MORAL EQUIVALENCE

Steven Spielberg's latest film, Munich, has been buckshot bigot-blasted for its allegedly having indulged in "moral equivalence," a Manichean term much loved by conservatives that essentially (to them) means "equating an act of Jewish self-defense" as no more moral than a Palestinian terrorist attack. Translation: all acts of violence are equally bad. To use such a phrase - "moral equivalence" is to ensure oneself that one will be safe from having to actually think - not only about what Munich is actually saying (I am not entirely certain, and I suspect that many thinking people are not either; thinking people tend to not have all the answers), but about "morality" in general. No wonder conservatives are so enamored of the phrase. (Even the ones who have actually seen the movie, all three of them.
Many of these conservatives virulently opposed NBC's unedited airing of Schindler's List several years ago, including a certain nutjob Senator from Oklahoma, because of alleged concerns that watching the film might expose children to "nudity" and "intense violence." The most intensely and gratuitously violent movie I have ever seen is... well, do I have to spell it out, and is it even worth the trouble to point out that these same people would a) wholeheartedly endorse a major television network airing this film in its entirety, and b) go Dobsonian on any network that refused to air it uncut?. If the latter happened - if a network refused to show Roman soldiers' aptitude with weapons of torture that did not exist circa 1 A.D. (historical fiction, you know), no doubt some of these people would say that not airing the Passion of the Christ is the "moral equivalent" of airing Schindler's List - in other words, they'd claim "hypocrisy," just as those who cry "moral equivalence" with respect to Munich really mean to do ("Spielberg, you are a hypocrite. You can't say you love Israel and love Palestinians at the same time; you actually hate Israel and love Palestinians, just as you, NBC, love Schindler's List, but hate Passion of the Christ. The first argument implies Christian conservatives have (fake) love of Israel and Jews; the second implies the opposite, Yet these people would make such arguments within the same breath, without realizing that to do so is an act of..... hypocrisy.