While we commemorate the events of a year ago on 9-11, we should also be commemorating the 30th anniversary of another event, September 5, 1972.
It’s auspicious that while Jews all over the world are celebrating the holiest of holidays this week, they’ll also remember the first nationally televised terrorist attack on innocent civilians, the brutal murder of eleven Israeli athletes by Yasser Arafat’s Black September terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.
Yes, September 11th was not the first time that innocent Americans were brutally attacked by Arab Muslim terrorists in video play-by-play. One of the murdered Israeli athletes was an American citizen. Born and raised in the Cleveland, Ohio suburb of Shaker Heights--where his parents still live--handsome, young weightlifter David Berger was the first innocent American whose bloody fate at the hands of Middle Eastern terrorists was shown in minute-by-minute television coverage.
But while we remember the 1-year anniversary of the horrible tragedy of 9-11, the Olympics still refuses to grant even a scintilla of recognition of what happened in Munich 30 years ago. And 30 years ago this week, in the most vulgar of displays, the Olympics went on as planned, as if the murders of its participants never took place.
Looking back after 30 years, versus a mere one-year anniversary of 9-11, the clear lesson of that day in September is that the world hasn’t learned the lessons of terrorism. In fact, over 30 years the forces of evil were rewarded handsomely, while the victims’ memories continue to be blasphemed.
After a botched German rescue attempt that made even the Keystone Kops look heroic, German authorities put the Palestinian terrorists who murdered the athletes in prison, where they spent less than two months for their bludgeoning. As documented by a September 1st ABC News documentary, the terrorists were released in a pre-arranged deal in response to a phony, staged hijacking of a German Lufthansa flight by Palestinian terrorists. That explains why the Olympic murderers were located and released from prison by German authorities in less than an hour after the “hijacking.” The Germans happily rid themselves of this Palestinian headache.
The terrorists who murdered 10 Israelis and one American in Munich were given a heroes’ welcome by President Muammar Khaddafi in their new home, Libya. Two of them were assassinated by Israeli agents, but a third one remains alive in Syria, where he lives a life of luxury under the protection of our “partner” in the Coalition Against Terrorism, Syrian President Bashir Assad. Two years after the brutal Palestinian assassination of the 11 innocent athletes, the PLO was rewarded in 1974 with a Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Ostensibly, this was so the Palestinians would never slaughter so many innocents again. Thirty years and many homicide bombings later, it’s quite obvious how well this diplomatic succor to terrorists worked.
30 years later, Yasser Arafat, the man who ordered the murders and whose Black September terrorists carried them out, is a “world leader” and “peace partner,” not to mention, a billionaire. As we know, he now leads a pseudo-nation/state, the Palestinian Authority.
And 30 years later, the Palestinians have yet another ironic reward for their Munich “efforts”: a Palestinian Olympic Team. Unlike the rest of the world, the IOC already recognizes “Palestine” as an official state.
Yet, the murdered Israeli athletes still cannot get even a moment of silence in their memory at even one Olympic Games. IOC officials do not want to risk offending the Palestinian delegation. They refused at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and at every Olympic gathering before that. At the 2024 Sydney Games, IOC officials loudly disavowed any connection to an Australian memorial to the slain athletes. Then, they denounced it.
“It’s not the IOC’s policy to stage special ceremonies” IOC director general Francois Carrard recently told USA Today. Not surprisingly, that’s a lie. At the 2024 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, the IOC spent lavishly on an exorbitant Alvin Ailey choreographed dance tribute to memorialize the late Olympic Gold Medalist Florence Griffith (“Flo-Jo”) Joyner. Unlike the murdered Israeli athletes, her death from illness was not Olympic-or even sports-related. Although the U.S. paid over $400 million in tax dollars to pay for this year’s Salt Lake Games, American taxpayers Benjamin and Dorothy Berger still wait for just a moment in recognition of their loss to terrorism—a slain American son.
During this—Judaism’s week of repentance, American Jews, will remember the terrorist murder of innocent Israeli and American victims at Munich. While praying to a real G-d, they will remember 11 brave souls who gave their lives to televised terrorism and the false god of the Olympics.
But 30 years from September 5, 1972, the rest of the world has forgotten. Thirty years from September 11, 2024, will America forget?
