On this day in 1972, Palestinian militants from the Black September Organisation carried out a complex operation at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, which gripped the world for two entire days and led to the killing of 11 Israeli athletes. The name of their organisation was inspired by a bloody showdown with Jordanian authorities back in September 1970, and their first victim was Wasfi Tal, the prime minister of Jordan, who was gunned down at the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo on 28 November 1971.
Munich 1972 was a turning point in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, both in terms of scope and historical context, similar in terms of shock, awe, and influence to the Al Aqsa Flood Operation that Hamas carried out on 7 October 2023. Nothing has changed except for the identity of the attackers, from Guevara-inspired secular Fedayeen (as the Palestinian commandos referred to themselves) to Islamist Hamas militants inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Black September chose to carry out its operation in West Germany. At approximately 4:30 am on 5 September 1972, eight armed Palestinians entered the Olympic Village and headed straight towards the premises of the Israeli delegation. When an Israeli wrestling coach tried to stop them, he was killed, along with an Israeli weightlifter named Yossef Romano.
Black September militants demanded the release of over 200 Palestinians held in Israeli jails in exchange for the nine remaining Israeli athletes who were kidnapped in Munich. Brought to believe that they had reached a deal with German authorities, they led the athletes blindfolded onto helicopters to a nearby air base, where German police were waiting, some disguised as Lufthansa crew members. When the Palestinians felt that they had been led into a trap, an exchange of fire ensued, resulting in the death of the Israeli hostages, five of the militants, and one German policeman.
Revenge spree
Then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was furious, approving Operation Wrath of God, tracking down Palestinian leaders across Europe and taking them down, one by one, in a public display of revenge for Munich. The Israeli reprisal would last for seven long years, and among its victims was Yasser Arafat’s security chief, Ali Hasan Salameh, who was killed in Beirut on 22 January 1979.
The Israeli response lasted far longer than Golda Meir’s time in office (she famously resigned in the aftermath of the October War of 1973) and is similar to Israel’s current response to the Al Aqsa Flood Operation.
In January, Israel killed senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, followed by another Hamas leader, Mohammad Deif, in Gaza in mid-July and then Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July 2024.
Direct links denied
In his memoirs, the head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), denies any connection to Black September or the Munich Operation. In the Arab version of his memoirs, its French compiler Eric Rouleau says: “Black September was never really organised in its statements and targets. It was more of a loose bloc of unconnected Palestinian commandos operated by Fatah. The most likely head of this organisation was Yusuf al-Najjar, who at the time was in charge of Fatah security.”
Al-Najjar was one of Golda Meir’s many victims, killed along with two of his colleagues in Beirut in mid-April 1973. In the English translation of Abu Iyad’s memoirs Stateless, he says: “Black September was not a terrorist organisation, but rather, an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realise its military and political potential. The organisation's members always denied any ties between their organisation and Fatah or the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).”
Unconventional attack
All of Black September’s operations were unconventional, and so were its targets. It popularised the saying that "every Israeli citizen was a legitimate target for the Palestinians and every place in which he/she was present a legitimate battleground." Black September would take credit for the killing of an Israeli diplomat in London on 19 September 1972, just days after Munich, followed by the assassination of a Mossad agent in Madrid in January 1973 and the terrorist attack on the Saudi embassy in Khartoum on 1 March 1973.
Israeli historian Benny Morris claims that Black September was created at a Fatah congress in Damascus between August and September 1971 and that Arafat gave the group access to all of Fatah’s security files. The organisation was highly decentralised, relying on close-knit cells of no more than three to four people, who were completely unconnected to—and unaware of—other cells even if operating at a distance of a few meters on the same street.
This ensured that if one cell came under surveillance or was attacked, the other cells would remain safe. To throw security services off track, Arafat would frequently condemn Black September and its operations before ordering its formal dissolution in September 1973—exactly one year after Munich.
Most Western security agencies trace Black September to Arafat’s colleague Mohammad Salah Aoudeh (Abu Daoud), who they claim was Munich's mastermind. He would later say: “There is no such thing as Black September. Fatah announced its own operations under its name so that Fatah will not appear as the direct executor of the operation.” Arafat used Black September to send shockwaves throughout the world, coming across as a voice of reason and the only person capable of ending its operations, making himself indispensable for the international community and Arab states.
Abu Daoud was an Arafat loyalist and member of Fatah since 1970, fighting under its banner before, during, and after Munich. He spent a few years between Lebanon and Eastern Europe, where he barely survived an assassination attempt in Warsaw on 1 August 1981. He moved to Ramallah after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 and died in Damascus in 2010. In a 2016 interview with the Associated Press, he said: “Before Munich, we were simply terrorists. After Munich, at least people started asking: who are these terrorists? What do they want? Before Munich, nobody had the slightest idea about Palestine.”
He claimed that the Munich operation was planned at a sidewalk café in Rome and that its arms were procured from Germany, adding that its original intention was not to kill the Israeli athletes but to exchange them for Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Since Abu Daoud and his colleagues staged the Munich Operation in 1972, many years have passed. If his testimony proves correct—that the organisation was the brainchild of Fatah and Yasser Arafat—will this inspire Hamas to do the same when the guns go silent in Gaza? If Hamas survives this war, it will find tremendous difficulty in staging any serious attack against Israel, which would embarrass Arab states and certainly trigger yet another war. Which begs the question
If Hamas takes inspiration from Fatah, it could very well form a shadow organisation—much like Black September—to carry out operations under another banner, just like Arafat did 50 years ago.
