The verdict continues to strengthen about Spielberg’s “Munich.” Check out Holocaust Museum director Walter Reich’s piece in the January 1 Washington Post “Outlook” section, p. B5, under the title “Something Missing in Spielberg’s `Munich’.” Reich’s critique is similar in spirit to Edward Rothstein’s, noted here a few days ago. It’s the “spiral” theory of violence in Reich’s view, rather than the “injustice theory” of terrorist motivation, that mars Spielberg’s film — that. argues Reich, and the disengenuous way that Spielberg has characterized his intentions. But these are cousinly notions, and there is no reason that Spielberg can’t be wrong about two related things simultaneously. Evidently, he is.

There’s more to this story about a story, however. In the first place, Spielberg seems to have gotten the Israeli motivation circa 1972 totally wrong. Going after the murderers of Israel’s Olympic team was not primarily about revenge. If revenge was ever Israel’s principal motive in its undertakings, there would be few Arabs left alive in that part of the world today — so the key words Spielberg (or scriptwriter Tony Kushner) puts in Golda Meir’s mouth bear no resemblance to historical reality. Israel was not about revenge after the Munich murders, but deterrence — and it worked. Incidents of terrorism launched by Fatah against Israel declined significantly in the years after Prime Minister Meir ordered the killing of the terror cell that did Munich. That’s partly because Israeli agents took out trained killers, but also because these and other terrorists had always to be looking over their shoulders, and that made it much harder for them to plan and pull off new terror attacks. Put terrorists on the run and destroy their safe havens and you get real advantages, rather like what the U.S. and its allies have done to Al Qaeda since 9/11. Which raises an interesting question: Was Spielberg against the war in Afghanistan? His “theories” suggest he should have been.

Secondly, the intimation that somehow Munich and the events that took place after in the fight against terrorism were responsible for 9/11 — as is widely known by now, Spielberg ends the film by panning on the diminished NY City skyline — is wacky, and a little bit insulting. Al-Qaeda-style apocalytical terrorism and Palestinian secular nationalist terrorism during the 1970s have rather little in common. Al Qaeda only included Palestine in its list of grievances late in the game, and only did so for the impact it would have on naifs — like Spielberg. As far as we know, no Al- Qaeda types have been involved in attacks in Israel, except for two British Pakis some years ago, and few if any Palestinian nationalist terrorists have joined Al-Qaeda. So this supposed connection between Munich and 9/11 is totally bogus; yes, even more bogus than the supposed connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraqi inteligence before 9/11. If the later conflation is wrong, as all of Hollywood can recite, then how on earth can anyone out there be so approvingly cavalier about the former?

But, third, we should not expect the genuises and experts of Hollywood to actually know any of this, and here we return to a perennial problem: that many rich and pampered people in Hollywood assume for themselves all sorts of intellectual facilities that they do not in fact possess, but no one is there to tell them. They claim George W. Bush is insulated (and maybe he is); but they themselves ought to look in a different sort of mirror than the ones they’re used to. Maybe Spielberg once had a conversation or read an essay introducing him to the “spiral” theory or the “injustice” theory, and so in his mind became an expert. Or maybe he had one too many conversations with Clare Short (one would be too many)? Alas, that old adage, that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, is…well…true.

P.S. Speaking of Arab-Israeli matters and movies, here is the brass ring. A lot more people have heard of Aaron David Miller than know him, since Aaron worked so hard and so well in the trenches of Arab-Israeli diplomacy for decades. But those who do know Aaron are in for a mild shock when they go to see the new “Kong” movie. The actor, Adrian Brody, who plays the Driscoll character is a corker for Aaron, though perhaps somewhat younger (I can say this, because I remember what Aaron looked like 20 years ago). …..Or maybe now that Aaron has left the State Department (and after it Seeds of Peace, to write a book at the Wilson Center), he’s moonlighting as an actor under a pseudonym, and wow, those make-up guys have really made him look 20 years younger. Stranger than fiction……? Watch this space for more entertainment (ing?) news.