Ok, watched One Day in September last night. A documentary about the kidnapping and murder of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team by the Fatah faction Black September during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Summary of the key players:
- Germans? - Completely inept, shattering the illusions of "ruthless efficiency" (quote from the film). Police were completely unprepared and untrained, they broadcast their moves via live television to the world (and the kidnappers), shot at each other, etc..
- Israelis? - Innocent victims
- Palestinians? - Evil Bastards
- Olympic Committee? - Uncaring technocrats who wanted the games to go on regardless of the fact that there were 8 men with AK-47's in the Olympic village who had already murdered 2 participants. The committee seemed to think that if they just ignored the problem it would go away.
Peter Jennings wins misrepresentation award for calling Black September "Extreme leftist terrorists." Uh, Black September = extreme leftists? Well, the PLA was more Marxist at that time, but misunderstanding a liberation movement for commies - I guess that's typical of 1972. The movie was good and really highlighted the complete incompetence of the Germans at both the Federal and State level.
Weakness? A better understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which motivated Black September. They did describe what happened in 1948 very briefly and albeit this was not the focus of the film. The interviews with the one surviving terrorist were good, and they described and showed some detail of the Chatila refugee camp near Beiruit - which would later during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon 10 years later be the scene of one of the worst massacres of Palestinian refugees by Christian militias authorized by then defence minister Ariel Sharon while the IDF looked on. The fact that the last terrorist was from Chatila prompted me to wonder whether Sharon was motivated not just by disdain and contempt but also vengence.
