MHM Forum

Snatching planes, explosions, attacks on completely innocent people- these were the methods of fights represented by the terrorists from the „Black September� Organisation. In their opinion the purpose was to catch the World’s attention and direct it to the core of the Palestinian problem.
One of the most famous Palestinian terrorists Leila Khaled said that the world had not given anything to Palestine, but only more tents to live in and old clothes. So was it frustration generally which started the process of the organized hatred expressed in such drastic, extreme form of evidence?
The victory of Israel over the Arabian coalition in the course of the 6 Days War in 1967 changed essentially the proportion of powers in the Close East. The Jewish country joined new territories and improved the strategical position of the State of Israel.  That situation on other side however made the situation more critical for the Arabian countries as the whole, the main reason being the inflows of emigrants from Palestine to inside their territories.
    One of the not planned Israel’s victory was the beginning of the Palestinian terrorism.
In august of 1967 it was founded the Folk Front of the Palestine’s Freedom which started to organize spectacular terrorism actions like snatching planes and setting on explosions in public places.  The leader of this organization was George Habash (in years: 1967-2000) who studied medicine in Beirut.
    The first serious attack evoked by terrorists took place on 23rd July of 1968 in Rome, where it was snatched The plane of Israeli Airlines. The machine landed in Algeria, where 23 passengers and 11 members of the crew were kept to the end of August..
    The most spectacular attack took place in the beginning of September of 1970. It was planned by Waddie Haddad, a doctor who came from the Christian family, one of the closest Habash’s partners. On the 6th of September there were snatched 2 planes of the American Airlines, one belonging to the Swissair and on to the Israeli Airline El Al.
    The main postulate of terrorists was to setting free their partners who were just staying in prisons of Switzerland and Germany in the consequence of their earlier attacks.
    However the most important question and the real milestone for the terrorists was setting on the medial campaign, showing the world the were fighting on in the right matter. Evidentially enough, just on their first day of staying in Jordania the terrorists organized the press conference in the course of which they were answering the questions of journalists, the physical distance remaining between the two sides several metres. They also announced the exchanging the airport’s name  in Amman to the Revolutionary Airport.
    Because many of the kidnapped persons were the USA citizens, President Nixon decided to bomb the Palestinian positions in Jordania. However, the order was not completed, officially because of the weather conditions.
             On the 16th of September the King of Jordania Husain introduced the martial law, the purpose being the effective struggling against the Palestinian terrorists.  The latest passengers were left free on the 1st of October, earlier the emptied planes were exploded.
    The conflict between Israel and Arabs keep on growing just from the time of the first serious conflict in 1948- then Jordania succeeded in  enlarging its territory by annexing the western side of the Jordan River and the eastern part of Jerusalem. However, Jordania lost these territories after the 6 Days War, which also extensively weakened the position of its governor- King Husain.  The Palestinian part of population increased decisively in Jordania  (in 1967 it was about 1mln people) and they kept on the constant provoking on the constant confrontations on the border with Jewish country.
    In this situation Husain decided on the secret agreement with Israel’s authorities. Respectively to his approval, the Israeli troops attacked the main basis of Palestinians on the Jordanian territory, which was situated in the village Karameh. Although formally, the Israeli Army succeeded in a victory, killing or snatching few hundreds Palestinian warriors, on the other side it suffered serious losses. 28 Israeli soldiers were killed, several tanks were destroyed and one of the planes was shot down. All this let the Al Fatah’s leaders to announce the big victory over Israel.
    In November of 1968 it was signified the agreement between The Palestinian Organisation and the Jordanian authorities. The Palestinian were obliged not to wear their weapon and uniforms outside of their selected camps and using the Jordanian identity cards. The citizens of the Kingdom of Jordania could not be  taken to the Palestinian troops. On the other side, the started to exist a regular state within a state- with the autonomic system of customs and visas. Very often, there appeared attacks on the citizens of Jordania and struggling agains Jordanian security troops.
    In the beginning of February of 1970 King Husain put forward the 10 points special edict, which obliged the Palestinian organizations to limit their activities. In keeping with this, on the 11th of February there were set on the great street riots, the result being deaths of approximately 300 people. The radical Palestinian orientations began to support the necessity of abdication the pro-West King of Jordania. There was also a trial of killing him. The radicalism of the Palestines was simultaneously bigger  because of the truce introduced in the beginning of September between Israel and Egypt. King Husain could only be confident of their loyal (according his dynasty) Bedouins tribes.
