Word: spitzer
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...that fateful Olympiad - a liberal, democratic Germany seeking to finally shed the ghosts of its authoritarian past and a small group of Palestinians convinced that only spectacular acts of violence could remind the world of the plight of their forgotten people - and the confluence of those agendas cost Alex Spitzer, as well as 10 of his Israeli teammates, their lives...
...documentary prevents easy political judgments by counterposing the divergent narratives of two of the players involved at the heart of the drama: The human story of Alex Spitzer, recounted by his widow, contends with that of Jamal al Gashey, the sole survivor among the Palestinian militants who carried out the massacre...
...Spitzer is plainly a noble and lovable human being, and the viewer is struck not only by the senselessness of his death but also by the honor and courage with which he and his colleagues conducted themselves in the face of death. The Munich Olympiad was sandwiched between two bloody wars in which the Jewish state fought for its survival, and its athletes and coaches were clearly part of a nation prepared for war. Confronted by armed men speaking Arabic, they appear to immediately understand the situation and some are even able to quickly make tactical choices - such...
...screen, it's hard to ignore the sense that it was the narrative of his own life that landed him in Munich on that fateful day, guarding the downstairs doorway to the apartment housing the Israelis as his comrades went upstairs to begin the siege. Counterposed with images of Spitzer's happy wedding are images of the squalor of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, as al Gashey recounts his family's expulsion from Israel in 1948, and their subsequent despair. It's only when he joins a guerrilla organization that he develops some sense of Palestinian identity and pride...
...film we're left with the sadness of Ankie Spitzer and the resolute militancy of Jamal al Gashey. He's proud of what he did in Munich, he tells the camera. It brought the Palestinian cause to the world's attention. And it's hard to not to understand his gruesome thinking, even in these post-Oslo days of mutual recognition. It's noticeable that in all of the footage from 1972, the word "Palestinian" is never used. The gunmen are described simply as "Arab." Indeed, at the time of Munich, the Palestinians were still a forgotten people and Israeli...