Munich 1972: millions of viewers around the world tuned in to watch the
start of the 17th Olympic games. Thousands of people arrived in the city from
all over the world to celebrate another festival of international goodwill.
Among them were 28 Israeli athletes , full of optimism and hope. But the
Olympics of 1972 is remembered for something quite different.
September 5th around 4:40 am , heavily armed terrorist raid the Israeli
compound in the Olympic village and 11 Israeli athletes were killed . 11
members of Israeli delegation were assassinated by a Black September faction
of Palestinian Terrorist Organization called PLO. They broke into Olympic
Village and held them hostages. This incident is known as Munich Massacre
. Out of eleven, all but three terrorists were killed. These three were arrested
and were pending trial in Germany but they were released by West German
Government in exchange of a hijacked aircraft which became intolerable for
Israel.
As a result, a secret operation was launched by Israeli Prime Minister Golda
Meir known by the name - "Wrath of God", to hunt and kill those responsible
for Munich. The exploits of the Israeli agents involved in Wrath of God are
the stuff of legend and cheap farce. Dozens of Palestinians were killed by the
Israeli agents over the next 20 years. They hid landmines under car seats,
devised ingenious bombs, and claim to have found and killed two of the three
terrorist survivors of Munich. Wael Zwaiter, a Palestinian intellectual who
lived in Rome was the first to die. On the evening of 16 October 1972 ,
Zwaiter was ambling towards his home in the north of the city . As soon as
he entered his block, two Israeli agents emerged from the shadows and fired
12 bullets into his body . Zwaiter died in the entrance hall.
The assassins’ next target was Dr.Mahmoud Hansari , the PLO’s representative in France , who lived in Paris with his French wife Marie Claudie and daughter Amina. For a long time , Mossad agents have claimed that he was the head of Black September in France but they couldn’t offer any real evidence. In December 1972 , while an Israeli agent posing as an Italian journalist met Hamshari in a café, two Israeli explosives experts entered his apartment and planted a small explosive device under a table by his telephone.
The next day , when Hamshari was alone at his home , the "Italian journalist" rang Hamshari at his home.
"Is that you, Mr Hamshari?" asked the Israeli agent in Arabic. "Yes, I am Mahmoud Hamshari," came the response.
Immediately, the bomb was detonated by the Israeli agents .After the incident , Hamshari remained conscious for a long time to reveal astonished Parisian detectives what had happened, but he later died in hospital leaving his death a mystery.
Other Palestinians were eliminated in the following months , before the Israelis launched their most daring operation of sending an elite squad of soldiers into Beirut to kill three senior Palestinians . The mission was led by Ehud Barak , leader of Sayeret Matkal (the Israeli SAS) and later the Prime
Minister of Israel.
For at least two decades , the killings continued . Though Mossad agents tried to claim that they targeted Palestinians directly connected with 1972 massacre, it appeared that only a couple of Palestinians shot during the operation were directly linked with 1972 Olympic attack , the rest being Palestinian intellectuals, politicians and poets and the consequences of these so-called "targeted killings" for Israel have been appalling.
Assassination was not a regular tactic practised by Israel until the Munich massacre. Occasionally Israeli agents sent bombs to scientists developing rockets for enemy states , but it was Golda Meir who set a precedent for wholesale use of murder as a counterterrorism policy by authorising an assassination campaign in the aftermath of Munich . Since then assassination has been used to kill terrorists and militants including many of those responsible for major bomb attacks in Israel . In the absence of political solutions, Israeli government and people have come to rely on targeted killings as their standard response to bombings.
However , many intelligence experts and senior Mossad officials have privately admitted that targeted killings do not work . During operation Wrath of God , Israeli agents murdered an innocent waiter in Lillehammer , Norway .Several agents were captured and jailed . Then there are the moral and legal issues as well . During the operations , Israeli agents often killed their prey alone . But since targeted killings became standard policy Israel has repeatedly fired missiles or dropped large bombs on targets , killing innocent bystanders.
Until 11 September , Israel was the only democratic nation using targeted killings as their standard policy. In July, the head of Israeli army was forced to defend the killings after criticism from the Bush administration. But after 9/11 , US policy shifted and Washington prepared a list of terrorists whom the Central Intelligence agency (CIA) was authorised to kill . US officials even began studying Wrath of God for tips on how they could strike al-Qaida. In November 2022 , a senior al-Qaida commander was killed in Yemen when his car was hit by a missile fired by the pilotless US Predator.
Spielberg’s Munich movie is unlikely to have much of an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. But it might help to remind people that state – sanctioned assassination campaigns have failed as a tactic against terrorism .Perhaps the film could also make audience realise that if serious action had been taken after Munich to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis , then 9/11
would probably not have occurred.
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