'Leftists, not neo-Nazis, helped in Munich massacre'
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Dr. Wolfgang Kraushaar sharply disputes 'Der Spiegel' article’s emphasis on the role of neo-Nazis in the attack.
A prominent political scientist has placed the blame squarely on German leftists for complicity in Black September’s murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.
Writing in the current edition of the German Jewish newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine Wochenzeitung, Dr. Wolfgang Kraushaar sharply disputed a recent Der Spiegel article’s emphasis on the role of neo-Nazis in the attack, calling the news item “blown up” and nothing new.
“It was not ‘Brown [Nazi] help,’ as Der Spiegel writes, but rather a joint work of German Left radicals and Palestinian terrorists.”
Kraushaar, who has written extensively on the German Left’s involvement in attacks on Jews and Israelis, argued in his commentary that though the Munich murders were part and parcel of a merger between German Leftists and Palestinian terrorists, Der Spiegel aimed to portray them as series of murders by the extreme Right.
He criticized the news weekly for pushing a false narrative that ignores the close contacts between German Left radicalism and Palestinian terrorism.
According to Kraushaar, the Spiegel report lacks journalistic accuracy because it identifies the Palestinian-German Left connection as a myth.
Kraushaar is affiliated with the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and authored a widely acclaimed book on the German Left’s role in a plot to bomb the Berlin Jewish community center in 1969.
In last week’s Der Spiegel, the Hamburg-based publication wrote that police in Dortmund sent a notice to Germany’s domestic intelligence agency saying that “Saad Walli, an ‘Arab-looking man,’ met conspiratorially with the German neo-Nazi Willi Pohl” roughly seven weeks before the Munich killings.
Saad Walli was the cover name for Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, a.k.a. Abu Daoud, the principal organizer of the massacre and a leader in Fatah forces in Lebanon and Jordan.
The Assad regime in Syria provided refuge for Daoud and he died in Damascus in 2010.
Kraushaar wrote that “the then-neo- Nazi Willi Pohl had already written 30 years ago in a book that appeared under a pseudonym in Switzerland” about his involvement with Black September in 1972.
“People like Willi Pohl were in reality useful idiots for the Palestinians” and must be viewed as cooperating with left-wing terrorists, Kraushaar wrote.
He cited a list of German leftists who praise Palestinian terrorism against Jews.
Wilfried Böse, a leftist student in Frankfurt in 1969, worked closely with Palestinian activists, and supported the Red Army Faction with weapons and explosives.
“There is serious information” that Böse also supported the terrorists of the Black September in the Olympic attacks,” Kraushaar wrote.
Red Army Faction leader Ulrike Meinhof, for example, celebrated the 1972 murders of Israeli athletes as an expression of “anti-imperialism.”
Critics in Israel and Germany accused Der Spiegel earlier this month of recycling old news about German-manufactured Dolphin submarines having nuclear-warhead capability. The German government has delivered Dolphin-class vessels to Israel since the late 1990s.
Weighed down by a recent scandal with a reporter’s manufactured visit to a German politician’s home, Der Spiegel has been struggling to attract readers.
Commenting on the submarine story, the popular pro-Israel German blogger Lizas Welt tweeted that the “Der Spiegel must have right now a real problem with circulation.”
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=274960
Extremes in politics touch - often this is explained by a circle where extreme left and extreme right literally touch. I think, somewhat in analogy with the JFK murder, the 'who did it' is of far lesser importance than why it happened.
ReplyDeleteI hardly believe this is new insight - I think most serious people already knew Rote Armee Fraktion (for example) aligned herself with PLO. (However) it is essential this alignment becomes part of public knowledge, exactly because of its very far going consequence.
This 'alignment' or 'identification with PLO' happened everywhere, also with more moderate left wing political groups and leaders (such as PvdA in Holland and Labor in Britain) and with less moderate heads of state, such as Tito, but also the CCCP that of course really stole lands - hence the total nonsense behind this ultra left wing kind of 'thinking' and aligning). This involvement I think comes forth out of a specific one sided approach of the World, in which they choose to have an Imperialistic view on Israel - Israel as 'instrument' of 'the West' - like a bridgehead if you will of a, as such by extreme left wing groups perceived aggressive Western Capitalism (= oppression of the working class in their view) that intentionally claims lands "imperialism". De facto it shows however that terrorism (combat against civilians) is always wrong, first of all really because the groups that use it are de facto wrong in by far most cases.
There were quite a few "terrorist"/ "left wing" organizations in the past that had very good reason to fight. They were often labeled as "left wing" by those who oppressed them. For example ETA was such organization, because they initially battled against Franco and did not target civilians at first. Later on they did, but they normally warn authorities before bombs go off. They were labeled "terrorists" simply because Franco was the official head of state. Same thing happened of course with Jewish warriors who battled against the British who controlled Israel when it conquered. And the Maquis in France and Partisans in Yugoslavia during WW2 and other resistance fighters, who were obviously labeled as "terrorists" by the Nazis. Those were real freedom fighters. It gives probably reason number two for alignment of "left wing" with the PLO.
After WW2 "left wing" resistance became largely obsolete in Europe, exactly because more moderate and more right wing parties became part of democracy and were no longer part of oppression. In place came fewer but far more extreme real terrorist organizations, like Rote Armee Fraktion. Groups with professional terrorists and/ or people who can perhaps better be called 'common' murderers. Their goals that at first were outlined in general terms of "freedom for the people" often turned into egocentric goals like "I want to be free and do whatever I want without really having to work for it". Certainly this was true for the leader of the Rote Armee Fraktion: he was nothing but a common thug disguised as "freedom fighter".
Part 2
ReplyDeletePLO was still viewed by many "left wingers" also as yet another freedom fighting club in an area where "imperialism" was still thought to be in place, completely in line with left wing clubs of the past who really battled for freedom. Also it is quite clear in PLO's case that quite a few "terrorists" were in fact nothing but 'common' murderers who chased a rich and 'famous' lifestyle (like Ali Hassan Salameh, for example, but also Leila Khalid). Perhaps they started out as (indoctrinated) fighters, but sooner or later they found out that their fight was in fact totally empty.
Perhaps this alignment or 'moral support' was yet another effort by left wing organizations to prove their necessity, when in reality and certainly in post WW2 Europe the necessity declined. In any case the necessity to fight oppressors was largely gone - thanks to democracy and new constitutions there was not a real oppressor anymore.
Quite often this led to imaginary oppressors. In the Palestinian case, more perhaps than any other case in history, this is painfully true. The Palestinian terrorists really chose Israel as opponent, where Israel really is not the aggressor at all. This of course has also to do with the fact the surrounding Arab oppressors love to have Israel as “arch enemy”, because that diverts attention from the people away from how oppressed they really are.
True left wing terrorism of course is not democratic at all. And this fact makes it ideal to merge with Arab oppressors and the specific manner in which Islam is used by the Arab dictators, but of course also by Iranian and Pakistani oppressors. Both seem to fight for an “idealistic” World that only exists in their heads and by the ‘grace’ of oppressing free thinking. Then really the circle is round, because whether one is left wing extremist or right wing extremist does not really seem to matter anymore.