Ayoon Wa Azan (Shame on Israel)

There is a subtext to the Olympic Games in London which I find more important than the text, that is, the games per se, namely the attempt by Israel and its advocates to have the so-called massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972 commemorated during the Olympics. At the time, I was a guest of the government of West Germany and had an official escort. I wrote about the incident immediately after it happened, and wrote about it after that each time the Israelis raised it. I also wrote about it a few days ago. I condemned the attack at the time and I condemn it again today. But I want to say in the clearest possible terms, that the Israelis and the militants who died with them had lost their lives in an ambush by the German police at the airport. Everyone would have survived that day if the kidnappers and the hostages were allowed to leave the country, in accordance with the agreement that the Germans accepted, before they alone reneged on it. It is impossible that the kidnappers wanted to execute the Israeli coaches and athletes, as this defeats the purpose behind the kidnapping. The militants wanted to swap the hostages with Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel, nothing more, and nothing less, and this could have only been achieved if the hostages had made it to a third country alive, followed by negotiations for a prisoner swap. Today, the Munich Games massacre, or the Olympic village massacre, have become part of everyday language, because the Israeli right is repeating these terms so that people may believe them. Massacres are what Israel perpetrated from Deir Yassin and Qibya, to the school of Bahr al-Baqar and every other massacre before and after, including in South Lebanon and Gaza. No doubt, future massacres will be committed by the racist criminal colonial occupation state. As for the incident during the Munich Olympics, it was a mistake committed by West German police. At the Olympic Village, only one Israeli was killed, wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, after he attacked one of the militants and stabbed another. My escort had contacted me in the morning and alerted me to the attack, so I rushed with her to the Olympic Village where the police stopped us from entering. We stood at the door while people were gathering to see what was going on, and debating with one another without much ruckus, as this was prior to the killings. I wrote all this at the time in English, and revisited the incident many times after that, in both Arabic and English. I then lived to see the attack being exploited to divert attention away from Israel’s daily crimes against the Palestinian people. Five of the Palestinian kidnappers were killed at the airport, and three survived. Nine or ten Israelis were killed, in addition to one German policeman. There were many studies and books published about the incident afterwards, and many criticized the poor protection the Olympic Village had, the West German police’s lack of adequate training, and the naivety of the military operation to rescue the hostages. Yet this did not prevent two Israeli widows from asking the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to commemorate the dead Israelis. However, the IOC refused, and a simple ceremony was held in the Olympic Village in the end, during which the widow Ankie Spitzer spoke, and attacked the IOC position saying, “Shame on you”. But in reality, it is a shame on Israel, and every Israeli government all the way to the current neo-Nazi government led by war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Since 29/9/2000, thousands of Palestinians have been killed by the occupation forces and racist Jewish settlers. However, one number is enough here, which is 1500 Palestinian minors killed, i.e. below the age of 15, compared to 135 Israeli children. This ratio of one to ten is a Nazi ratio par excellence; so shame on Israel. I believe that remembering those minors is more important that commemorating men who had all served in the occupation army, and perhaps killed or destroyed during their military service. This does not mean that they deserved to be killed, but I insist that they would not have been if the militants had been allowed instead to carry out their original goal, i.e. swapping the Israeli hostages with their prisoners. Today, there are more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including women and children. Perhaps the Olympic Games should pay tribute to them. If this is not appropriate, then there is the UN General Assembly session next month. There, the 173 member states can observe a moment of silence to commemorate victims killed by Israel in collusion with the Western world, especially the United States. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.