The extraordinary state of law was introduced by Husain on 16th September of 1970. The Jordanian tanks from the 60. Panzer Brigade attacked the main Palestinian organizations’ places in Amman and  their camps in Irbid, Salt, Sweileh and Zarqua. The conflict started to spread wide drastically, and on the 18th September the Syrian army gave its support to the Palestinian part of the conflict. Jordania was supported by Iraq on the other side. The American  6th Fleet took the position by the Israeli and Jordanian coast so to “protect the American citizens and their goodsâ€�. In that situation the troops from Syria decided to leave the conflict and that crossed out the Palestinian hopes concerning the final victory.  On the 27th September of 1970 in Cairo there was signed an agreement including the fire stopping (King Husain and Jaser Arafat+ 8 other leaders of the Arabian states of the region). The negotiations were very nervous, namely the President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Naser died of a heart attack. During the 10 days of conflict, about 3 thousands of Palestinian and 2 thousands of Jordanian were killed. The amnesty of given to a part of Palestinian warriors, and the suppressive duties were enforced on the Palestinian side remaining in the Kingdom of Jordania.  However, the radical organization of Palestine did not agree to the enforced conditions and announced their purpose was the foundation of the independent Palestine and destroying Israel together with Jordania.
In January of 1971 the war units of Jordania reacted to the constant attacks from the Palestinian radical warriors, the Jordanian troops started to remove  the Palestinian camps. Few thousands of fedains were arrested, and the leaders of the main Palestinian organization with their commander Arafat left Jordania for Liban.
The main troops of the Palestinian Organization of Freedom started to create their strong structures in the south of Liban. From there, they initiated attacks against Israel. Again, we could say about a kind of a state within a state with the alternative system of education, finance, health service. It led to the significant destabilization of Liban, the country before which was before rather politically timid and not too much engaged in the conflicts. Simply, the ethnical and religious proportions of population changed the orientation of the country (it is worth saying that in 1976 there started a civil war which took several years and led to the ruin of the whole country, especially including its capital Beirut- earlier known as the Paris of the Close East). The events from September 1970 also dedicated to establishing a new card in the history of the Palestinian terrorism, that is to say that for the scarifying the victims of the Palestinian September’70 there was founded the organization “Black September� that acted under the command of Al Fatah- the main power of the Organisation of Palestinian Freedom. Its fundamental purpose was taking a revenge on the unsuccessful Palestinian operations in Jordania. The first serious trials from the part of “Black September� took place on 28 November of 1971 when the Prime Minister of Jordania Wasfi al- Tal was killed and in December when there took a place an unsuccessful trial of killing the Jordanian ambassador in Great Britain Zeid al Rifai, who was before the Chairman of the Royal Court.
Very soon, the sword of terror was put on the Western Europe. In February there were attacked German electric installations and Danish industrial equipments. The most spectacular was however attack on the Israeli sportsmen which took place in the morning of   September of 1972 in Munich during the just held Olympic Games. Then, a Palestinian commando appeared in apartments occupied by the Israeli sportsmen. 2 persons- a sportsman and a trainer were killed on the spot and the other 9 were taken away.  The terrorists who came mainly from the camps for refugees in Liban an Syria wanted to execute a dismissal of 234 Palestinian prisoners staying in Israeli prisons  and letting free the leaders of the German fraction of Red Army- Andreas Braader and Ulrike Meinhof.  The German Police did not have a specialized anti-terrorist unit, but it was decided to try to let the hostages free. On this purpose, seemingly the terrorists’ orders were being fulfilled- on the Airport in Munich waited Boenig 727, the hostages and terrorists were transported there by the helicopters. However due to the unsuccessful action all the hostages were killed (plus 5 terrorists and one policeman). The attack did not contribute to finishing the Olympic Games, although many participants wanted such a decision. Significantly, only one Arabian leader King Husain openly called that terror “a great crime against the civilization, being prepared by sick mindsâ€�.
The last accord of these events was the Israeli operation led against the aspirators of the Munich terror. The action was led by Mossad and the cryptonym of the Operation was “the Anger of God�. 8 responsible Palestinian terrorists were killed: the first in October’1972 and the last in January of 1979.
In the history of The Black September as in the mirror iw was reflected the tragic never-ending situation typical of the Close East. Each new operation was bringing nothing more but new casualties, without practical solution of the problem.

My provoking questions:
1.How was in your countries the history described in the historical, etymological point of view?
2.How was it balanced the philosophy of conflict and the both parties’ rights?
3.Did you see any West Europe’s countries responsibility for the conflict’s legitimization?
4.How did you observe the phases of the conflict including the Munich operation with the parallel conflict East-West
5.Should these two conflicts have be tried simultaneously to find some synergy effect?
6.Was the American policy really responsible in the region?
7.What were the observations about the possible regional stabilization by the N.A.T.O or some other kinds of mediation?