Regarding Ruby Kaplan’s letter to the editor, “Munich 11 a Continuing Concern for All,”

(September 15, 2022). Ms. Kaplan questions why “the 1972 Olympics was even held and approved to take place in Munich…. only 30 years after a most horrific Holocaust.”

I’m glad she asked. May I go a step further and question why Israel has not taken steps against

Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas when both were in fact complicit in the massacre? Note: Abbas was the PLO’s finance minister during the time of the massacre.

It has come to light that Arafat, Abbas and his deputy, Salah Khalaf (known as Abu Iyad) went to Tripoli to meet with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi about financing the massacre (prior to the Olympics). Gadhafi was only too happy to comply with terrorism activity, providing 1 million pounds sterling, the equivalent of $50 million today. It is also noted that West Germans participated in the tragedy/travesty of justice, including logistics. So much for General George Marshall’s order for West Germans to undergo denazification within the doctrine of the Marshall Plan. So much for adhering to orders.

As we pay homage 50 years after the Munich massacre on September 5, 1972, we remember the 11 athletes who were to be part of that year’s Summer Olympics:

David Berger, weightlifter

Ze’ev Friedman, weightlifter

Yossef Gutfreund, wrestling referee

Eliezer Halfin, wrestler

Yossef Romano, weightlifter

Amitzur Shapira, track coach

Kehat Shorr, shooting coach

Mark Slavin, wrestler

Andre Spitzer, fencing coach

Yakov Springer, weightlifting judge

Moshe Weinberg, wrestling coach

According to an article by Yossi Melman, “New Report Highlights Libya’s Role in Munich Massacre of Israeli Athletes” (Haaretz, April 20, 2022), “The report … prepared by the Dutch law firm Knoops’ Advocaten on behalf of relatives of the Israeli victims, for a lawsuit demanding $165 million in reparations from Libyan finances that are currently frozen in German banks. … notes that the Palestinian terrorists who carried out the attack were trained in Libya by Gadhafi’s intelligence service and army.” (https://bit.ly/3LwkMDL)

Further, Stephen M. Flatow, in his article “Mahmoud Abbas and the Munich Massacre: Time to Face the Truth (JNS, August 16, 2022) said that a U.S. State Department telegram sent on March 13, 1973 stated: “The Black September Organization is a cover term for Fatah’s terrorist operations executed by Fatah’s intelligence organization. … For all intents and purposes no significant distinction now can be made between the BSO and Fatah.”

Flatow continues: “Let’s not forget that one of the masterminds of the massacre heads a regime that is currently receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect aid each year from the United States, Germany and numerous other countries. I am referring to Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of both the Palestinian Authority and its main faction, Fatah.” (https://bit.ly/3SkfT2R)

Learning this prompts me to ask an additional question: Why didn’t then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir request that Mossad assassinate Gadhafi, Arafat and Abbas, at the same time she put out the “death knell” for the surviving Black September terrorists?

That every day since the Munich massacre, the victims’ families have had to live with knowing that Mahmoud Abbas is alive, let alone holding court technically on the ground of the Jewish State, no doubt is heartbreaking. There is no sense of sanity as a defense regarding the decision to keep Abbas alive and in a position of leadership, even though he is not a leader within Israel proper. For 50 years, Abbas the Terrorist has been too close for comfort.