In journalism there are two fairly reliable ways to figure out if you’ve done a good job reporting a story. One is if both sides like your article, which suggests you were fair.

The other is if both sides despise it.

Well, the reviews are in of Munich, Steven Spielberg’s film about the 1972 Olympic massacre, and not surprisingly, partisans on both sides hate it. One group accuses it of pandering to the enemy. The other accuses it of the so-called “sin of equivalence” because it depicts wrongs committed on both sides. (I’ll let you figure out which group is which.)

The irate reactions to Spielberg’s film remind us of how futile this decades-long conflict has become. Whether you believe that one group or the other had a claim to justice at one point, with the passing of time any compelling idealism or coherent ideology in this struggle has disappeared. Now there is only a ritual of bloodletting, followed by a ritual of finger-pointing.

Debates over Munich’s “equivalence” and “pandering” have the same hollow ring to them as these real-world protests over land and rights and security. The devil is always in these details. People die for them. Perhaps they are right to believe what they believe. And yet they never seem to find the justice they seek.

Rhetoric and righteousness aside, it is clear that there must be compromise on both sides for the conflict to ever end. Yet any attempt to reach compromise or consensus — including Munich, which Spielberg calls his “prayer for peace” — are inevitably savaged as pandering to the other side.  

Munich will not persuade the extremists hungry for more justice, but perhaps it will encourage a conversation between those tired of it. Spielberg says he saw a glimpse of this on the set of Munich, among the young Arab and Israeli actors who played the roles of terrorists and hostages in the Olympic massacre:

“It was just very, very difficult for me to play war with them,” says Spielberg. “It was — it was brutal and cathartic at the same, all in the same breath, to stage a scene where Jews have been killed and then I say, ‘Cut.’ The Palestinian with the Kalashnikov throws his weapon down and runs over to the Israeli actor who is on the ground and picks the actor up and falls into the Israeli’s arms and is sobbing. And then the Israeli actors and the Arab actors all running into this kind of circle and everybody is crying and holding each other.”

Spielberg’s voice is tremulous as he describes the young actors, steeped in the history and suffering of their two tribes, nonetheless trying to communicate with one another.

“It was so positive to see these two sides — actors, professional actors — coming together and being able to discuss what’s happening today in their world. Over dinner, between shots. There was always open discussion. No fighting. Just understanding and listening. I wish the world would listen more and be less intransigent. These kids weren’t talking on top of each other like trying to win an argument. These kids took time to listen before they spoke.”

The extremists, of course, aren’t listening. They are always criticizing, always asserting their righteousness, always demanding justice.

Perhaps someday peace will become more valuable to them than justice.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen