Triumph Over Terrorism

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The entire Olympic team of ISRAEL marches in the Opening Ceremonies for the 1972 Summer Games at the Olympiastadion in Munich, West Germany.
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It is, indeed, a very rare occasion in the world of sport that a team actually wins just by merely showing up, as the Soviet Union had the misfortune of finding out the hard way by not traveling to Chile for the second leg of the controversial World Cup qualifier in the fall of 1973.

Of course, only a little over one year earlier, the most despicable and shocking incident to ever unfold at any international sporting event in world history had tragically transpired at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games held in West Germany … the infamous MUNICH MASSACRE.

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It would have been enitrely too easy given all the circumstances, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 notwithstanding, for Israel to think cautiously and, perhaps, play it safe. To not allow its athletes to travel abroad and compete at the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Canada. To just go ahead and let the bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists win as participation at an international sports event should never come with the entrance fee of a human life — let alone 11 Israeli athletes and one West German policeman.

But this is not at all what materialized at the Montreal Games as a matter of fact. The appearance of the Israeli Olympic team, itself, was a resilient and resolute triumph over the evil and persistent adversary of Islamic terrorism. Israel’s participation in the traditional march at the opening ceremonies at the brand new Olympic Stadium in Montreal, undoubtedly resented by some in the world, sent a clear and powerful message across the globe that a free and sovereign nation can and will not be defeated by a bunch of radical thugs in ski masks taking advantage of intentionally lax security.

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A colorful scene from the Opening Ceremonies at the newly-constructed Olympic Stadium in the iconic French-Canadian city of Montreal as the 1976 Summer Games formally gets underway then.
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A total of 28 athletes (26 men and two women) competing in ten different sports triumphantly marched for the nation of Israel in the Opening Ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal; seventeen of these very same athletes comprised the ’76 Israeli Olympic football team under the direction of trainer DAVID SCHWEITZER.

1972 Olympic Games : Black September In Munich

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To borrow an English football phrase, it was supposed to be a ‘big day out’ for an anxious and eager entire nation.

The 1972 SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES hosted by the well-known Bavarian city of MUNICH was supposed to be the wonderful opportunity to show the entire world that the Austrian Adolf Hitler and his horrific Nazi Party were a complete aberration, albeit a thoroughly destructive one with a lasting and crippling legacy. The chance to demonstrate clearly that the sort of scenes that prevailed at the Berlin Olympics staged by Hitler and his minions just 36 years prior were totally a thing of the past, that this was, indeed, still the cultured and civilized place that had produced people like Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, or Ludwig von Beethoven, the famed composer and pianist.

But, from what became abundantly and abhorrently apparent, a certain militant Palestinian terrorist group with ties to future Nobel Peace Prize winner YASSIR ARAFAT’s Fatah organization, never got the proverbial memo.

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Instead, the infamous outfit appropriately known as BLACK SEPTEMBER baldly decided to rain blood down upon the German sport parade and took ruthless advantage of security at the Olympic Village, which was intentionally lax as a direct result of the impact that World War II had imposed on Deutschland.

Two Israeli Olympic team members were shot and killed in cold blood as the Palestinian thugs dressed in athletic track suits stormed the targeted apartment building. The worst, however, was yet to come although more detailed accounts can be better found elsewhere. Suffice to say the West German authorities concerned were completely unprepared for this situation, the local Munich police were specifically untrained if not more than a little unnerved by the ordeal and the West German military with its professional sharp-shooting snipers were strictly prohibited by law from getting involved.

In the end, eleven Israeli Olympic team personnel and one West German police officer were dead at the hands of vicious Palestinian terrorists consciously engaged in appalling, at-any-price pursuit of political goals … much like the Nazis used to do, it shall be noted here.

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MUNICH MASSACRE VICTIMS
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David BERGER ———————– Israel Olympic weightlifter
Anton FLIEGERBAUER ——— West German policeman
Ze’ev FRIEDMAN ——————- Israel Olympic weightlifter
Yossef GUTFREUND ————- Olympic wrestling referee from Israel
Eliezer HALFIN ———————- Israel Olympic wrestler
Yossef ROMANO ——————– Israel Olympic weightlifter
Amitzur SHAPIRO —————— Israel Olympic track coach
Keyhat SHORR ———————– Israel Olympic shooting coach
Mark SLAVIN ————————- Israel Olympic wrestler
Andre SPITZER ———————- Israel Olympic fencing coach
Yakov SPRINGER —————— Olympic weightlifting referee from Israel
Moshe WEINBERG —————– Israel Olympic wrestling coach

(“Gutfreund” translated literally from German means “good friend”)
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ANKIE SPITZER, wife of slain Israel Olympic fencing team coach ANDRE SPITZER, surveys the wreckage inside the apartment where the murdering Palestinian terrorists held their hostages before slaughtering the remainder of the unfortunate lot at the Fuerstenfeldbruck Airport; the circles on the wall mark bullet holes for the investigators.

Munich Olympic Massacre In Photos

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The 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich will always be remembered for the tragic terrorist attack that took the lives of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches as well as one West German policeman.

BLACK SEPTEMBER, a militant Palestinian group with ties to YASSER ARAFAT’s Fatah organization, was responsible, taking advantage of intentionally lax, almost non-existant security at the quarters of the athletes at the Olympic Village.

“Black September — We Remember”
here, 9/25/09
dedicated to Bernie O’Hare at LV Ramblings

There are many fine sources to review the story in greater detail but, this being the very first day of the 2010 WORLD CUP in South Africa and considering the 2010 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships just concluded in Germany recently coupled with all the people running around these days who seem to think HAMAS are a bunch of peaceniks and those who fire rockets at random into Israeli cities are a bunch of helpless victims…

A quick review of the Palestinians’ diplomatic and other skills at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games at Munich, in pictures :
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(AP photo)
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(DPA photo)
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(DPA photo)
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(DPA photo)
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(AP photo)
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(AP photo)
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A memorial to the victims of the Munich Massacre at the Fuerstenfeldbruck Airport in what is now unified Germany. (Andreas Thum photo)
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A memorial in the BEN-SHEMEN FOREST in Israel to the eleven Olympic athletes and coaches who were slain at the hands of the ruthless terrorists at the Munich Games in 1972. (Cholo Aleman photo)