Palestinian architect of Munich attack slams Spielberg's film

[Behind the Aegis]

The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

The Hollywood director has called "Munich," which dramatizes the 1972 raid and Israel's reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his "prayer for peace."

Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but did not take part and does not feature in the film.

He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to Israel.

more...

[BlueEyedSon]

1. "That movie sucks, I wish I was part of it...."

:puke:

[NanceGreggs]

2. My heart bleeds ...

"Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack ..."

"He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller ..."

What kind of world are we living in when an admitted architect of murder and mayhem can't get a consulting position when they make the movie about his own crimes?



:shrug:

[Nickster]

9. I thought the same exact thing. Poor baby, no consulting gig for you!

[NanceGreggs]

12. What next?

A made-for-TV movie about Katrina, without a big-bucks consulting job for Brownie?

[Nickster]

18. You must be joking!

[NanceGreggs]

19. No, not joking at all ...

What if someone wanted to make a big-budget movie about Katrina, but wanted it to flop at the box office so the investors could get a big tax write-off? Wouldn't Brownie be the PERFECT consultant on how to do EVERYTHING WRONG?

[Nickster]

24. I think that storyline has been done already. Isn't that the basic premise

of the Producers?

[Don Claybrook]

3. Please help...I'm obviously missing some of the story

I'll allow that I don't know a great deal about the '72 Olympic terrorism event, except that several Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinians.

Here's my question: if this guy Mohammed Daoud is the undisputed mastermind and is commonly accepted as such, why is he still free and/or alive? I did read the entire article, and it seems to say that he was let go some time ago. Is he fully culpable for this crime?

[Tom Joad]

5. Why is Sharon still free? He was held responsible for a massacre

in Lebanon, when it was occupied by Israeli troops-- Remember the terror of Sabra & Shatila, 1982.
Remember the terror of Deir Yassin. (no one was ever prosecuted for that, either)
Remember the terror of the Nabka, the forced exodus of over 700,000 Palestinians in 1948.

The death of these Israeli athletes/soldiers is sad, but one needs to look at the bigger picture.

Why is the suffering of the Palestinians completely ignored?

More to consider:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/Munich.shtml

[Don Claybrook]

8. no, no, and no. That's not the road I'm going down.

Just for the record, I'm usually on the side of the underdog, and that includes the Palestinians. I do not like Israel's aggressive stance, just as I don't like my own country's aggressive stance. And yes, I've gotten in trouble every time I've mistakenly taken a wrong turn and ended up in the I/P forums.

So I do look at the larger context most all the time. But I also look at individual incidents and want to understand them better. So no, it's not inappropriate for me to ask why this man is still free and/or alive, which is not the state in which Israel usually leaves its enemies.

If I want to understand why gasoline is $2.25 a gallon today while it was $2.00 yesterday, I need some pretty limited information. I don't need to know how the oil deposits got there, along with the entire history of global oil politics. These are very useful fields of study, but they don't speak to the .25 jump in gasoline over the past week, yes?

To put this a different way, please don't jump to conclusions about where I stand with Israeli/Palestinian issues, because at first blush, it looks as though you've got it backwards where I'm concerned.

By the way: Sharon is still free for the same reason George W Bush is still free. It's not because they deserve said freedom.

thanks

[Schema Thing]

7. Because deep down, humans accept that there will be

collateral damage, or more pointedly, innocent people killed, when politics fail. Why is George Bush free? He's killed innocent people for a far less noble cause than Palestien.

I'm not saying we should accept it, I think we should demand more from politics, and less from guns.

[Don Claybrook]

10. yes, yes, see my post above

I even mentioned GWB in the same context. But I'm wondering about the answer to a very specific question: why is this particular individual still free? Did he serve time and was released? Did he cut a deal? Is someone else suspected of being the actual mastermind?

Whichever side a person is on, the I/P issues are so damned spring-loaded that it's hard to ask a genuine question and have it taken as such.

Do you remember when the Chechen school was shot up a little over a year ago? I recall mentioning something about the inexcusable brutality. I had to spend several posts after that explaining that this brutality in no way absolved Bush of anything he has done wrong, and that it in no way elevated the US above the rest of the world, etc, etc. But a real progressive ought to be able to call a wrong a wrong, no matter who commits that wrong, and no matter who it appears to benefit. The obvious tie-in here is that I'm not in any fashion trying to absolve the Israeli government of some of the many terrible things they've done. But I can still ask questions about this fellow who was the apparent mastermind, and if so moved after finding out more about him, I still have the freedom to call him a thug killer.

For what it's worth, I don't like the term collateral damage. Not only is it the brainchild of Ollie North, but it's dehumanizing. I'd rather see collateral damage described in various ways to fit the matter at hand, e.g., instead of saying collateral damage, call it "all his hopes and dreams, everything he ever was or would be, was running out of his open guts, through his hands, and into the sand". At the very least, I'll take your alternate version: innocent people killed.

thanks.

