The seductive cult of eternal victimhood

Steven Spielberg’s latest masterpiece, Munich, is looking more and more like it’s tanking. And good riddance. But by making a movie about something so relatively recent, it’s allowed people who actually took part in the events to comment — and those comments are most enlightening.

The attack on the Olympic games, which led to the murder of 11 athletes, has brought the attack’s mastermind — Mohammed Daoud — out in the open. And he’s still not happy about how it’s portrayed.

According to Daoud, “(w)hether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier.” Therefore, by his definition, every single Israeli is a legitimate target. This is a common rationale among terrorists — since Israel has universal conscription, every Israeli is a soldier — past, present, or future. There is no such thing as an Israeli civilian, and all are fair game.

But on the Palestinian side — who is a fair target? Apparently no one — not even those who actually take up arms. Every Palestinian is a civilian, every one an innocent victim.

The argument, by itself, is an absurdity. But the fact that it’s so widely accepted around the world is what makes it an obscenity.

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Peering into my crystal ball
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11 Comments

  1. ed December 28, 2005
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  11. PG January 7, 2006