Plan B Forum

Planner of Munich Olympics attack dies in Syria


Jul 3, 11:08 AM (ET)

By ALBERT AJI


DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Mohammed Oudeh, the key planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes, died Saturday morning in Damascus, his daughter said. He was 73.

Oudeh died of kidney failure a day after he was rushed to Damascus' Andalus hospital after falling sick, Hana Oudeh told The Associated Press .

Mohammed Oudeh - also known under his guerrilla name Abu Daoud - did not participate in the Sept. 5, 1972 attack. Two Israeli athletes were killed in the assault, and nine others died in a botched rescue attempt by the German police. A German policeman and five Palestinian gunmen also were killed.

The Munich attack shocked the world as the most high-profile and brazen assault on a sports team, and later led to a wave of assassinations of top Palestinian officials.

Oudeh was a leader of "Black September," an offshoot of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah group that was established to avenge the 1970 expulsion of Palestinian guerrillas from Jordan.

In a 2006 interview with The AP, Oudeh said the Munich events were a turning point for Palestinians and rejected the term "terrorists" to describe Palestinian fighters.

"Before Munich, we were simply terrorists. After Munich, at least people started asking who are these terrorists? What do they want," he said. "Before Munich, nobody had the slightest idea about Palestine."

Oudeh said he had no qualms about the operation because he considered the Israeli athletes, as military reservists, legitimate targets. But he claimed the intent was not to kill the Israelis - rather, to use them as bargaining chips to free more than 200 Palestinians jailed in Israel.

Showing no remorse or regret, he recounted in the interview how leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization - angry that the Palestinians were denied an Olympic slot - dreamed up the attack while sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Rome.

He first acknowledged having a role in the Munich operation in a 1999 book, "Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich," that caused an uproar when it came out.

Born in Jerusalem in 1937, Oudeh lived there until the 1967 Mideast war when Israel captured the eastern part of the city. He was displaced and moved to Jordan where he joined the PLO.

After the 1972 attack, Oudeh lived in eastern Europe and then in Lebanon until the Lebanon civil war broke out in 1975. He went back to Jordan, and from there to Ramallah in the West Bank in 1993, after the Palestinians' Oslo peace accords with Israel.

But when his book on Munich came out, he was banned from returning to Ramallah following a trip to Jordan, and finally settled in Syria - the only country that would take him.

Oudeh escaped narrowly in what he believed was an attack by Israel's Mossad spy agency in 1981. He was sitting in a hotel cafe in Warsaw, Poland, when a gunman shot him in his left wrist, chest, stomach and jaw.

"It was a Palestinian double agent, recruited by the Mossad. ... He was arrested 10 years later, put on trial (by the PLO) and executed," Oudeh said in the interview. His account could not be verified.

He remained militant to the last.

"Today, I cannot fight you anymore, but my grandson will and his grandsons, too," Oudeh said, addressing Israelis.

Later Saturday, Oudeh's coffin - draped in a Palestinian flag - was taken for prayers to the Al-Wasim Mosque in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk where prayers were held. After the prayers, some 500 people chanting "revolution until victory" marched as about a dozen of people carried the coffin toward Martyrs Cemetery where he will be buried.

The funeral was attended by Palestinian officials from different groups, including Fatah and Islamic Jihad.

Hana Odeh said her father was "a great loving and sincere man whose dream was to go back to Palestine."

He is survived by five daughters and a son.

What Kind of Man?

What kind of man is he, and which cause did he use
When he placed the bomb, when he set the fuse
Did he walk away crying “Liberty”
And if he did – what kind of man is he?

Did he sleep well that night deaf to the dying’s last screams
Did no bloody ghosts walk through his dreams
Does he shed innocent blood as part of a grand strategy
And if he does – what kind of man is he?

. . . . . Chorus:
. . . . . For all the tears and mourning
. . . . . For all those you’ve maimed and killed
. . . . . For all the murdered children
. . . . . God damn your soul to hell

Is he a family man, does he have any kids
Will they ever understand what their father did
Does he use noble words like ‘freedom from tyranny’
And if he does – what kind of man is he?

Are you out there tonight wearing your every man’s face
Do you still see yourself as part of the human race
In spite of the murder you’ve done and the killings you’ve yet to do
And that’s why I ask – what kind of man are you?

. . . . . Chorus:
. . . . . For all the tears and mourning
. . . . . For all those you’ve maimed and killed
. . . . . For all the murdered children
. . . . . God damn your soul to hell

From Gethsemane to Auschwitz the man with the gun
Has stood between us and what we could have become
Shall we be dragged back once again into barbarity
If we let them do that - what kind of men are we?

© Eric Bogle
http://www.ericbogle.net

A song by Eric Bogle (who also wrote "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" BTW--a song with which some of you are familiar):

rubato wrote:I don't understand the apparent satisfaction so many have merely because he has attained a condition which eventually all of us will reach ?

A sermonette on futile things.

yrs,
rubato

"Hell" as a place of eternal punishment does not exist in scripture

22 . . . the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. (Luke 16:22-28)

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
—Daniel 12:2

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
—Matthew 5:22

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.
—Mark 9:44

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
—2 Thessalonians 1:9

rubato wrote:The tone of Bosco's post was clearly that of satisfaction....

yrs,
rubato

I don't think anyone's particularly satisfied simply by the death of this alleged human being, especially since he survived so long and died of natural causes.

It does, however, give those who believe in a religion which includes the idea of HELL some satisfaction in that belief--

Please don't turn this BBS into another CSB pissing contest, okay?

Grow up, be a man and stop with the back-biting and indirect personal attacks

I make an observation and they all start in with the whining and nasty personal remarks.

It takes 2 to tango and just as surely takes at least 2 for the pissing to be a match.