Today, I made it to page 170 of Vengeance, a 352-page (if we don’t count endnotes) book by George Jonas about the top secret Israeli agents who tracked down and assassinated various Palestinian terrorists as retaliation for the deaths of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Tomorrow night, I am going to see Munich, the new Steven Spielberg movie based on Jonas’s book. Think I can finish the book by then?
Although Jonas’s book is a work of non-fiction, it is written almost like a novel, and it brings to mind some of the better books by, say, Frederick Forsyth. The bulk of Jonas’s information comes from an Israeli agent, named “Avner” in the book, who apparently became disenchanted with his mission; and since the sole source for much of the book’s vivid detail is Avner’s own memory, one cannot help but wonder just how accurate the information is.
Naturally, Spielberg’s film is generating controversy. Variety says Random House is rushing into print a new book, Aaron Klein’s Striking Back, that disputes Vengeance‘s version of events:
Filmmakers “can say whatever they like, but it doesn’t change the fact that both the PLO and the Mossad think ‘Vengeance’ is bullshit,” said “Striking Back” editor Will Murphy. In what it is dubbing a “reverse tie-in,” Random House will release its book next week, several days before the movie opens, and make the controversy a cornerstone of its campaign.
Random House will attempt the tricky feat of capitalizing on general interest prompted by the Universal pic while disagreeing with the explanation of events that pic offers. Klein will appear on shows such as ABC’s “Nightline” to make his case.
A main disagreement between the two books is whether the Mossad’s assassinations of the Black September leaders that followed the 1972 Olympic attacks was an emotional reaction against the attackers, as “Vengeance” and “Munich” both assert, or whether, as Klein argues, it was also a strategic response to break up a terrorist network.
A Spielberg spokesman says Jonas’s book was used because “It was really the only source material besides the news accounts,” but this is an odd claim, considering there are several points in Jonas’s endnotes where he disputes alternative versions of the events he describes that have already appeared in other books.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Mossad veterans have accused the film of various inaccuracies:
“I think it is a tragedy that a person of the stature of Steven Spielberg, who has made such fantastic films, should have based this film on a book that is a falsehood,” said David Kimche, a senior Mossad official in the 1970s.
“Then, as now, it had nothing to do with vengeance,” he told Reuters. “It had everything to do with the prevention of more terror attacks against innocent people.”
“The Munich massacre was a turning point in our whole attitude toward terror and terrorism. We were at that time very much, I would say, at the epicenter of many, many threats of terror attacks. I think few people in the world realize what was going on at that time as far as terror was concerned.” . . .
Michael Bar-Zohar, who wrote an authorized Israeli history of the post-Munich reprisals, noted that “Vengeance” puts the number of Palestinians killed at 11 — although other accounts suggest the final toll reached as high as 18.
“There are 11 Jews killed in Munich, 11 Palestinians that we killed — in other words … ‘eye for an eye’,” Bar-Zohar said, reflecting Spielberg’s portrayal of events.
“This balancing act is simply outrageous, because anyone who sees our fight with those who want to destroy us as … balanced does not know what he is talking about,” he added.
One interesting facet of this whole debate is that Jonas is a conservative Canadian, while Spielberg is a liberal American. So — who knows? — the film could represent an interesting tension between different political perspectives. We shall see.
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