Documents show British official in Jerusalem urged understanding of Munich
massacre
By DOUGLAS DAVIS The Jerusalem Post 2 January 2003

LONDON A senior British diplomat urged his government to take a soft line
with the Palestinians and understand their "normal human failings" following
the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by
Black September Palestinian terrorists.

The view was expressed by the then-British consul-general in Jerusalem,
Gayford Woodrow, and won thinly qualified support from his departmental
head, James Craig.

The extraordinary document was released by the Public Records Office in
London on Wednesday under the "30-year rule," which permits the release of a
large number of previously classified documents.

In his message to the Foreign Office on September 12, 1972, just six days
after the attack on the Israeli Olympic athletes, Woodrow wrote: "Before we
reproach the Arabs too much, perhaps we might try to put ourselves in their
shoes. They are, after all, human beings with normal human failings. The
Palestinians in particular have seen their land taken away from them by a
group of mainly European invaders equipped with superior armed force and
modern technology.

"Whatever one's moral criticism, it must be agreed that the Munich operation
was well planned and that the Arabs there carried it out to the bitter end.
It is said that lives were really lost because of Israeli and West German
bungling incompetence."

Woodrow's boss, James Craig, scrawled his opinion on his letter: "Not bad
but he goes just a little too far."

One month later, the first secretary at the Foreign Office, David
Gore-Booth, urged restraint after Black September terrorists hijacked a
Lufthansa jet en route from Beirut to Frankfurt and forced the German
authorities to hand over three terrorists captured during the Munich
massacre.

"Before we shed too many tears about the Lufthansa hijacking, decide to
boycott airlines... or feel obliged to express our concern to the German
government," wrote Gore-Booth, "it would be as well to ask ourselves what
the implications are so far as the Arab/Israel dispute is concerned.

"It is self-evident that the hijacking is a manifestation of the Palestine
problem. This is a problem which the Israelis are trying to solve in two
main ways: one by pretending it does not exist (hence their claim that Amman
is the capital of the Palestinians), the other by hitting the Palestinians
so hard that they cease to exist, militarily if not physically.

"What the hijacking does is to remind the international community that the
Palestine problem exists: in one sense this is unwelcome to the Israelis as
it shows their pretense for what it is, but in another it provides them with
an excellent opportunity to enlist the aid of the international community in
erasing the problem.
"Hence their apoplectic reaction to the hijacking.... It also provides them
with an excellent opportunity to slip into Syria, bomb a few more bases, and
kill a few more innocent people with impunity."

Added Gore-Booth: "Deplorable though the hijacking may be it caused the loss
of no lives whereas... casualties in Syria may be as many as 45 or even
more."

Another document released Wednesday provided an assessment by the elite
British SAS commando unit of where the German authorities went wrong in
their abortive attempt to rescue the Israeli athletes.

An SAS captain criticized the planning of the rescue, because, he said,
there were "too many personalities/agencies involved in the handling of this
affair."

There had been a lack of direction and control, and too much time was
allowed to elapse before a rescue was attempted, he said.

"The German police discarded a valuable option by their refusal to consider
a swift, determined, close assault as a means of springing the prisoners,"
said the SAS officer. "This left them one alternative, namely at some stage
to get involved in a firefight with the Arabs."

The Germans, he further charged, failed to conduct appropriate
reconnaissance, issued snipers with the wrong weapons, and occupied an
obvious target from which to prepare their assault.

The SAS officer set out four alternative courses of action that might have
left fewer people dead, but, he said, none could guarantee there would be no
losses among either the athletes or rescuers.

Among the thousands of previously classified documents that were released
was a study ordered by the cabinet of then-prime minister Edward Heath to
resolve the violence in Northern Ireland. The plan proposed redrawing the
borders of Northern Ireland and forcibly transferring more than half a
million Catholics out of the province in order to separate them from the
majority Protestants.

The plan was abandoned, apparently because officials warned: "Such a massive
movement would not be peacefully accomplished."