Munich Olympics Massacre 1972

Eight young Palestinian men calling themselves “The Black September” managed to avoid security and get inside the 1972 Olympic Village. Their intent was to expose weaknesses in government laws and the helplessness of governments in crisis. These young Palestinian men held nine Israeli athletes as hostages ultimately killing all. Their goal was to create maximum outrage. Because this incident was on the heels of the close of the Vietnam War, most people had watched Walter Cronkite and other news reporters on the front lines and thought they had been exposed to the worst of humanity against humanity. But they were wrong. The entire Olympic Village shoot out was shown on live TV. The slaughter of these young athletes was likened to Nazi Germany's extermination of the Jews during WW2. The demands of the terrorists were to have a plane fly them and their hostages back to any Arab country willing to accept them and the release of 200 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli prisons.
Golda Meir as prime minister of Israel chose not to negotiate at all with the terrorist and gave the German Chancellor Willy Brandt permission to handle the crisis as he saw fit. This put a lot of pressure on Germany to do what they thought was the right thing.

Chancellor Brandt thought that they best way to protect the hostages was not to let the terrorist leave the country as they had requested. Many of the Arab countries did not want to get involved, but Cairo agreed to accept the landing of the plane the terrorists requested. They possibly could have gotten many of the hostages back safely, but instead the hard line taken by the Chancellor forced the terrorists hand, and all the hostages were killed. This was the fatal mistake. I think the terrorists felt they had many supporters as they made their stance. But when the Middle Eastern countries did not act favorably to their actions by not getting involved, it showed them that they were on their own. After it was all over, Libya offered to send a plane to retrieve the bodies of the Palestinian dead and stated that the terrorists never intended to kill anyone. The tragedy was partly caused by the Germans trapping the terrorists and the Israelis not releasing prisoners that were requested in the “Black September’s” demands.

This incident caused the world to pay attention to the Palestinian cause which most people didn’t know existed. But on the other hand the backlash was severe. Israeli intelligence discovered that the “Black Septembers” plan was begun in Syria. So Israel retaliated by bombing Lebanon and Syria in the heaviest strikes since the 1967 war. During the Olympics the American Government warned American interests in Germany to be on the look out as they expected trouble all along. Also Germany insisted that the Olympics continue as planned. Because of that and their inability to negotiate the release of the hostages, Germany lost its hope to repair their reputation following the exposure of the WW2 war crimes. The security at the Olympic Village was much too lax and this may have been prevented if they had been more alert as to who was coming and going in the Village. The Palestinian cause for what they felt was injustice in their country received a huge black mark in the eyes of the world because civilians were killed and yet “the Black September” were honored as Martyrs to their cause. I think that most European and American people do not understand the Arab countries issues and because of their inability to see things from a different cultural perspective, there will never be a settlement of their issues that still stand in today’s times.

In the aftermath of all this, the question remains on hostage negotiation. When do you meet their demands in the hope of saving lives, and when do you stick to policy which terrorists may use to achieve their goals.