1972

by N.D. Bulos

Ode To Munich

Published in As Safa, 10^th September 1972

Au sujet de la tragédie de Munich et des réactions qu'elle a suscitées dans le monde, notre ami Nassib Bulos nous adresse le commentaire suivant en anglais en nous priant de le publier sans traduction. Nous nous conformons à ce vœu à titre exceptionnel.

Where does war begin and where does it end? Is there such a thing as a justifiable act of war? Justifiable by what criteria? Thousands upon thousands of tons of bombs on "strategic targets". Are water dykes strategic targets? Are hundreds of thousands of human dead and wounded, of whatever race, creed or color strategic targets? Where do we draw the line, and can we draw a line?

In the final analysis and before God's Tribunal, is there much difference between the kidnapping of Syrian officers and the kidnapping of Israeli athletes? Is the blowing up of a helicopter with its human cargo any more tragic and shocking than booby trapping the mutilated bodies of young British soldiers by a so called Stern Gang or Irgun? In each and every case the perpetrators claimed the act in the name of liberty, freedom, justice, world revolution, you name it.

Deir Yassin, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Munich, if you will, were struck in the name of freedom, that poor bedraggled bitch. How often have you been raped and how often have you bled? The Promised Land. Promised by whom? Balfour, God? What of his son?

How can we condemn one and condone the other? Is there any degree in death? You are only half dead, my friend, but you, my other friend, you are fully dead, horribly so, and I am shocked to my core, and I weep for you. But for those others, I have no tears. They were killed, raped, robbed according to the book.

What a damn nuisance these gangsters are. And how dare they exist?

Poor Count Bernadotte. In the name of what principle did we riddle your body with bullets? And what cause did you serve? You have long been dead, buried and forgotten, buried in more than one sense. And yet it seems as if it were only yesterday that we waved you goodbye at the Mandlebaum Gate.

And yet, and yet my friend, from the Mandlebaum Gate to Munich, the line runs straight and crystal clear in its harrowing logic, the logic of violence, from death to death, corpses pave the roads, they walk the streets, they haunt the alleys of Jerusalem, of Lydda and now they take up residence in the streets of the Olympic City.

A fair bob is a fair bob, my friend, and cricket is cricket, but please, please, do not let us confuse the issues. Let us leave cricket to the Indians. Unfortunately the refugees in the camps have not been taught cricket, a serious gap in their education.

President Nixon condemns in the strongest terms. We share his sentiments. Prime Minister Heath has expressed great indignation. We are as indignant, and Golda Meir has expressed horror, and we share her horror, and Black September has promised us worse outrages, but who are we, Nixon, Heath, Golda, the whole bloody lot of us to say, thou shall not kill, thou shall not slay your Jewish, Arab, Vietnamese, Irish, the list is too long, THOU SHALL NOT SLAY YOUR BROTHER;

And though I may shed a tear and pray, I can only reflect that despair can only breed despair, that violence can only breed violence, that death can only breed death, that outrage will follow reprisal, and that in this horrible sequence of ugly death, there can be no end, and that the only hope lies in a just solution to the problem that has given rise to Black September, and that until we do, the tears we shed are at best crocodile tears.