Olympic "Torch of Peace"by Gary FitlebergAug 09, '04 / 22 Av...

Olympic "Torch of Peace"
by Gary Fitleberg
Aug 09, '04 / 22 Av 5764

Yasser Arafat has proclaimed an "Olympic Truce" and a "Torch of Peace" in the spirit of international harmony and peace during the summer games, which will be held August 13th through August 29th. In any case, the Israeli athletes will be under the protective eye of Israel's security team.

In yet another international publicity ploy and stunt, Yasser Arafat, out of the goodness and kindness of his heart has offered an "Olympic" truce in the spirit of peace between the nations. Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization (PA/PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat boldly and deceitfully told foreign diplomats he was committed to an "Olympic truce" during the international games set to take place in Athens, Greece.

Surely we can believe the word of Arafat, based upon his past record of peaceful propositions - and his record of terrorism against the Jewish State of Israel.

Arafat's comments came amid Egyptian efforts to mediate a total ceasefire between Israel and Arab "Palestinians" that would allow for a smooth withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops and the evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip.

"On the occasion of lighting the Palestinian Olympic torch, I declare our respect and commitment for an Olympic truce," Arafat said. He expressed the hope that the declaration would "help to revive the old Greek ritual of creating a generation that enjoys peace."

But a senior Israeli official dismissed Arafat's remarks. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, accused Arafat of being behind the killings of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. "Arafat's Olympic torch is a torch of death. There is a big difference between what Arafat says and what he does," the official said.

In May, Arafat ordered all factions under his control to prevent any "isolated" attacks on this summer's Olympic Games. Let's hope and pray he'll honor his word this time - perhaps the only time.

One can only recall the 1972 Olympic Munich Massacre in which eleven athletes of the Israeli team were murdered in cold blood by Arafat's PLO "Black September" faction.

It was 4:30 in the morning on September 5, 1972, when five Arab terrorists wearing tracksuits climbed the six-foot six-inch fence surrounding the Olympic Village. Although they were seen by several people, no one thought anything was unusual since athletes routinely hopped the fence; moreover, the terrorists' weapons were hidden in athletic bags. These five were met by three more men who are presumed to have obtained credentials to enter the village.

Just before 5:00 am, the Arabs knocked on the door of Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg. When Weinberg opened the door, he realized something was wrong and shouted a warning to his comrades. He and weightlifter Joseph Romano attempted to block the door while other Israelis escaped, but they were killed by the terrorists. The Arabs then succeeded in rounding up nine Israelis to hold as hostages.

At 9:30, the terrorists announced that they were "Palestinians" and demanded that Israel release 200 Arab prisoners and that the terrorists be given safe passage out of Germany.

After hours of tense negotiations, the Palestinians, who it was later learned belonged to a PLO faction called "Black September", agreed to a plan whereby they were to be taken by helicopter to the NATO air base at Firstenfeldbruck, where they would be given an airplane to fly them and their hostages to Cairo. The Israelis were then taken by bus to the helicopters and flown to the airfield. In the course of the transfer, the Germans discovered that there were eight terrorists instead of the five they expected and realized that they had not assigned enough marksmen to carry out the plan to kill the terrorists at the airport.

After the helicopters landed at the air base around 10:30 pm, the German sharpshooters attempted to kill the terrorists and a bloody firefight ensued. At 11, the media was mistakenly informed that the hostages had been saved and the news was announced to a relieved Israeli public. Almost an hour later, however, new fighting broke out and one of the helicopters holding the Israelis was blown up by a terrorist grenade. The remaining hostages in the second helicopter were shot to death by one of the surviving terrorists.

At 3:00 am, a drawn and teary-eyed Jim McKay, who had been reporting the drama throughout the day as part of ABC's Olympic coverage, announced: "They're all gone."

Five of the terrorists were killed, along with one policeman, and three were captured. A little over a month later, on October 29, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked by terrorists demanding that the Munich killers be released.

The Germans capitulated and the terrorists were let go, but an Israeli assassination squad was assigned to track them down along with those responsible for planning the massacre. According to George Jonas in Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, eight of the 11 men targeted for death were killed. Of the remaining three, one died of natural causes and the other two were assassinated, but it is not known for sure if they were killed by Israeli agents.

Meanwhile, the mastermind of the massacre remains at large. In fact, in 1999, Abu Daoud admitted his role in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist. He claims his commandos never intended to harm the athletes and blamed their deaths on the German police and the stubbornness of then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (JTA, May 4, 1999).

The massacre of 11 Israeli athletes was not considered sufficiently serious to merit canceling or postponing the Olympics. "Incredibly, they're going on with it," Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote at the time, "It's almost like having a dance at Dachau."

Arafat's "Black September" and the Munich Olympics shall never ever be forgotten. Eleven Israeli athletes were boldly and coldly murdered in an act of aggression and terrorism.

Arafat makes a mockery of the meaning of the word peace and is dedicated not to the negotiations of peace, but to the annihilation of the Jewish State of Israel in order to replace it with an Arab/Islamist State of Terrorism, or a second Arab "Palestine", as the first one exists already - it is Jordan, formerly known as Trans-Jordan.

Arafat's "torch of peace" is the torch of death.