Running into the movie theater, my mind was racing. After first reading about Munich in last month’s issue of The Lion’s Tale (“Spielberg revisits aftermath of 1972 Munich Olympics,” Dec. 9, 2005), I eagerly anticipated seeing the film.

What I expected was a gritty, dramatic story of the killing of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes during the 1972 Munich games. What I got was a gut-wrenching, nauseating film that made me want to jump into the screen in protest.

Unfortunately, I was forced to helplessly look on as members of the audience whispered to one another, “I never knew how bad it was for Palestinians,” and “How could those Israelis live with themselves after what they’d done?”

Director Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) who, according to the Jan. 9 edition of The Jerusalem Report, considers targeted assassinations of Palestinian terrorists “vengeance,” must have been opposed to any kind of reaction from the Israeli government after the murder of 11 innocent athletes.

Munich is the story of five Israeli operatives who find and assassinate the Palestinians involved in the planning of the Munich massacre. Avner Kauffman, a former Mossad agent, played relatively well by Eric Bana (The Hulk), is the leader of the team responsible for killing the terrorists. Most of the men killed by the Israeli agents are portrayed as innocent, nice men. One was a very pleasant man with a kind wife and charming daughter. Of course, we see his civilian side, not his terrorist side, blown apart by an Israeli bomb.

Not only does he depict the Israeli government in an entirely negative light, he paints a sympathetic portrait of the Arab terrorists. Throughout the course of the movie, it is easy to empathize with these terrorists because we learn about their families, backgrounds and goals.

What about the 11 athletes killed in the Munich attacks? All we see are their faces as they are being murdered; they never even speak. It is impossible to feel for people in a film when we barely know them. How could the audience feel sorry for these innocent Israelis if all we see is the “dedication” the Arab terrorists have to their cause?

Only after pinching myself did I come to my senses and realize that those who were being assassinated were terrorist masterminds behind the Munich attacks.

As they kill, the Mossad men debate amongst themselves the fairness and legitimacy of what they are trying to accomplish. When Kauffman gets into a disagreement over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an unsuspecting Arab, he makes weak arguments that promote the idea that the Jews’ only claim to Israel comes from pity stemming from German persecution in the Holocaust. In the end, however, the Arab point of view gets the last word with Kauffman staring off into the darkness, seemingly confused regarding his love for his own country.

Clearly, Spielberg leans toward agreeing with co-screenplay writer of Munich, Tony Kushner (Angels in America) who, according to an Oct. 14, 2002 article in The New York Sun, does not support a Jewish state.

“I’ve never been a Zionist,” he said. “I have a problem with the idea of a Jewish state. It would have been better if it never happened.”

Kushner is entitled to his point of view, but I would appreciate it if he did not make major motion pictures degrading Israel and painting proven terrorists in a positive light.

The film drags on and ends in disaster, with most of the men on the team getting killed themselves. I had difficulty finding a real moral to the story, other than Spielberg’s idea that targeted assassinations are ineffective, contrary to the Israeli government’s claim that they stop terror. I am still confused about what Spielberg was really trying to convey.