Glorifying Terrorist Martyrs

Karen James, a member of the 1972 Canadian Olympic team that travelled to Munich in 2005 remembers the horrific events that unfolded there, very well. She was among the athletes who had returned late at night to the Olympic Village. Who chose, instead of taking the long hike to the entrance gate of the village, to scale the surrounding chain-link fence, taking a short cut that would appeal to young and athletic people, enthused with where they were, what they were there for, and their acrobatic capabilities.

They hardly took notice when quite close by their group another group was doing precisely the same thing, climbing over the chain link fence behind the Athletes Olympic Village. Where most competitors were already bedded down for the night. Particularly those whose competitions would be coming up the following day. Or those for whom the day had included an exhausting episode of demonstrating their athletic prowess in world competition.

On that evening of September 5, 1972, a horror took place, an atrocity that shook the world of sport. Though it did not, in fact, stop the Games from proceeding once the gore and the bloodshed was done with. The Games must, after all, go on. Or is that the show must go on? And wasn't it quite the show? Eight Palestinian terrorists from the Black September wing of the PLO had set out to demonstrate to the world that no Israelis were safe anywhere in the world. It was their group of eight that had clambered over the fence close by the Canadian athletes.

On entering the building where the Israeli competitors had been accommodated, the terrorists rounded up the occupants of two apartments, the Israeli athletes, at 4:30 a.m. There was a struggle as two of the Israelis fought back against the terrorists, and they were killed, the other nine taken hostage. Several of the Israelis escaped, and alerted authorities. By 5:10 police were on the scene. At that point a list of demands was made public; that 234 prisoners were to be released from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of the nine athletes.

One of the eight Palestinian terrorists comprising the Black September group stands on a balcony of the Olympic Village during a standoff after they kidnapped nine members of the Israeli Olympic team and killed two others on Sept. 5, 1972 in Munich.  (Getty Images/Stringer)

They soon demanded two planes be provided to fly them to Egypt. German officials agreed, but planned to mount an offence to stop the terrorists from leaving with their hostages. The plan was to storm the building, but it was a plan that was televised to a shocked and curious world, so that when the gunmen turned into television, the intentions of the German officials was revealed to them.

An agreement was reached to transport the terrorists and their hostages to the Furstenfeldbruck airport by helicopter where the Germans had decided they would seize the opportunity to confront the terrorists, and stationed snipers at the airport. Once there, the terrorists noted a trap awaited them, and as the snipers began shooting, they shot back. The Germans awaited armoured cars and when they arrived one of the terrorists fled to a helicopter, shooting four of the hostages, then tossed in a grenade.

Another terrorist fled to the other helicopter using his machine gun to kill the last five hostages. German snipers and armoured car personnel killed three terrorists, and three survived, to be taken into custody. Two months later the three in custody were released by the government of Germany when two other Black September terrorists hijacked a plane, threatening to blow it up if the three weren't released.


The mastermind of this atrocity was a Black September chief by the name of Salah Mesbah Khalaf, a founder of Black September. He has been immortalized as a martyr. His face and name appear on the cover of an exhibit called "Invisible" appearing in the City of Ottawa's Karsh-Masson Gallery at City Hall. The Toronto-based Palestinian-Canadian artist Rehab Nazzal claims to be reflecting Palestinian cultural history in placing this man along with other terrorists with blood on their hands on proud exhibit.

The Ottawa taxpayer is funding this 'art exhibit' whether or not they like it, though deputy city manager Steve Kanellakos is of the opinion that city politicians should not place themselves in the business of selecting what art is displayed in the city gallery: "I think it's dangerous when (our personal) opinions can influence what is going to be shown in a public space", he said in response to the Jewish community's protests at the exhibit.

A detail of Rehab Nazzal's wall-sized mosaic of Palestinian prisoners, in her exhibition Invisible at Karsh-Masson Gallery in Ottawa city hall. (Photo by Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen)

Despite an intervention by the Israeli Ambassador to Canada, clarifying that the exhibit was glorifying terrorism, the city refused to close down the exhibit and it will run its course to late June. In the words of Karen James, the Canadian Olympic team member who recalled clambering over the fence, another group close by doing the same:

"I can ... imagine the outrage that would be generated were the City to host an "art" display memorializing Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers. The Munich attacks may have been more than 40 years ago, but the passage of time does nothing to mitigate the loss of life and the pain of victims' families. 
"We all embrace freedom of expression. Indeed it is one of the values that make Canada the envy of much of the world. But the glorification of murderers is something that no taxpayer should be forced to subsidize, let alone host at our public institutions."