SEP. 5,1972: THE MASSACRE IN MUNICH…MITCHELL BARD (ARCHIVE) SEE NOTE
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/munich.html
PLEASE ALSO READ PALARAB “PRESIDENT” ABBAS IN 2010 : http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2531
Abbas on mastermind of Munich Olympics massacre:”A wonderful brother, companion,
tough and stubborn, relentless fighter”
SEPT. 5, 1972
It was 4:30 in the morning on Sept. 5, 1972, when
five Arab terrorists wearing track sweat suits climbed
the six-foot six-inch fence surrounding the Olympic
Village. Although they were seen by several people,
no one thought anything was unusual since athletes
routinely hopped the fence; moreover, the terrorists’
weapons were hidden in athletic bags. These five were
met by three more men who are presumed to have
obtained credentials to enter the village.
Just before 5, the Arabs knocked on the door of
Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg. When Weinberg
opened the door he realized something was wrong and
shouted a warning to his comrades. He and
weightlifter Joseph Romano attempted to block the
door while other Israelis escaped, but they were
killed by the terrorists. The Arabs then succeeded in
rounding up nine Israelis to hold as hostages.
At 9:30, the terrorists announced that they were
Palestinians and demanded that Israel release 200 Arab
prisoners and that the terrorists be given safe
passage out of Germany.
After hours of tense negotiations, the Palestinians,
who it was later learned belonged to a PLO faction
called Black September, agreed to a plan whereby they
were to be taken by helicopter to the NATO air base
at Firstenfeldbruck where they would be given an
airplane to fly them and their hostages to Cairo. The
Israelis were then taken by bus to the helicopters and
flown to the airfield. In the course of the transfer,
the Germans discovered that there were eight
terrorists instead of the five they expected and
realized that they had not assigned enough marksmen to
carry out the plan to kill the terrorists at the
airport.
After the helicopters landed at the air base around
10:30 p.m., the German sharpshooters attempted to kill
the terrorists and a bloody firefight ensued. At 11,
the media was mistakenly informed that the hostages
had been saved and the news was announced to a
relieved Israeli public. Almost an hour later,
however, new fighting broke out and one of the
helicopters holding the Israelis was blown up by a
terrorist grenade. The remaining hostages in the
second helicopter were shot to death by one of the
surviving terrorists.
At 3 a.m., a drawn and teary-eyed Jim McKay, who had
been reporting the drama throughout the day as part of
ABC’s Olympic coverage, announced: “They’re all gone.”
Five of the terrorists were killed along with one
policeman, and three were captured. A little over a
month later, on Oct. 29, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked
by terrorists demanding that the Munich killers be
released.
The Germans capitulated and the terrorists were let
go, but an Israeli assassination squad was assigned to
track them down along with those responsible for
planning the massacre. According to George Jonas in
Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli
Counter-Terrorist Team, eight of the 11 men targeted
for death were killed. Of the remaining three, one
died of natural causes and the other two were
assassinated, but it is not known for sure if they
were killed by Israeli agents.
Meanwhile, the mastermind of the massacre remains at
large. In fact, in 1999, Abu Daoud admitted his role
in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Palestinian
Terrorist. He claims his commandos never intended to
harm the athletes and blamed their deaths on the
German police and the stubbornness of then-Israeli
Prime Minister Golda Meir (JTA, May 4, 1999).
The massacre of 11 Israeli athletes was not
considered sufficiently serious to merit canceling or
postponing the Olympics. “Incredibly, they’re going
on with it,” Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times
wrote at the time. “It’s almost like having a dance
at Dachau.”
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