Tough Gig: PR-ing Munich In Israel

Steven Spielburg has hired a former aide to Ariel Sharon to help promote Munich in Israel.

Talk about the PR assignment from Hell: Previewing Munich in a special screening for the widows of the murdered Israeli atheletes.

That's one of the tasks falling to Eyal Arad, who reportedly helped plan the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. According to PR Week, Arad will draw on his connections to promote the film the publication very accurately summarizes as centering "on a team of Israeili hitmen exacting revenge after the massacre of Israeli atheletes by Palestinians ...." (emphasis added)

Cruel revenge is what Spielburg sees the (non-historical) Israeli action as, but he could just as easily seen it as "seeking justice."

PR Week also quotes Spielburg's PR guy, Marvin Levy:

[Arad is] also developing a list of people who need to see the movie in that part of the world. He knows the movers and shakers, the politicians, and the people who write the Op-Ed pieces. (subscribers only, not on-line)

Hmm. I wonder if Arad is paying to have stories placed ....