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Out
of the closet
Author George Jonas on Munich, and how counter-terrorism is an open affair
By
Andrew Princz
Reporting
from Toronto for ontheglobe.com
When Canadian-Hungarian author and columnist George Jonas first saw Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of his 1984 novel Vengeance late last year, the point of view taken by the Hollywood mogul was as much of a surprise to him as it was to the critics.
"Spielberg finds the distinction difficult to make in the film," concludes Jonas, "While I find that I am concerned in the book with the moral price of not resisting terror Spielberg, in the film, is concerned with the moral price of resisting terror."
For the most part, the author was kept in the dark on the developments of the almost secretive filming of Spielberg's most recent, now controversial, film. Munich, which was recently released in Hungarian cinemas, tells the story of how five ordinary Israelis - headed by the former Mossad agent "Avner" - were selected to vanish into "the cold" of espionage secrecy, and hunt down and kill the PLO terrorists responsible for the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
Looking back, Jonas concedes that the rules of the game have changed. While over twenty years ago counter-terrorism was suspect, and regarded with moral impunity. Today, he says, it has 'come out of the closet', and is practiced in the open, and on the airwaves of CNN.
Jonas spoke with journalist Andrew Princz over tea at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto about his reactions to Munich, his research of Vengeance, and the new 'rules of the game' in the fight against international terrorism.
ontheglobe.com: You have made pointed observations Steven Spielberg's film Munich, the adaptation of your book Vengeance. Why do you see it as contentious? You have taken issue with his not having made an absolute moral judgment on terrorism?
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George Jonas: To be very accurate I don't take issue with anything in the sense that a film-maker who buys a book, buys the book. As of that point, he is entitled to put his own vision on screen and you fully expect his vision to coincide with your own. But a film is not a loyalty test, and you do not judge it on how close it is to the original book or events on which it was based, but you judge it on its intrinsic merits. It is simply that the writer of the book wants to note whether or not his vision is different from the film-makers vision. In this particular case, my vision is different from the film-makers.
ontheglobe.com: Where do you see the contrast?
George
Jonas: The difference between
terrorism and counter-terrorism in my view is the same as the difference between
an act of war, and a war crime. It is a distinction that I have no difficulty
in making. Spielberg finds the distinction difficult to make in the film. While
I find that I am concerned in the book with the moral price of not resisting terror
Spielberg, in the film, is concerned with the moral price of resisting terror.
ontheglobe.com:
Yet in the film the Israeli government
does not even take responsibility for their act, instead essentially using a hit-man.
That could easily be viewed simply as state-sponsored terrorism.
George Jonas: That argument has often been made. It is interesting to note that twenty years have passed and now acts of counter-terrorism are pursued totally openly. In fact, you can see them live on CNN when we watch predator missiles streaking towards their targets. Both terrorists and counter-terrorists have come out of the closet. Whether this is an improvement or not is a totally different question. I would suggest that it is not an improvement.
In 1984 when I wrote Vengeance the question of counter-terrorism, or the morality of counter-terrorism, were debatable issues. One of the reasons why governments were secretive about their counter-terrorist acts was precisely because they involved debatable moral issues. But that terrorism was wrong was not debatable. Today, the approaches have changed.
ontheglobe.com: Spielberg also alludes to the 'war on terrorism' in his film, and draws a parallel with the conflict in Iraq.
George Jonas: In Munich the question of counter-terrorism is indeed raised in reference to Spielberg's opinion on the war in Iraq. Spielberg is indirectly commenting in the last shot of the film with the twin towers, which everyone has noted rightly is a visual commentary. I do not find that in any way illegitimate. I find that he comments quite naturally because it invites comment, owing to the subject matter of his film. Whether I agree with his comment or not I don't find the fact that he makes that connection illegitimate. Is Spielberg's world, however, on the whole different from my own.
It seems to me that in Munich he comes to the conclusion that equates in certain ways the Palestinian terrorist action with the Israeli counter-terrorist action. Not to the extent of endorsing the Palestinian terrorist action, nor to the extent of disputing the validity of the counter-terrorist action.
There are a number of people who find that Spielberg's movie is anti-Israeli. I disagree with it, and I don't see the movie as anti-Israeli. But, I do feel that it is a statement of his socio-political view of the Middle-East conflict, it is a statement of a socio-political view on Zionism which happens to be different from my socio-political view. That doesn't make it illegitimate or wrong. I, simply, as the writer of the book on which the film is based, note the difference.
ontheglobe.com: Do you personally believe that targeted killings are legitimate?
George
Jonas: I know that a number of
states that are Western-style liberal democracies have engaged in targeted assassinations.
This fact does not resolve the question of justifiability or legitimacy.
ontheglobe.com:
It
could be viewed as reprehensible. They are after all state-sponsored murders.
George Jonas: You can certainly take that view, but personally, I would not. I would simply take the view that the fact that a number of Western-style developed democracies have engaged in targeted assassinations would make singling out Israel as having done something that is not done by other Western-style liberal democracies as erroneous.
ontheglobe.com: You can also say that many are horrified by the tools used by states in recent years. Iraq and the legitimacy of its invasion has divided the world, as has Guantanamo Bay, and the methods used at fighting in the conflict that the world is facing.
George Jonas: There is no question that world opinion is divided. If you are asking me my own opinion I would say that the regime-change and intervention to achieve regime-change in Afghanistan and Iraq were totally justified. The question of nation-building is a separate question on which I probably have a different view than the Bush administration.
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ontheglobe.com: But what of the recent creation of camps like Guantanamo Bay, where a separate 'justice system' exists, where 'enemy combatants' are put beyond the scope of the accepted systems of justice.
George Jonas: I would not agree with the proposition that they are beyond the scope of the justice system, except in some individual cases which are being litigated right now. I think that the way you deal with illegitimate combatants who commit terrorist acts against your nation is governed by a whole subset of international conventions. To demand that a country that is fighting partisans totally outside any of the wartime conventions, including the Geneva Conventions, should be treated according to the Geneva Conventions, is an unrealistic demand.
ontheglobe.com: Allowing government the ability to act outside of the accepted norms is a very difficult notion to entertain.
George Jonas: In boxing, for instance there are notions that set up perimeters that ensure a certain conduct. If you take a plastic explosive into a boxing ring, but demand that your opponent treat you according to the Queensbury Rules, it is not realistic. Make an attempt to go into a boxing ring with a piece of iron in your glove and expect your opponent to use nothing but regulation equipment in fighting you and not bite your ear off after you have hit him with a piece of iron is something that you can demand - but are unlikely to succeed in achieving.
To
some extent it is the kind of demand expressed in an old joke I first heard in
Hungary which defined the word impertinence or chutzpah. It is like when a person
who killed both of his parents asks the court to be lenient with a poor orphan.
Demands of the United States or Israel to observe Queensbury rules when they blow
up school busses or put suicide bombs in school busses, is simply in the realm
of Alice in Wonderland.
Montreal-based cultural navigator Andrew Princz is the editor of the travel portal ontheglobe.com. He is involved in journalism, country awareness, tourism promotion and cultural-oriented projects globally. He has traveled to over fifty countries around the globe; from Nigeria to Ecuador; Kazakhstan to India. He is constantly on the move, seeking out opportunities to interact with new cultures and communities.
