In the previous "Focus on Israel" episode, Michael Medved looked into the murky waters of what is termed "moral equivalence." In the media, we see a repeated and false moral equivalence between the state of Israel and the Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Medved is an author, political commentator, film critic, a Yale Law school graduate as well as the host of America's #1 show on pop culture and politics, "The Michael Medved Show." Medved explains the danger of moral equivalence against Israel as demonstrated in the film "Munich," directed by Steven Spielberg.
The disinformation in the film begins with a compromising statement in the film that was attributed to Golda Meir: "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." According to historical records, Meir never made such a statement because she explicitly viewed striking back at terror as upholding – not compromising – civilized values. Medved states that "in the movie, the covert military response to the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletics at the 1972 summer games in Munich is portrayed as a cycle of violence coming from Israel's blood lust."
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How does this relate to the United States? "The same arguments of moral equivalency that the international left uses against Israel are now used against the United States," Medved stated. "You constantly hear that America is a terrorist nation and the comparison of civilian casualties in Iraq with the victims of 9/11, or comparing U.S. soldiers, who faithfully fight for our freedoms, with terrorists." He further states, "It is the same mindset that compares capital punishment with the one who committed the murder. Moral equivalence is actually 'moral illiteracy.'"
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Nothing marks the early 21st century more harshly than the suicide bomber, a morally-depraved tactic to terrorize a civilian population. Israel's policies in the Gaza strip and Judea/Samaria are described as "state terrorism" by the left. Moral equivalence contends that not only is Israel guilty of terrorism, but Palestinian terrorist acts are an understandable reaction of a defenseless people using their only weapon against a far more powerful force. According to Medved, "Moral equivalence says: what choice do they have? If I had so little hope, I too might feel that way." This moral equivalence seems ludicrous, yet it's the very attitude that much of the world's media takes today. The press seems incapable of making the distinction between victims and perpetrators and thus ends up blaming the victim.
The primary purpose of the undercover hit squads sent out against the terrorist leadership wasn't punishment, but protection. On Sept. 12, 1972, a week after the Munich massacre, Meir spoke to the Israeli Knesset. "From the blood-drenched history of the Jewish nation, we learn that violence which begins with the murder of Jews, ends with the spread of violence and danger to all people, in all nations," she explained. "We have no choice but to strike at the terrorist organizations wherever we can reach them. That is our obligation to ourselves and to peace."