Did We Forget?

 

 

On the night of 4 September 1972, the Israeli Olympic delegation returned to their apartment at Connollystrasse 31 in the north of Munich.

Hours later, a group of eight Palestinian militants, dressed in tracksuits and carrying weapons in bags, approached the fences of the Olympic village.

Alongside unsuspecting athletes, they climbed the fence and made their way to the two apartments housing the Israelis.

(Sidebar: these "unsuspecting athletes". Quelle surprise.)

The group was later identified as the "Black September" faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The militants were initially confronted by two members of the Israeli delegation, but overpowered them and forced an injured wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg to find more hostages.

Weinburg led the masked attackers to the apartment housing Israeli wrestlers, weightlifters, and other coaches. After fighting the militants, Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano were shot and killed.

The nine remaining hostages were beaten and bound in one room; wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund, shooting coach Kehat Shorr, track and field coach Amitzur Shapira, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, weightlifting judge Yakov Springer, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, and weightlifters David Berger and Ze'ev Friedman.

Eight other Israelis in the apartment complex hid or escaped during the initial assault and eventually fled. Athletes from Uruguay and Hong Kong -- also housed in the building, were released. ...

German authorities eventually agreed to transport the attackers and their hostages to Cairo via helicopter. The intention was to take the group to the nearby Fürstenfeldbruck NATO airbase for an armed assault to end the attack.

Unaware of the true number of assailants and ill-prepared for an assault, the authorities tried to eliminate the militants.

But after a gunfight, the Black September attackers are believed to have opened fire on their hostages and detonated grenades inside the helicopters.

All nine hostages and a West German police officer died during the botched rescue attempt. Five of the attackers also died while the other three were captured.

 

Israel should have withdrawn from the the Olympics and the UN. 

The following outrage over Israel's retaliation confirmed what should have been obvious: the world would rather stand back and watch terrorists murder Jews than condemn a band of smiling murderers.