose account of one of the most painful chapters in Jewish history has been widely discredited.
Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy said the project had been comprehensively researched.
"This film has been built from many, many sources. One thing I can say is we expect this to be a balanced film," he said.
Best known in Israel for "Schindler's List", a Holocaust epic that ends with a pro-Zionist message, Spielberg was quoted as saying in a USA Today interview last week that the new film was a chance to explore his Jewish faith and fear of terrorism.
In the preface to "Vengeance", author George Jonas declares himself a supporter of Israel. But according to at least one member of Spielberg's cast, Daniel Craig, the screenplay is a less-than-flattering portrayal of Israeli tactics.
"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work -- blood breeds blood," Craig told entertainment magazine Empire.
THIRTY YEARS OF SILENCE
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, which oversees Mossad and its archives, said it had received no request for assistance from any film production on Munich or its aftermath.
It was not clear if help would have been forthcoming.
Israel has never formally claimed responsibility for the shootings, explosive booby-traps and cross-border commando raids that killed 10 Palestinians linked to Black September, the group that carried out the deadly attack in Munich's Olympic Village.
The campaign included the 1973 slaying in Norway of a Moroccan waiter mistaken for Black September's leader. Six members of the Israeli hit team were prosecuted for murder. Israel eventually paid compensation to the victim's family.
"That whole period is too sensitive, even 30 years on," said an ex-deputy Mossad chief. "No one really wants to discuss it."
But Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad in the 1970s, broke his silence after "Vengeance", purporting to be an expose based on the confessions of a Mossad ex-assassin, was first published.
According to the book, Israel largely abandoned its agents mid-mission in Europe, where several were hunted down and killed by Palestinian counter-espionage teams -- an account not borne out by news reports nor the protocols of the Norwegian trial.
Zamir told the New York Times in 1984 that the version of events in "Vengeance" was "not true" but did not elaborate. While standing by his source, Jonas admitted that "certain details of the story were incapable of being verified".
Jonas's agent Linda McKnight told the Wall Street Journal last year that Universal Pictures, which is co-producing the film with Spielberg's Dreamworks, had exercised an option to make a movie based on the book.
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Wasn't this done as a movie already? I saw it once, the title was something like "The Sword of Gideon"? I saw it not too long after 9/11 so you know I was cheering those guys on more than I'd normally be.
And that Swedish fellow, who was held hostage with that Aussie has said he will do this same things to the jihadis who held them captive.
Me, I'd prefer a public execution, but if this is the only workable alternative, I'll take it.
COOL rack ittt
It will be interesting to see what position this film takes on Israel.
Thus far my impression is that Spielberg, although outspoken on many of the dear causes of leftists, has steered clear of one of their dearest, demonizing Israel.
I wonder if any of the film was filmed in Israel?
Exqueeze me!? What's to balance?!
Spielberg, the Liberal that he is, probably would have preferred: Israel "to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
orthodox? I don't think so.
One day in September is an excellent film. It was produced by Arthur Cohn:
Arthur Cohn
producer
Born: 1939
Birthplace: Basel, Switzerland
A successful producer with five Academy Award-winning films (more than any other producer) to his credit, his films include The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), Black and White in Color (1976), Dangerous Moves (1984) and the documentaries Sky Above and Mud Below (1960) and American Dream (1990). His Central Station (1998) won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0762152.html
Garden of Finzi-Continis is an incredible Italian film about the rounding up of Italian Jews, specifically one wealthy family.
A bio:
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/Arthur_Cohn__Guardian_of_Zion.asp
He is not and never has been Orthodox. However, his mother became Orthodox later in life, after he was already grown up, and operates an outrageously expensive little kosher cafe on Pico St. in L.A.
I think she was discarded and replaced several wives ago.
I have no idea how that documentary won that year. I went to see it with much anticipation and it was an almost complete letdown: it covered the whole series of events with the same depth as a typical article in Time Magazine - fine stuff, but no props for depth at all.
I also found the narration by Michael Douglas to be heavy-handed and off-putting.
I had heard this docu was a '10' but I could barely give it a '3.'
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