A thirst for vengeance

[Englander]

January 15, 2006

After Palestinian guerrillas killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972,
Israel's intelligence service, Mossad, avenged the deaths with a series of assassinations across
Europe. Three decades on, the agents involved have finally revealed their secrets. But what did
their killing spree achieve?

Report by Richard Girling

It was on the morning of April 10, 1973, that the future prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, woke up to a "comic moment". The joke was irresistible. His young wife, Nava, had discovered a small bag containing feminine clothing and observed that her sleeping husband was wearing eye shadow and lipstick.

"You can imagine," says the now ex-prime minister Barak, "what passed in her mind."

The anxiety was needless. Barak's late homecoming had nothing to do with sexual indulgence. His gratification had been of a more exalted kind, and not everybody would wake to share the joke. When he reckoned it up, the price of his night out in Beirut was 12, perhaps 13 shattered bodies lying in the morgue. If Nava ever doubted his story, then the reassurance was immediate and the proof absolute.

"The TV pictures. . . were quite shocking, even for us," says Barak now. "In daylight it looked like a mini battlefield, with everything, the blood and the glasses and the broken doors. . . everything spread on the floors of the apartments." It was shocking, but that was the point. To strike terror. To "break the will of those who remain alive".

In cities across Europe, the seeds of fear were being sown. In Paris, a man answers the telephone and is blown in half by an exploding table. In Rome, a man entering a lift has two magazines of hollow-nosed bullets pumped into his body and head. Another is killed by an exploding bed. After many attempts on his life, one of which involves the murder of a bewildered Moroccan waiter, the playboy husband of a former Miss Universe is nailed by a car bomb. Beautiful young women loiter in cars while a multinational posse — Swedes, Danes, Canadians, French, English — swarms through the shadows. The only evidence of its passing will be a spectacularly violent, unexplained death, and anonymous telephone calls to a small group of grieving women in Israel: "Listen to the radio news."

More at;
The Sunday Times

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Englander]

2. There's no morality here, & you know it.

But, at least you're honest, there's none of the nonsense about the "Wrath of God"
being anything other than vengeance, & revenge. The question of legality, or "legitimate targets"
wasn't a factor, obviously.

[pelsar]

3. I'm not talking about "moral values" etc....just the lesson to be learned

nor do i have any confidence in the 'world wide justice system"........true there is always the problem of legality or leg targets (as per the mistake in lillihammer)...but it doesnt always bother govts depending on the "crime".

in this respect i would say the olympic games were particulay henious because of what they represented...combined with the "joke of a rescue" that the germans tried and that it occured on german soil to "top it off".

no this was no "warth of god" crap...but it was also more than just vengence, it was also the warning that if you mess with us, they will be payback no matter how long it takes or where you are.

given our past, and our weak willed responses...if any (usually not) i believe its a good lesson to learn and understand....


the article asks "what was achieved?....quite simple, for us israelis it was the world wide proclimation that were not the jew of old, you cant just go around kicking our ass from country to country without any repucussions, you can just go and kill us with impunity....try it and you might just pay for it with your lives, no matter where you are or where you try to hide.

for us there is immense satisfaction and pride in that...the same kind of pride that went with the entebbe rescue....

[Andromeda]

4. I wonder if the Germans reflect back...

on their feeble attempts to rescue members of the team. It really was pathetic and disgusting.

[Englander]

5. Yeah, we already knew that.

What do you think of the Israeli authorities decision to avenge those deaths
with a campaign of assassination, murder, illegality, & terrorism? Repugnant &
disgusting? Or not?

[pelsar]

6. do what we do....

we compare our avenging to the progroms, to the holocaust, to being kicked out of england, spain, to anti semetic laws in almost every country of the world, arab and european.....and all we did was bow down while our heads were lopped off, or we turned around packed our bags and begged the next country to take us in...until they got tired of us.

avenging the deaths of our athletes was one of our greatest moments..it gave credibility to the mossad, all of a sudden we have millions of conspiracies how the mossad is behind every action on the planet..

given the choices of being the jew that follows the "laws of the land" and finds himself kick around, or the jew that "flouts the laws' and no longer has to beg for his life...(but actually has enemies that now fear him, up to the point where they make up stories about our abilities).....i'll take the jew who stands up straight...and all those little accuasation of just how terrible we are?....the funny thing is, that were not even close to what the brits have done, the americans, the french etc in terms of "flouting intl law."...were just jews so its really pisses them off whe we get "uppity"

ain'it it grand...really pisses off a lot of people.

[Wordie]

7. I condemn the violence, but understand your reasons for it.

But that is my response to Palestinian terrorism, too.

Where does vengance lead but to endless destruction?

[Name removed]

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[Jim Sagle]

10. You IDIOT!!! You blew our cover!

;)

[Name removed]

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[Andromeda]

11. We already knew what?

If the Germans had any regrets about how they handled the hostage situation and that their lack of action was pathetic and disgusting?

Israel avenged the deaths and I don't find anything wrong in that. They did what they had to do. Who else was going to act on their behalf? The Jews have always taken care of themselves because they had to.

What the Palestinians did was an act of terrorism and murder. Do you think that's all right? Isn't it illegal to take hostages and kill them in cold blood? Or do you think it's okay if it's Palestinians killing Jews?

[Englander]

14. You don't find anything wrong with vengeance, & murder?

Bloody hell. I do, whoever's the assassin, whether it's called "terrorism",
or "counter-terrorism", the extra-judicial murder of innocents, or not-so-innocents,
is wrong. It's ineffective, illegal, counter-productive, & just adds more fuel
to the fire. If you cannot see that, then, imo, you're part of the problem.

[pelsar]

15. actually thats not very realistic.....

that wonderful attitude of "black and white" would have meant the assassins would have gotten away with it, become heros in their world and most likly started a bunch of "copy cats"..

consequently in that wonderful fantasy world of black and white, the israelis would have been killed while the killers would have gotten off scot free......(why does that sound so familiar?)

i prefer our method....its a bit messy, but it keeps us alive......
______________________________________

[Englander]

16. Bad "black and white"?

Good "black and white"!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=111158#111285

Hugh, &tc.

[eyl]

17. Your objections are very well

if the murderers are subject to a justice system. But what if they aren't?

In any event, I see this more as an issue of deterrent than of vengeance for its own sake.

[pelsar]

18. something are "black and white......

but usually were stuck with the grays......

people who go and kill athletes at intl competitions designed to promote peace amoung nations should not be allowed to get away with it...that too is black and white.

so it came to be and with it the mossads reputation grew to a world wide net....

[Andromeda]

19. You didn't answer my questions.

The Palestinians who committed the murders of the athletes were more than "not-so-innocents." They were murderers who planned and carried out a heinous act for the public stage.

They would have gotten away with their crimes if Israel hadn't done something about it. It seems to have deterred some repeat instances and that's good.

[Englander]

20. There were questions?

All I saw were rhetorical devices used to make insinuations. And, thanks for those,
it made a change from the usual variety, it's usually (from other posters) variations
on the theme of a-s.

Oh, the irony;

--They were murderers who planned and carried out a heinous act for the public stage.--

Hugh, &tc.

[Name removed]

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[barb162]

12. When I read the subject I thought it referred to the Palestinians

who killed the completely innocent athletes ...until I started reading the article.

[Englander]

13. How far did you get? Not very, most likely. n/t