Steven Spielberg’s film “Munich” was the topic of a recent panel discussion hosted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America at the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue.

Rabbi Elie Abadie introduced Commentary magazine senior editor and The New York Sun chess columnist Gabriel Schoenfeld, who had several criticisms of the movie. He said the 11 Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, were by no means the first victims of Palestinian Arab terrorist assaults on Israelis,” though one wouldn’t know that from the film.”

The massacre “was not an endpoint but really a highpoint of this campaign of violence,” he continued, and Israel decided to respond in a variety of ways. One of them was to dispatch teams of Mossad operatives to kill those who participated in assaults and were planning new assaults.

Mr. Schoenfeld pointed out that Mr. Spielberg himself said he made the film to commemorate the murdered Israeli athletes, but “Munich” itself is not particularly a commemoration of those athletes. In his view, the film is a story of the Mossad agents’ attempt to track down and kill those perpetrators.

The movie, using a variety of techniques, portrayed the targeted terrorists as attractive, affable people. One was a family man; another was a teacher; the blood of a third flowed on the floor mixing with milk, a symbol of innocence, he said.

In the course of the Israeli operation to kill the Munich terrorists, Israelis accidentally misidentified a waiter in Norway and killed him. “If Spielberg wanted to make a really vicious anti-Israel movie, this would have been a natural scene to include, but he didn’t. In fact, one of its achievements is that it’s quite subtle in the way it delivers its anti-Israel message,” Mr. Schoenfeld said, adding that the subtlety is why the film deserved an Oscar for the most pernicious film in 2005.

A contributor for the Wall Street Journal, Heather Robinson, spoke next, offering a more positive account of the film. She interviewed a small random sample of people at theaters to get a sense of what the average person took away from the film. By and large, she said, the depiction of Israelis was positive compared to the way Israelis are depicted in the overseas press.

A friend asked her why Mr. Spielberg couldn’t have made an unapologetically pro-Israel film movie like “Exodus”? “If he made that film, I’d go to see it, but I’m not sure the rest of the world would watch that movie,” she responded. “They certainly wouldn’t watch that movie with an open mind.”

The distinction between the Israelis and the Palestinian Arab terrorists comes through in the film: “When I asked them, ‘Do you think the film is saying is there no moral distinction between terrorism and counterrorism?’ all but one said they didn’t think the film was saying that.”

Another positive aspect of the film, she said, was that it reminds the world of what happened in Munich in 1972.

Ms. Robinson said to the ordinary person, the massacre in Munich was an attack on world peace, as the Olympics are an expression of cooperation among nations. This is helpful in reminding the world that it’s not just Jews who are under attack, she said, “It’s you, too. It’s civilization.”

CAMERA national president Andrea Levin opened by saying that the Palestinian Arab cause had gained “traction” in American popular culture. She criticized Mr. Spielberg for teaming up with Tony Kushner on the project.

She said the movie hadn’t done all that well at the box office, and that Mr. Spielberg had said it would take at least two years to recover the costs. “Let’s hope,” she said, “the dismal box office and the criticism will discourage other such tendentious movies.”

One questioner asked the panel why Mr. Spielberg made the film. Ms. Robinson argued that Mr. Spielberg wanted to make a film that people would watch and that would meet the audience in a framework that they could digest.

Mr. Schoenberg replied that Mr. Spielberg worked very hard to make sure the film was in no way anti-Israeli. “If you’re making a film to commemorate murdered Israelis, why do you have to work hard to make sure it is not anti-Israeli?” he asked.

Toward the conclusion of the program, Ms. Levin praised Mr. Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” and his work with the Shoah Foundation. But, she said, he had a more difficult time representing Jews living in the “here and now.”

gshapiro@nysun.com