[Schema Thing]

11. Gotcha. Understand your question, and your frustration, lol

Sorry to have been a part in said frustration. Cheers!

Btw, "Collateral damage" just about makes my head explode too. A real favourite expression of the brave warriors found in armchairs all over America.

[Don Claybrook]

16. & let me take this opportunity to say

I like your screen name. It's just twisted enough and incongruent enough and quirky enough to hit some certain harmonic with me.

Have a good day.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. "no regrets"

for slaughtering innocent athletes in cold blood.

Nice guy.

[Thorandmjolnir]

6. It would help if people actually read the article:

First, he is not upset he was not consulted, that is what the paper says. But his actually quote is:

"If he really wanted to make it a prayer for peace he should have listened to both sides of the story and reflected reality, rather than serving the Zionist side alone," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus.


Second, this is why he is free to make that statement:

"Daoud survived a 1981 shooting in Poland that he blamed on a Mossad mole in the rival Palestinian faction of Abu Nidal.

Though Israel allowed him to visit the occupied West Bank after 1993 peace accords, and Mossad veterans say the reprisals are over, Daoud said he feels he could still be targeted.

"When I chose a long time ago to be a revolutionary fighter I prepared to be a martyr. I am not afraid, because people's souls are in God's hands, not Israel's," he said."

[xchrom]

13. israel doesn't like the movie -- this guy doesn't like the movie

looks like i'll see the movie.

[Scurrilous]

17. LOL

My thoughts exactly.

[regnaD kciN]

14. Are you sure this story isn't sourced from The Onion?

:eyes:

[Behind the Aegis]

15. Reuters

[TankLV]

20. I find it extremely sickening that any DU'r would try to make excuses for

these murderers and TERRORISTS.

It is inexcusable.

One must never forget who started the random massacre of innocent civilians as a valid policy.

That is the ONE thing unique to these palistinian terrorists, that's for sure.

[Thorandmjolnir]

21. Palestinians started this?

"One must never forget who started the random massacre of innocent civilians as a valid policy."

Short memory span? :think:

[LostinVA]

23. It wasn't the Palestinians

I don't agree with their methods, but like Irish freedom fighters, I do understand their motive. Much like Arafat.

[Wordie]

25. It appears that it is you who has forgotten. (or maybe you never knew)

Here's wiki on the terrorist activities of Yitzhak Shamir, former PM of Israel, who was a leader of the notorious Stern Gang, a terrorist group fighting against the British for the establishment of Israel:

After Stern was killed by the British in 1942, Shamir escaped from the detention camp and became one of the three leaders of the group in 1943, reforming it as "Lehi (group)". During his tenure, the Lehi was responsible for the 1944 assassination of Britain's minister of state for the Middle East, Lord Moyne; an assassination attempt against Harold MacMichael, the High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine in the same year (Kushner, 2002, p. 348), and in 1948 the assassination of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, Count Folke Bernadotte who, although he had secured the release of 21,000 prisoners headed for Nazi extermination camps during World War II, was seen by Shamir and his collaborators as an anti-Zionist and "an obvious agent of the British enemy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shamir

And, how about Menachim Begin, another former PM:
Armed rebellion against the British

Begin claimed that the policies of the British were pro-Arab. He issued a call to arms and from 1945-1948 the Irgun launched an all-out armed rebellion, attacking British installations and posts. He planned the bombing of the British administrative and military headquarters (at the luxurious King David Hotel) in Jerusalem that killed 91 people, including many British officers and troops, as well as Arab and Jewish civilians.

...Somehow, he managed to elude both the British and the members of the Jewish Agency who wanted to capture him. From his places of hiding, he directed the terrorist campaign of thousands of fighters who plagued the British forces. Tens of thousands of British troops were called in to quell this terrorist activity, but Begin and his Irgun continuously harassed the British until the day they pulled out of Palestine in 1948.

The Deir Yassin episode

Begin has been accused of being responsible for what transpired on the April 9, 1948, when commandos of the Irgun and the Lehi attacked Deir Yassin, an Arab village of about 750 residents located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and according to Plan Dalet, it was to be destroyed and the residents evacuated. Yet over 100 people were killed. Soon after the incident, Begin stated: "Accept my congratulations on this splendid act of conquest. Convey my regards to all the commanders and soldiers. We shake your hands. We are all proud of the excellent leadership and the fighting spirit in this great attack ... Tell the soldiers: you have made history in Israel with your attack and your conquest. Continue this until victory. As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou has chosen us for conquest."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Begin

These activities occured long before any terrorist activity by the Palestinians.

[Djinn]

26. sorry wrong

the first bus and market place bombings in the area (deliberate killing of innocent civilians)- committed by pre Israel Zionist terrorists, along with the first plane hijacking.

the "you started it" argument is completely unhelpful but if you ARE gonna use it at least get your facts right

[Javaman]

22. Well, since the records of the event are still sealed...

All anyone can go by is the newspaper accounts.

I will see the movie but I will keep it in perspective that it's all based upon hearsay and second hand accounts.