Official Palestinian media praised a terrorist notorious for orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes in Munich. On the occasion of the anniversary of his assassination by the Mossad last week, the Palestinian Authority’s official daily newspaper, Ali Hassan Salameh, featured him as an « experienced commander » and on a Fatah Facebook page as « exceptional » and as a role model for liberation « praised.
Salameh, security chief of the Fatah movement of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1970s, led the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich on behalf of the PLO’s Black September terrorist group.
The Fatah-dominated PLO was committed to the armed struggle against Israeli soldiers and civilians wherever they were and regularly carried out terrorist attacks against Israelis in Israel and abroad.
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In the massacre in Munich, the Palestinian terrorists initially killed two Israeli athletes and kidnapped nine others. In return, they demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and two prominent West German left-wing militants.
After a failed attempt by the German security forces to recapture the hostages, the Palestinians turned their weapons on the Israelis and killed them all.
Fatah and the official Palestinian media praise Salameh every year on the anniversary of his assassination by the Mossad on January 22, 1979, according to recent reports from Palestian Media Watch, a non-profit organization that tracks incitement to Palestinian media.
The Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, called Salameh – also known as Abu Hassan or the Red Prince – a « martyr » and an « experienced commander ».
« Ali Hassan Salameh was distinguished by his long arm, which stretched across Europe, and his great intelligence, which enabled him to hunt down Mossad agents, » enthused one narrator in a video on a semi-official Fatah -Facebook site. « After being appointed commander of special operations against Israeli intelligence in the world, his name was associated with many quality operations, such as sending explosives packages to many Mossad agents in Europe. »
The « explosives packages » seem to indicate dozens of letter bombs that have been sent to Israeli diplomats abroad. While most of them were safely defused, one killed Ami Schechori, an attaché to the Israeli embassy in Great Britain.
“Salameh left a life story that made him a symbol of extraordinary safety activities. It is still carried on by his disciples and those who love him, who see him as a beacon that guides them on the path to liberation, ”the Fatah video reads.
» Ali Hassan Salameh – the Palestinian memory refuses to forget this extraordinary man – a man who immortalized his name in the history of the Palestinian revolution and its sophisticated intelligence war against the Mossad, « concluded the video.
Fatah officials also praised other members of the Black September cell that carried out the Munich attack, Palestian Media Watch said this week.
In a post last April, Fatah Central Committee member and former West Bank security chief Tawfiq Tirawi named three other « leaders « of Black September, which he called » Palestine redeemed with their souls « .
Salameh from Jaffa became one of the most trustworthy lieutenants of the PLO leadership rers and Fatah chief Yasser Arafat. In the 1970s he took over the management of the organization Black September and monitored covert attacks and the kidnapping of hostages as ransom.
In addition to the attack in Munich, Black September was also directed against Israeli diplomats and business people abroad, killing a Jordanian prime minister and bombed a Dutch synagogue in the 1980s, killing three people.
Paradoxically, the mastermind of some of the PLO’s most vicious terrorist attacks was also Arafat’s decision to have unofficial ties with the United States and engage in Beirut and Baghdad with American ones Meet diplomats and intelligence agents. Salameh was a back door between the Americans and the Palestinians at a time when contact between the terrorist group and Washington was strictly confidential.
Mossad agents chasing him mistook a Moroccan waiter for Salameh in Norway, and murdered him in 1973 accidentally. You were charged in a Norwegian court but eventually extradited to Israel.
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