Spielberg slammed over Munich movie
Steven Spielberg's movie about the 1972 Munich Olympic Games has been slammed as "superficial" and "pretentious" by Israel's consul-general in Los Angeles.
The film follows an Israeli hit squad's hunt for Palestinian terrorists holding Jewish athletes hostage. Eleven of the athletes were killed when a German rescue attempt went wrong.
But Ehud Danoch fears the film delivers an incorrect moral message, by comparing the Mossad secret service agents with the terrorists.
He says: "As a Hollywood movie, I assume that it will be defined as a well-made film, but from the standpoint of the messages it sends, the messages are problematic.
"This is an incorrect moral equation. We in Israel know this. There is also a certain pretentiousness in attempting to treat a painful decades-long conflict by means of quite superficial statements in a movie."
Spielberg has also been attacked by Jewish author Jack Engelhard - who accuses him of being "no friend of Israel".
The Indecent Proposal writer says: "Jews pioneered Hollywood. If, as our enemies say, we own Hollywood, well, here's the plot twist - we have lost Hollywood, and we have lost Spielberg. Spielberg is no friend of Israel. Spielberg is no friend of truth."
