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Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush, right) is the Mossad chief who trains Avner

The film also has a strange habit of linking sex and violence and dwelling on that link. While this element simmers in some of the early scenes, like the one where the girlfriend of one of Avner's terrorist contacts comes on to him, it becomes more explicit later on. One subplot concerns the team's fatal encounter with a perfumed woman (The Barbarian Invasions' Marie-Josée Croze), and Spielberg makes a point of displaying the naked bodies of the dead (although, as per the usual double standard, the woman's body is more clearly exposed than the man's). Then there is the daring, climactic sequence in which Avner has sex with his wife even as he is tormented by thoughts of the Munich massacre. (Just as Private Ryan was haunted by memories of things that had actually happened to someone else, so too Avner experiences the events of Munich in flashback as though he had been there.)

This last scene reflects the way that, for some Jews at least, procreation itself has become a political act; this apparently includes Avner's mother (Gila Almagor), who appears to have had her son not so much for his own sake but to ensure the continuation of Israel. (For Palestinians, too, birth rates can be a big deal; in Paradise Now, a taxi driver boasts about the quality of his sperm and the size of his family.) The relationship between family and politics also comes up when Avner meets Papa (Michael Lonsdale), the head of a mysterious French family that sells information to terrorists of all persuasions. Papa seems to like Avner more than his own son Louis (Mathieu Amalric), who is Avner's main contact with the family; but, notes Papa ruefully, Avner himself is not family.

Some of the film's critics have accused Spielberg of breaking faith, as it were, with his own people, because his film is critical of Israeli tactics. Not only does Munich question the practical use of assassination squads—Avner's team, by bribing various terrorist contacts, actually pumps Israeli money into the terrorist network, and some of Avner's "successes" create power vacuums that are filled by even worse villains like Carlos the Jackal—it also questions the moral justification for such squads. Carl suggests that the tactics used by the Israelis and the Palestinians may not be all that different in the end, and Robert protests that Jews are supposed to be "righteous," instead of sinking to their enemies' level.

Bombs expert Robert (Mathiew Kassovitz, left), with Avner, at one point questions if the Mossad are sinking to the terrorists' level

These are troubling claims, since, as Jonas puts it, when counter-terrorists such as Avner and his team make a point of not targeting innocent civilians, there is as great a difference between terrorism and what they do as there is between war crimes and acts of war. But it would be wrong to say, as some have done, that the film, by raising these questions, is anti-Semitic. While the film is ambivalent on the question of whether Israel ought to exist, its critique of counter-terrorism is expressed in very Jewish terms, and the fact that it is the Jews who wrestle with their consciences actually reflects rather well on them. In contrast, the few Arab terrorists we meet never question their methods—methods which are, of course, much worse, even if the film isn't as clear on that point as it should be.

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