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February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
January 6, 2012
January 5, 2012
Tom A. Peter: Taliban talks: In administration's push to negotiate with terrorists, was a key hurdle overlooked?
Pete Spotts: Time cloaking: How scientists opened a hidden gap in time
Karen Kaplan: Teens aren't too old to boost their IQ, study finds
January 4, 2012
Scott Baldauf: Islamist terror group giving Christians living in north Nigeria days to flee
Howard LaFranchi : An accelerating covert war with Iran: Could it spiral into military action?
January 3, 2012
Tom A. Peter: Release several Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay; give them headquarters as confidence-building measure?
Elaine Woo: Thomas T. Johnson, L.A. judge who ruled that Holocaust was a fact, dies at 88
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Jewish World Review
July 3, 2006
/ 7 Tamuz, 5766
Saving Private Shalit
By
Diana West
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
However much I loathe Steven Spielberg — now, there's a hook — his "Saving Private Ryan" comes to mind on hearing that the Israeli army has launched a major offensive into Gaza to secure the release of 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit, recently seized by the Palestinian group Hamas.
"Private Ryan," of course, is only a movie and tells a very kind of different story. It's about a made-up mission, not to rescue a soldier from the all-too-likely savage depredations of Islamic jihadists, but to remove him from combat in Normandy. Viewers are supposed to buy the notion that the War Department, in the chaotic midst of the momentous Allied invasion of Europe, ordered up a platoon to save Private Ryan as an act of mercy for the soldier's mother, whose other sons have died as soldiers in battle. Which is a preposterous notion. Incidentally, most of the rescuers are killed in the course of the mercy mission. Clearly, saving Private Ryan is hell.
But there's more to it than a historical derring-do. For me, the 1998 epic lives on not for its famous 35-minute recreation of the landing at Omaha Beach, but for its odious message. As one GI puts it, saving Private Ryan may well be the only worthwhile thing to come out of this whole, awful "mess."
The "mess" in question, of course, is World War II. Defeating Hitler, for example, ending fascism in Europe, even liberating the remnant of European Jewry from Nazi death camps — all fail to garner for the U.S. Army the mega-director's cinematic approval. The fantasy rescue of a single GI from combat, however, becomes not just a cause celebre, but the Spielbergian causus belli.
Such '60s-infused revisionism in a movie that has been weirdly and wildly revered as The Real Thing drove my late father into what are quite accurately described as paroxysms of rage — the memory of which I cherish as a particularly vibrant part of his legacy. As a veteran of the Normandy campaign (D-Day plus two), he realized that, through Spielberg's lens, the climactic invasion of Europe had been sundered from its historical context, serving instead as an arbitrary backdrop for a panoply of behaviors and attitudes more common to the Vietnam generation than to the men with whom he fought across Europe. No wonder my Dad also rejected what he once acidly described in a letter as "the peculiar beam of celestial light suddenly conferred on Spielberg" for the "great service ... in revealing to the world that there was actually a real-life event called World War II."
But from Spielberg's ersatz vision of the past emerges a disturbing clarity about the present. In divorcing the climactic events of D-Day from their grand goals and significant accomplishments, Spielberg staged a fictional war story without a historical point — seemingly without any conception of military victory. In the context of World War II, such a vision of war is blind. But in our own time, this same vision of war, seemingly without any conception of military victory, has become a grim reality. Which is where Cpl. Shalit, unfortunately, comes back in.
Israeli soldiers (and also, given the beheading, mutilation and booby-trapping of two soldiers in Iraq, American soldiers) do not fare well in the hands of Islamic jihadists.
Who, for example, can forget the 2000 lynchings of two Israeli reservists — truck drivers, as it happened — who were beaten beyond recognition, their eyes gouged out and their bodies dismembered by a Ramallah mob? No wonder the Israeli army is on the march to try to save Cpl. Shalit from, yes, a fate worse than death that may well be followed by death. But this military mission, even with the destruction of Palestinian arms caches, has an extremely limited objective.
Just as the fictional story of saving Private Ryan had nothing to do with the effort to win the war for the Allies, the real-life invasion of Gaza to save Cpl. Shalit has nothing to do with the effort to win the war for the Israelis. Indeed, such an objective has long been out of the question. Having effectively rendered Total War beyond the pale, the Western world, of which Israel, by shared tradition, is a part, has also placed Total Victory beyond grasp. That means that even if, G-d willing, the Israelis save Cpl. Shalit, it doesn't augur a happy ending — or, indeed, any ending at all.
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