Free Republic

The latest edition of the Egyptian magazine Al-Ahram Al-Arabi has confirmed what many in the West have suspected for a long time: that Yasser Arafat personally directed the Black September terrorist organization that claimed responsibility for the 1971 murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi at-Tal, the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and other atrocities. The Cairo newspaper quotes a new book by PLO leader Marwan Kanafani, “Years of Hope,” to be published soon. There have also long been claims that Arafat’s longtime deputy Mahmoud Abbas, who is still widely known in the Middle East by his...

Jihadi Journalist: The Real Peter Jennings By Debbie Schlussel While the rest of the world is blindly singing the praises of Peter Jennings, here's a reality check: Peter Jennings did more for the cause of Islamic terrorism than any media figure today. And that's nothing to celebrate, honor, or even memorialize. Before there was Al Jazeerah, there was Peter Jennings. From the beginning of Jennings career until his death, Jennings' biased coverage went beyond the pale, bending over backward in "understanding" the terrorists who hate us-- from seeing "their side" when he covered the seige and then murder of innocent...

Steven Spielberg hit back at critics of his latest film "Munich" about the targeted killing of Palestinians behind the massacre of Israelis during the 1972 Olympics, in an interview to be published Monday ahead of the picture's German and Israeli release. Spielberg, 59, told German news weekly Der Spiegel that "Munich" aims to reclaim the debate about the moral costs of the struggle against terror from "extremists" and engage moderate forces in the West and the Middle East. "Should you leave the debate to the great over-simplifiers? The extreme Jews and extreme Palestinians who consider any kind of negotiated settlement...

I was a witness to 30 hours of extraordinary cowardice, incompetence and selfishness, which began at dawn over the village of the 1972 Munich Olympics. The memory of those failures, which led to the deaths of the core of the Israeli team, are as fresh for me now as when they happened. The 20th Games had been awarded to Munich to erase the memory of Berlin, 1936, and the Nazi salutes to Hitler. The intention was to showcase the new Germany. The guards were unarmed; wore soft-pastel suits; smiled and had been lectured that authoritarian attitudes were unacceptable for the...

TUNIS, Tunisia - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas denied Thursday that al-Qaida cells were operating in Gaza or the West Bank, and he dismissed U.S. and Israeli demands that the militant group Hamas should be barred from running in parliamentary elections. Abbas, speaking to AP Television News in what he said was his first interview in English since taking office a year ago, rejected claims made this week by Israeli President Moshe Katsav that "terror groups, including some al-Qaida cells, have formed" in the Gaza Strip since Israel's pullout in August. Katsav, who spoke in Italy, is the latest senior Israeli...

Peter Jennings' Unfortunate LegacyBy Debbie SchlusselFrontPageMagazine.com | August 11, 2005 It's sad when anyone dies of cancer, but we cant' let the human side of the Peter Jennings story obscure his real "achievements."While the rest of the world is blindly singing Jennings' praises, here's a reality check: Peter Jennings did more for the cause of Islamic terrorism than any media figure today. And that's nothing to celebrate, honor, or even memorialize.It is no coincidence that al-Jazeera's chief Washington correspondent praised ABC -- and Jennings, in particular -- for their "objectivity." Before there was al-Jazeera, there was Peter Jennings.From the beginning...

Spielberg`s Muse By Jason Maoz The alarm bells went off like crazy when Steven Spielberg hired Tony Kushner last year to rewrite the script of a movie about Israel`s clandestine — and lethal — response to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Spielberg`s dissatisfaction with the original draft by Eric Roth, as well as his fear that Jews will be outraged by his Munich movie when it opens this December, was reported on at length in the July 1 New York Times. (For an insightful view of Spielberg and his possible motives, see Joseph Schick`s op-ed...

Spielberg risking Israeli anger over Munich tragedy By Hugh Davies (Filed: 09/07/2005) A drama about the 1972 Munich Olympics where Black September Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes is being filmed by Steven Spielberg, who is courting controversy by concentrating on the bloody aftermath as the murders were avenged. The material is so delicate that the project, which is being filmed in Malta, is shrouded in secrecy. For while movies like 1977's Raid on Entebbe, starring Peter Finch and Horst Buchholz, portray Israel in a heroic stance, the new picture is about the misgivings of Golda Meir, the then Israeli...

BUDAPEST- US director Steven Spielberg is to begin shooting a movie on the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, Spielberg's spokesman said, adding that filming would take place in Hungary. The film will be called "Vengeance" in reference to the subsequent operation by Israeli intelligence agents to track down and kill several of the murder suspects, Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy told the national MTI news agency. On September 5, 1972, eight gunmen from a Palestinian group calling themselves Black September burst into the apartment block of the athletes' village housing the Israeli team, shot two men...

