Want to Understand Hamas' Victory in Palestinian Elections? See Munich.

Vengeance is mine; I will repay- Romans 12:19

The amazing thing about true patriotism is that it turns a people into one. A family where every injury is repaid with disregard for the humanity of whomever committed that injury. At once it shows the most noble and ignoble instincts of humanity.

The amazing thing about religion is it does the same thing, and it infects it with the will of God. A God that is more than a deity, but a past, present and future of a meaning to suffering.

I cannot imagine looking at the situation in the Middle East with any exact sense of what is right and what is wrong. And that's exactly how Steven Spielberg's film portrays the terrorist acts committed in Munich and their aftermath. People struggle internally and externally with their interpretation of right and wrong in a setting where the fixed sense of God's will wants is pathologically present in conflict with all the crosses, the moons and stars. All the beautiful human expressions of faith that emerged from the area.

As a Jew, I cannot help but pray for the continuation of the Jewish state. As a Jew, I cannot help but pray for a just existence for all men, women and children. For a long time, I delayed from learning the stories of the Arabs in the region. I guess I believed what I was told. The Palestinians didn't exist or have their volition until the Jews took power.

The movie Munich told me that that was my greatest mistake. Beyond patriotism, beyond religion, Munich documents what I should have known from the beginning. We are all one. And when we deny that truth we become patriots, or we become religious, but we stop being human.