Avner quotes from Munich (2005)
Played by Eric Bana
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Robert: We're Jews, Avner. Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong.
Avner: We can't afford to be that decent anymore.
Robert: I don't know if we ever were that decent. Suffering thousands of years of hatred doesn't make you decent. But we're supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. That's Jewish. That's what I knew, that's what I was taught and I'm losing it. I lose that and that's everything. That's my soul.
Avner: We can't afford to be that decent anymore.
Robert: I don't know if we ever were that decent. Suffering thousands of years of hatred doesn't make you decent. But we're supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. That's Jewish. That's what I knew, that's what I was taught and I'm losing it. I lose that and that's everything. That's my soul.
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Carl: It's strange, isn't it, to think of oneself as an assassin?
Avner: Think of yourself as something else then.
Avner: Think of yourself as something else then.
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Daphna: We should stay at home.
Avner: You are the only home I ever had.
Daphna: [laughs] This is so corny.
Avner: What? That took a lot for me to say!
Daphna: I bet. Why did I have to marry a sentimentalist? You're ruining my life.
Avner: [to their newborn baby] Your mother's teasing me.
Avner: You are the only home I ever had.
Daphna: [laughs] This is so corny.
Avner: What? That took a lot for me to say!
Daphna: I bet. Why did I have to marry a sentimentalist? You're ruining my life.
Avner: [to their newborn baby] Your mother's teasing me.
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Avner: I was born in Israel. I'm not a Yekke.
Mossad Accountant: Where was your grandpa from?
Avner: Frankfurt.
Mossad Accountant: You're a Yekke!
Mossad Accountant: Where was your grandpa from?
Avner: Frankfurt.
Mossad Accountant: You're a Yekke!
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[At a safehouse in Athens, Avner gets into a conversation with Ali, a member of the PLO unaware of his status as a Mossad agent]
Ali: Eventually the Arab states will rise against Israel. They don't like Palestinians but they hate the Jews more. It won't be like 1967. The rest of the world will see by then what Israel does to us. They won't help when Egypt and Syria attack. Even Jordan. Israel will cease to exist. [Avner stares at him in disbelief] What?
Avner: This is a dream. You can't take back a country you never had.
Ali: You sound like a Jew.
Avner: **** you. I'm the voice inside your head telling you what you already know. You people have nothing to bargain with. You'll never get the land back. You'll die old men in refugee camps waiting for Palestine.
Ali: We have a lot of children. They'll have children. So we can wait forever, and if we need to, we can make the whole planet unsafe for Jews.
Avner: You kill Jews and the world feels bad for them, and thinks you animals.
Ali: Yes. But then the world will see how they've made us into animals. They'll start to ask questions about the conditions in our cages.
Avner: You are Arabs. There are lots of places for Arabs.
Ali: [scoffs] You're a Jew sympathizer. All you Germans, you're too soft on Israel. Well, you give us money, but you feel guilty about Hitler, and the Jews exploit that guilt. My father didn't gas any Jews.
Avner: Tell me something, Ali.
Ali: What?
Avner: Do you really miss your father's olive trees? Do you honestly think you have to get back all that, that nothing? That chalky soil and stone huts? Is that what you really want for your children?
Ali: It absolutely is. It will take a hundred years, but we'll win. How long did it take the Jews to get their own country? How long did it take the Germans to make Germany?
Avner: And look how well that worked out.
Ali: You don't know what it is not to have a home. That's why you European Reds don't get it. You say, "It's nothing," but you have a home to come back to. ETA, ANC, IRA... We all pretend we care about your international revolution, but we don't care. We want to be nations. Home is everything.
Ali: Eventually the Arab states will rise against Israel. They don't like Palestinians but they hate the Jews more. It won't be like 1967. The rest of the world will see by then what Israel does to us. They won't help when Egypt and Syria attack. Even Jordan. Israel will cease to exist. [Avner stares at him in disbelief] What?
Avner: This is a dream. You can't take back a country you never had.
Ali: You sound like a Jew.
Avner: **** you. I'm the voice inside your head telling you what you already know. You people have nothing to bargain with. You'll never get the land back. You'll die old men in refugee camps waiting for Palestine.
Ali: We have a lot of children. They'll have children. So we can wait forever, and if we need to, we can make the whole planet unsafe for Jews.
Avner: You kill Jews and the world feels bad for them, and thinks you animals.
Ali: Yes. But then the world will see how they've made us into animals. They'll start to ask questions about the conditions in our cages.
Avner: You are Arabs. There are lots of places for Arabs.
Ali: [scoffs] You're a Jew sympathizer. All you Germans, you're too soft on Israel. Well, you give us money, but you feel guilty about Hitler, and the Jews exploit that guilt. My father didn't gas any Jews.
Avner: Tell me something, Ali.
Ali: What?
Avner: Do you really miss your father's olive trees? Do you honestly think you have to get back all that, that nothing? That chalky soil and stone huts? Is that what you really want for your children?
Ali: It absolutely is. It will take a hundred years, but we'll win. How long did it take the Jews to get their own country? How long did it take the Germans to make Germany?
Avner: And look how well that worked out.
Ali: You don't know what it is not to have a home. That's why you European Reds don't get it. You say, "It's nothing," but you have a home to come back to. ETA, ANC, IRA... We all pretend we care about your international revolution, but we don't care. We want to be nations. Home is everything.
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Jeanette: I have to go to bed soon. I work in the morning.
Avner: What kind of work do you do?
Jeanette: [taking a long drag on her cigarette] The kind that drives you to drink.
Avner: We must have the same job then.
Avner: What kind of work do you do?
Jeanette: [taking a long drag on her cigarette] The kind that drives you to drink.
Avner: We must have the same job then.
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[last lines]
Avner: Come to my house for dinner tonight. Come on, you're a Jew, you're a stranger. It's written somewhere that I should invite you to break bread with me. So, break bread with me, Ephraim.
Ephraim: No.
[both then go on their separate ways]
Avner: Come to my house for dinner tonight. Come on, you're a Jew, you're a stranger. It's written somewhere that I should invite you to break bread with me. So, break bread with me, Ephraim.
Ephraim: No.
[both then go on their separate ways]