Yesterday the New York Times wrote of the death of Mohammed Oudeh, otherwise known as Abud Daoud the mastermind of the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics, killing eleven of them.
In later years, as a graying member of the Palestinian old guard, Mr. Oudeh, most commonly known by his guerrilla name, Abu Daoud, showed no remorse for the botched hostage taking and killings of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team that shook the world. He saw the attack as instrumental in putting the Palestinian cause on the map.
“Would you believe me if I tell you that if I had to do it all over, I would?†he said in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press. “But maybe, just maybe, we should have shown some flexibility. Back in our days, it was the whole of Palestine or nothing, but we should have accepted a Palestinian state next to Israel.â€
I don’t know why the attack was considered “botched,” after all Abu Daoud saw the attack as “…as instrumental in putting the Palestinian cause on the map.” It’s a sentiment the Peter Jennings demonstrated quite well, as Martin Peretz recalled:
“I first saw Jennings on ABC when, as a young TV journalist, he reported from the Munich Olympics. And I was filled with disgust that his subsequent career has only deepened. At Munich — I still remember it, 30 years later — Jennings tried to explain away the abductions and massacre of the young Israeli athletes. His theme: The Palestinians were helpless and desperate. Ipso facto, they were driven to murder. That’s life…”
While I probably shouldn’t quibble in the the obituary acknowledges that Abu Daoud didn’t regret the terrorism, it adds this little bit at the end:
In 1996, his exile appeared to be over when he and several other former guerrillas were allowed back by to Israel in order to attend an assembly amending the Palestinian national charter. He joined those voting to remove the charter’s call for an armed struggle to destroy the Jewish state.
Actually the purpose of the vote wasn’t so clear. Prof Yehoshuah Porath, for one, considered the vote a scam. It changed nothing. But supporting a two state solution – no matter how insincerely – seems to be sufficient the New York Times to expiate the sin of murder.
Needless to say the obituary says nothing about “moderate” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s role in the terror.
In other dead terrorist news, Elder of Ziyon noticed that a CNN reporter mourned the death of Muhammad Hussein FadlallÄh. This actually isn’t too surprising as Fadlallah was given (for a short time) a column at the Washington Post’s On Faith website.
The Guardian’s obituary was (of course) rather fawning:
Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, mourned the loss of “a voice of moderation and an advocate of unity among the Lebanese and Muslims in general”.
Celebrating a religious authority he said many Sunni clerics relied on in their efforts to bridge Lebanon’s often violent religious divides, Maher Hamoud, a leading Sunni sheikh, told the Guardian the west struggled to understand Fadlallah’s message: “He always sought to differentiate between resistance movements, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and terrorism.”
Even read this account of Fadlallah’s library in Beirut from 2006:
In Lebanon, he’s considered a respected, liberal voice among his clerical peers, his moderation evident in his quick denunciation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and insistent calls for dialogue with the West.
The library is his gesture toward bridging a divide he sees as bridgeable; knowledge, he says, is the foundation of that dialogue.
“There is no censorship over any of the titles,” Fadlallah said in his office a few blocks away. His thin eyebrows arched under his black turban, which framed his ascetic face and snowy beard. “You can’t silence an idea by imprisoning it,” he said.
While I suppose that it’s progress that Fadlallah’s library included books by Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Netanyahu, I find it hard to believe that he was, in any way, liberal in the Western tradition.
In too much reporting there’s a sense that if someone isn’t the most extreme, it means that they are absolutely – not relatively – “moderate.”
Finally there’s one terrorist who is still with us, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi . (via memeorandum)
The Scottish government insists Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister who took the final decision to release Megrahi, based his ruling on a medical report by Dr Andrew Fraser, director of health and care at the Scottish Prison Service (SPS).
A spokesman said Professor Sikora’s advice to Libya “had no part to play in considerations on the Megrahi caseâ€.
Jack Straw, then Justice Secretary at Westminster, admitted last year that trade and oil agreements were an essential part of the British government’s decision to include Megrahi in a previously planned prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
The case for compassion looked like opportunism last year. That Megrahi is still alive today confirms that impression.
When will the elites in the West stop romanticizing terrorists?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
And why would he express any remorse for the Olympic massacre? More and more I see it as one of those world-historical events, one whose importance was not fully grasped at the time.
The Palestinians did something that the Axis and the Communists likely never even contemplated doing–breaking the Olympic peace by murdering for political gain. And the world’s reaction was not revulsion or condemnation so much as “understanding,” not condoning, certainly, but I recall few unequivocal condemnations. Usually we were cautioned to try to understand why people would be moved to such violence.
In short, the lesson was that terror would spark not revulsion but political gain, not universal abhorrence but a desire to delve into why people who are so oppressed would act this way. And it’s hard not to wonder how things would have been different if the world has reacted differently.