Remembering Muslim Palestinian Terrorism 1979 Munich Olympic massacre of Jewish Israeli Athletes

“In Memory of Israeli Victims of Muslim Palestinian Terrorism” 

Thirty-nine years ago, news brought devastating images that entered History as  the Munich Massacre of Jewish Israeli athletes who were victims of a terrorist attack during the 1972 Olympic Games.  

Eight Palestinian terrorists massacred two members of the Israeli Olympic team and then took nine others hostage. The situation ended in a huge gunfight that left all of the nine hostages dead (four hostages were shot by a terrorist and another used his machine gun to kill the remaining five hostages.) Five terrorists were killed then.

Muslim Palestinian terrorists from the PLO-faction Black September were the perpetrators of the beastly attack where the following Jewish Israeli athletes died:  wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund, age 40; American-born weightlifter David Berger, 28; wrestler Mark Slavin, 18; and weightlifting judge Yacov Springer, 51; weightlifter Ze’ev Friedman, 28; track coach Amitzur Shapira, 40; wrestler Eliezer Halfin, 24; shooting coach Kehat Shorr, 53; and fencing coach Andre Spitzer, 27.  

True to their antisemitic behavior, the Olympics continued the next day of the massacre, in the spirit of “the show must go on.”

However, within 41 days of the murder of the Israeli athletes, some Arabs-Muslims living in Europe began dying violent deaths.  They were the terror organizers, the planners.

The first one, Wael Zwaiter, a cousin of Yasser Arafat, was shot in the lobby of his apartment building in Rome.  The poet Zwaiter is said to have authored the modern translation of A Thousand and One Nights and by some accounts, he is supposed to have been the mind behind an August 1972 attempt to blow up an El Al jet.  

Subsequently, on Dec. 8, 1972, Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari was fatally injured when his phone exploded in his Paris apartment.

On Jan. 24, 1973, Abad al-Chir’s bed blew up as he sat on it in his hotel room in Nicosia, Cyprus.  

More than two months later, on April 6, Dr. Basil al-Kubaisi was gunned down in a Paris street.  In another Paris street on June 28, 1973, Mohammed Boudia was blown up by a bomb as he was about to start his car.

Those men lost their lives in targeted assassinations, though the phrase wasn’t yet in use. No country, government, or organization ever claimed responsibility.

It is a brilliant mind in the person of my friend and client of Benador Associates, Canadian author George Jonas, that will be immortalized those events in a book telling of the resilience of the Jewish people as they fight against the forces of evil.   One of the leading authors in Canada, Hungarian-born, George Jonas is an incredible, intellectual writer who presents this story in a masterful way, smoothly and with an expertise rarely seen nowadays.  Ralph Sarkonak in Canadian Literature, has called Jonas “…a 20th century Diderot…”

The book, Vengeance, courtesy of Mr. Jonas, is available for free download.  Yes, 11 Jewish Israeli athletes were massacred in the Munich Olympics, and this is the story of how they were avenged.  “Vengeance” became one of George Jonas’s bestsellers when it was published in 1984.  

It was ex-agent “Avner” who delivered a most vivid and detailed account of the events that were reported in Vengeance, describing the events of Operation Wrath of God which is believed to have been authorized by then Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Jonas’ bestseller inspired two films: TV-film Sword of Gideon (1986), and feature film Munich (2005), directed by Steven Spielberg.  

Commenting on the turn of events Jonas said:  “My book was all about avenging evil. Then the King of Hollywood got hold of it.”  The King of Hollywood, Steven Spielberg, that is.  

And, Spielberg with his indelible touch managed to change the gist of the book.  As new “expert in the field,” Spielberg has been quoted saying that “the real obstacle in the Middle East is intransigence.”

Thus, Jonas’ “Vengeance” became Spielberg’s “Munich”, a film where both the director and the screenwriter, Thomas Kushner, took no stance, thus placing victims down to the level of their assassins.  

The lack of clarity approaching such a moral issue is conducive of Hollywood’s inability to distinguish right from wrong, thus failing to make a moral distinction between terrorism and legitimate military actions.

On the other hand, some critics have claimed that Jonas’ source for the book, New York security consultant Juval Aviv, who claimed to be the head of a Mossad hit team, had fabricated the story. But, so it is in issues of counter-terrorism, and by Jonas’ accounts, there is no way of determining whether his source was telling the truth. However, Jonas did attempt to verify many details of the story by visiting many places in Europe where his source claimed to have been operating, and at least to that extent he was satisfied with the evidence.

But, beyond that, there is certain mystery surrounding the team that was in charge of realizing Operation Wrath of G-d.

Sayeret Matkal, was the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit involved in the operation and it was a special forces unit within the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). It’s job was first and foremost that of a field intelligence-gathering unit, conducting deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines to obtain strategic intelligence, it was also in charge of counter-terrorism and hostage rescue beyond Israel’s borders and it was modeled after the British Army’s Special Air Service, and functioned subordinate to the IDF’s Directorate of Military Intelligence. The unit’s motto, “he who dares wins”, was originally coined by the British SAS.

This unit was best known for Operation Thunderbolt, commonly known as Operation Entebbe, in which it rescued more than 100 Air France passengers hijacked and flown to Uganda by PLOmilitants,  killing 52 enemy combatants while losing only the assault element commander, Yonatan Netanyahu, and three hostages.

Among its most notorious members, famous by their own rights, there are Uzi Yairi, Unit Commander, formerly head of the IDF Paratroopers Brigade, killed in action while off-duty during Savoy Operation.  Nechemya Cohen, the Unit’s and the IDF’s most decorated soldier (with Barak). Killed in action. Beit Nechemiah was built in his memory by “the Unit”.  Benjamin Netanyahu, unit team leader, MIT graduate, current (also former) Israeli Prime Minister as well as his brother, the writer and radiologist: Iddo Netanyahu; and his older brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, unit commander, killed in Operation Thunderbolt, in Entebbe, Uganda.  Shaul Mofaz – unit deputy commander, later IDF Chief of Staff and Israeli Defense Minister.  Moshe Yaalon – unit commander, later IDF Chief of Staff and Strategic Affairs Minister of Israel.  Danny Yatom, who was a unit deputy commander and later became a General, head of Mossad and a Knesset member.  Avi Dichter, unit fighter, later became head of Israel’s General Security Service (Shin Bet), later the minister of internal security.  Daniel M. Lewin, the cofounder of Akamai Technologies, killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11 attacks.  And many others.  They constitute the cream of the crop.  

Israel has lived under constant attack from Muslim Palestinian terrorists -as History records how attack after attack on her innocent civilian population has been perpetrated.

As I mentioned at a Rally in New York City, to protest the Itamar massacre last March, 2011, “Israel has had 1,200 victims of terror attacks since the year 2000.  That would be an equivalent of 50,297 Americans, proportionately. During that same period, there have been 8,342 Israelis wounded from terror attacks. By American standards,that would mean roughly 350,000 wounded.”

It’s only counting on the best and the brightest of their population, as well as on those who, following their hearts and  ideals, rush from all over the world to the defense of the land of their ancestors, that Israel can count on a force for the good to stand for her and to defend of innocent civilians who risk their lives to live in the country that has been their home for over 5,770 years.

©ElianaBenador  

Goodwill  Ambassador Eliana Benador is a national and international global  strategist and the former CEO and founder of Benador Associates. You can  find her at the Goodwill Ambassador or at her website, on Twitter, at her political page on Facebook and her business page on Facebook.