On the surface there would seem to be little to unite the Aryan racialists of the neo-Nazi movement with the terrorists of radical Islam. To the neo-Nazis, Muslims are almost all members of ``inferior`` races; and to the Islamic terrorists, the neo-Nazis are almost without exception either atheists or members of fringe quasi-Christian sects. But the reality is that there has been close cooperation between Muslim extremists and Fascists ever since the founding of the Nazi movement in the 1920`s. For all of their differences, Muslim extremists and Nazis have always been united by a common group of beliefs and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly three decades before the September 11 attacks, a high-level government panel developed plans to protect the nation against terrorist acts ranging from radiological "dirty bombs" to airline missile attacks, according to declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press. "Unless governments take basic precautions, we will continue to stand at the edge of an awful abyss," Robert Kupperman, chief scientist for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, wrote in a 1977 report that summarized nearly five years of work by the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism. The group was formed in September 1972 by President Nixon after...

AP: U.S. Foresaw Terror Threats in 1970s 1 hour, 7 minutes ago U.S. Government - AP By FRANK BASS and RANDY HERSCHAFT, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON - Nearly three decades before the Sept. 11 attacks, a high-level government panel developed plans to protect the nation against terrorist acts ranging from radiological "dirty bombs" to airline missile attacks, according to declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press. AP Photo "Unless governments take basic precautions, we will continue to stand at the edge of an awful abyss," Robert Kupperman, chief scientist for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, wrote in a 1977...

STEVEN Spielberg has postponed "Vengeance," his movie about the successful hunt for the Palestinians who attacked the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich games, killing 11 athletes. Insiders say the "Schindler's List" director is concerned the movie will inflame Muslim terrorists and turn the set into a target, particularly since one of the 17 Palestinians who perpetrated the Munich massacre is thought to be still at large.

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who won his first Oscar for the Holocaust drama "Schindler's List," has taken on another tragic moment in modern Jewish history as his next project -- the 1972 Munich Olympics.</p> <p>Spielberg plans to start production in June and is eyeing actor Ben Kingsley for a role in the upcoming drama, which will chronicle the Summer Games marred by the kidnapping and slaying of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants, a DreamWorks studio spokeswoman said Wednesday.</p>

Who is Mahmoud Abbas? Posted: July 22, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com To his great credit, President Bush has not made one mistake his predecessor made repeatedly – inviting the father of modern-day terrorism, Yasser Arafat, to the White House. But President Bush is doing the next worst thing this week – inviting Arafat's puppet, Mahmoud Abbas, to meet with him in Washington. Abbas, or Abu Mazen as he is also known, is perceived by some, including the president, as a "moderate" hope for peace. I do not agree with this assessment. In fact, Abbas is a fraud....

Abu Mazen is not as terrorism-free as might have been thought - and he is in fact connected with one of the 20th century's most infamous terrorist crimes: the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes - including American citizen David Berger - at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany in 1972. Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, long the treasurer of the PLO, was the man who provided financing for that attack, according to information compiled by Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center. Darshan-Leitner told Arutz-7 that PA sources themselves told her that it is...

SHORTLY after 4 a.m. on 5 September 1972, eight heavily armed terrorists from Black September, a faction of the PLO, arrived on the outskirts of Munich and scaled a perimeter fence protecting thousands of athletes sleeping in the Olympic Village. Carrying assault rifles and grenades, they ran to Apartment One, 31 Connollystrasse, the building housing the Israeli delegation to the 1972 ‘Games of Peace and Joy’, and crept into the foyer. Yossef Gutfreund, a 6ft 5in wrestling referee, was the only one woken by the faint sounds outside. As he crept to the door, it opened just a few inches....

While we commemorate the events of a year ago on 9-11, we should also be commemorating the 30th anniversary of another event, September 5, 1972. It’s auspicious that while Jews all over the world are celebrating the holiest of holidays this week, they’ll also remember the first nationally televised terrorist attack on innocent civilians, the brutal murder of eleven Israeli athletes by Yasser Arafat’s Black September terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Yes, September 11th was not the first time that innocent Americans were brutally attacked by Arab Muslim terrorists in video play-by-play. One of the murdered...

Thirty years ago, on September 5, 1972, a group of men were sighted scaling a six-foot wire fence on Kuzoczinskidamm, about 50 yards from the sleeping quarters of Israel's athletes in Munich's Olympic village. The intruders were first noticed around 4 a.m., but it wasn't until half an hour later that one of them inserted a pass-key into the lock of the door leading to the vestibule of Apartment 1 at 31 Connollystrasse. For the next 25 minutes the eight fedayeen ("men of sacrifice," as they called themselves), battled the Israeli athletes inside 31 Connollystrasse, a complex that also housed...

Current Israeli athletes joined the ceremony The widow of one of the 11 Israeli athletes and officials killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics has used a memorial service to criticise the German authorities' handling of the hostage-taking. At a commemoration in Munich, Ankie Spitzer, widow of the team's fencing coach, condemned the "incompetence and arrogance" of the German response to the attack by Palestinian militants. She also criticised the Olympic committee for "refusing to commemorate" those killed. However, others were upbeat about the ceremony, which took place a day after the Israeli pole-vaulter won a gold medal at the European...