Re: [Marxism] Fisk on "Munich"

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 24, 2006, at 11:42 AM, Anna Fierling wrote:

> It comes when "Avner" - in an entirely  fictional scene - talks to  
> an armed Palestinian refugee whom he will  later kill. "Tell me  
> something, Ali," he asks. "Do you really miss  your father's olive  
> trees?"

It is not all that fictional. I had a lot of time on my hands during  
my two years in the army at Ft. Lee, Virginia, from 1957-59. Aside  
from being given half-days time off for cross-country and indoor  
track plus full time off for outdoor track, barracks duty itself was  
about half-time (I was a 2nd Lt. with no real quartermaster skills.)  
The hardest duty was school during which one had to listen to  
quartermaster obligations regarding rear and front line and  
everything in between.

I read the Forsythe Saga (twice), Remembrance of Things Past, all of  
Conrad, completed my reading of Huxley, and dozens of others—all from  
the Post Library.

Two of the most memorable books were about the Middle East. If asked,  
I am sure that at the time that I was in favor of Israel. Then I read  
these books.

One was probably "A Soldier With The Arabs," which came out in 1957,  
by John Glubb. It was a generally sympathetic account of the Arab  
side of the war. The other was by a former bureaucrat with the UN  
forces assigned to keep the peace after the 1948 war. In this account  
the writer's main point is that the Arabs who came on the land that  
was now claimed by Israel came to harvest the crops of their own  
orchards which had belonged to the families for generations. They  
were not terrorists and if they were armed it was to protect  
themselves from the Israeli army.

Brian Shannon


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