c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) As a Muslim, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see “Munich” _ after all, it’s a Hollywood movie about tracking down and killing Palestinian terrorists. I anticipated Hollywood’s stereotypical Arabs _ violent, barbaric, subhuman _ coupled with heroes who are no less violent than the bad guys, but whose deeds are glorified nonetheless.

True to my expectations, the film was raw _ I cried through most of it, and even later in the parking lot. Contrary to what I had imagined, though, director Steven Spielberg defies stereotypes and asks tough questions that it would behoove all of us _ Americans, Israelis and Palestinians _ to ponder.

To be perfectly clear, my heart bleeds for the Palestinian people. They are my brothers and sisters in faith. But more so, I see they are today’s Cherokee. Today’s Shawnee. They are fighting for their homes the same way that Native Americans fought for their homeland. One hundred and fifty years after the fact, America acknowledges we did not act very honorably by the Native Americans. I can’t help but think that 150 years from now, Israelis are going to find themselves in the same boat _ with a terrible Angst over the means they used to wrest Palestinian lands from them despite the Palestinians’ clear objection.

My heart also bleeds for the Jewish people _ for the Holocaust, for centuries of anti-Semitism that continues even today. I can understand their desire for a safe place, a place where you don’t have to wonder what your neighbor might do to you tomorrow. I can relate to wanting to live in a place where your beliefs, your holidays and way of life are not a curiosity, but the way that most people believe and live their lives.

Back in the 1800s, Native Americans were portrayed as blood-thirsty savages, but now we see them as a desperate people trying to save their way of life. Back then, we committed atrocities _ giving them blankets laced with small pox germs, the massacre at Wounded Knee, signing treaties we never intended to keep _ and justified it, saying we had to do whatever it took, that we had to meet violence with equal, if not greater, violence. Now we look on our behavior with shame.

Today, we see the Palestinians as extremists, terrorists and violent radicals. Pretty much whatever is done to them is excused because of their own violence. I wonder if they will someday be seen as a desperate people trying to save their homes, their way of life by any and all means, and if our responses will appear as shameful as our treatment of the Native Americans? I am not saying that killing athletes, or bombing pizza parlors and buses is in any way justifiable, even when you are waging a war. Muslims need to confront and eradicate terrorism in our ranks.

But, like the movie, I question whether the appropriate response is even more violence, whether targeted assassinations, collective punishments, bulldozing homes and extrajudicial imprisonment can ever offer a solution.

The roots and the endlessness of the cycle of violence _ vengeance upon vengeance upon vengeance _ portrayed in “Munich” is a reality we rarely get to hear in the American media. Every act of violence going on in Palestine and Israel today is justified, on both sides, as a retaliation. They did it to us _ we have to answer with the same, or worse.

Much to my surprise, Spielberg never relents _ he never glorifies the assassins or their deeds. All but one end up doubting what they are doing. They reject assassination in favor of legal action to bring terrorists to justice, and they question the possibility that assassination and escalating violence will ever lead to peace.

I can’t agree more. The current cycle of violence and retaliation and more retaliation, on and on, will never lead to peace; it will just continue with more and more bloodshed until one side or the other succumbs.

This issue is particularly important for Americans, not only because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has widened to become a conflict between America and Islamic extremists, but also because we are now in the process of deciding how best to respond to terrorists. If we succumb to the desire for revenge, if we resort to extralegal measures, are we any better than the terrorists? “Munich” argues no, we are no better, and I agree.

MO/JL END RNS

(Pamela K. Taylor is co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union, and acting director of the Islamic Writers Alliance.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of Pamela K. Taylor, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.