The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation Wrath of God (2000)

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The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, on eleven Israeli Olympic team members, who were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian group Black September. Shortly after the crisis began, they demanded 234 prisoners jailed in Israel and the German-held founders of the Red Army Faction (Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof) be released. Black September called the operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah in 1948. German neo-Nazis apparently gave the attackers logistical assistance. Police officers killed five of the eight Black September members during a failed rescue attempt. They captured the three survivors, who West Germany later released following a Lufthansa airliner hijacking. Mossad responded to the release with Operation "Spring of Youth" and Operation "Wrath of God", systematically tracking down and killing Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre Operation "Wrath of God" (Hebrew: מבצע זעם האל‎ Mivtza Za'am Ha'el), also known as Operation "Bayonet",[1] was a covert operation directed by the Mossad to assassinate individuals suspected of being involved in the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed. The targets were members of the Palestinian armed militant group Black September and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operatives. Authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the autumn of 1972, the operation is believed to have continued for over twenty years. The operation was depicted in the television film Sword of Gideon (1986) and Steven Spielberg's film Munich (2005). The 1984 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, by Canadian journalist George Jonas, tells the story of an Israeli assassination squad from the viewpoint of a self-described former Mossad agent and leader of the squad, Avner. Avner has since been claimed to be a pseudonym for Yuval Aviv, an Israeli who now runs a private investigation agency in New York. However, Jonas denies that Aviv was his source for Vengeance, although the book has not been independently verified beyond the fact checking Jonas says he has done.[72] Jonas points to a former Director General of the RCMP Security Service, John Starnes, who he says believes his source's essential story.[72] In spite of this, Mossad's director at the time of the operation, Zvi Zamir, has stated that he never knew Aviv.[73] Several former Mossad officers who took part in Operation "Wrath of God" have also told British journalists that Yuval Aviv's version of events is not accurate.[74] After its 1984 publication the book was listed on the fiction and non-fiction bestseller lists in Britain.[72] Since its release, two films have been based on Vengeance. In 1986, Michael Anderson directed the HBO film Sword of Gideon. Steven Spielberg released a second movie based on the account in December 2005 entitled Munich. Both movies use Yuval Aviv's pseudonym "Avner" and take a certain amount of artistic license with his account. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wrath_of_God