Jeremy Corbyn says hew as at wreath laying to commemorate all victims of terror

The Labour leader (pictured today outside his London home)  returned to work after his summer holidays as the anti-Semitism crisis continues to rock his party.

Jeremy Corbyn today admitted he was present at the controversial Munich wreath laying as he finally faced the cameras over the scandal.

The Labour leader said he attended the ceremony because he wanted to commemorate all those killed in atrocities.

Mr Corbyn has faced a political storm and calls to quit after The Daily Mail exclusively published photographs of him holding the tribute near the graves of terrorists linked to the murder of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich massacre.

He today finally faced the cameras while on a trip to the Midlands and said he was at the ceremony because he believes in an end to all violence. 

But he said he does not ‘think’ he directly took part in the wreath laying ceremony. 

He told Sky News: ‘A wreath was indeed laid by some of those who attended the conference to some who were killed in Paris in 1992.

‘I was present when it was laid, I don’t think I was actually involved in it. 

‘I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident because we have to end it.

‘You cannot pursue peace by a cycle of violence. The only way you can pursue peace is by a cycle of dialogue.’ 

Mr Corbyn was photographed holding a wreath near the graves of those implicated in Black September and the Munich attack. 

He has insisted that he was there to commemorate 47 victims of an Israeli air strike on a Palestine Liberation Organisation in Tunis in 1985.

But today he slightly changed his story. Asked directly today if he was present when a wreath was laid to those linked to the Munich massacre. 

The Labour leader also defended his handling of the anti-Semitism crisis tearing his party apart – and indicated that he does not intend to back down over it.  

Jewish leaders, Labour MPs and trade unions have been piling pressure on the Labour leader to adopt the full definition of anti-Semitism  drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

But challenged over whether he would heed these calls and adopt the full definition, Mr Corbyn said it is important that Labour does not shut down ‘debate’ on Israel. 

He said: ‘The one example that we are discussing and consulting on is one that makes sure that you can discuss and debate the relations between Israel and Palestine, the future of the peace process and, yes, make criticisms of the actions of the Israeli government in the bombing of Gaza and other places.

Widows of Munich victims last night condemned Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to a cemetery where members of Black September – the terror group that killed 11 Israelis at the 1972 Olympics – are buried

Widows of Munich victims last night condemned Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to a cemetery where members of Black September – the terror group that killed 11 Israelis at the 1972 Olympics – are buried

Labour has insisted Mr Corbyn was there to commemorate 47 victims of an Israeli airstrike on a Palestine Liberation Organisation base in Tunisia in 1985

Labour has insisted Mr Corbyn was there to commemorate 47 victims of an Israeli airstrike on a Palestine Liberation Organisation base in Tunisia in 1985

It emerged yesterday that the airstrike memorial at the cemetery is inscribed with the names of some of the terror chiefs

It emerged yesterday that the airstrike memorial at the cemetery is inscribed with the names of some of the terror chiefs

‘But you can never make those criticisms using anti-Semitic language or anti-Semitic intentions, and that is what we are absolutely clear on.’

He said Labour has some of the toughest rules on tackling anti-Semitism of any political party.  

What is the timeline of anti-Semitic scandals which have erupted under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership?

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) has been accused of failing to tackle the racism among his supporters 

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) has been accused of failing to tackle the racism among his supporters 

The anti-Semitism scandal has dogged the Labour party since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader  in 2015.

Here is a timeline of the controversies: 

April 2016:

Labour MP Naz Shah is suspended for anti-Semitic posts – including one in which she appeared to endorse calls for Israelis to be deported to the US. 

She apologised and was given a formal warning.  

Ken Livingstone goes on the radio to defend Ms Shah – but sparks fresh controversy by claiming that Hitler supported Zionism. 

He is suspended by Labour but refuses to apologise and has repeated the claim many times.

He eventually quits Labour two years later, saying his suspension have become a distraction.

June 2016: 

A two-month inquiry by civil liberties campaigner Shami Chakrabarti finds that Labour is not overrun by anti-Semitism. 

But the launch is overshadowed when Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth flees it in tears after being accused by Corbyn supporter Marc Wadsworth of colluding with the press.

Critics accuse the report of being a whitewash and Ms Chakrabarti is widely criticised for accepting a peerage from Jeremy Corbyn shortly afterwards.

October 2016: 

The Home Affairs Select Committee says Labour is guilty of incompetence over its handling of anti-Semitism and of creating a safe space for people with ‘vile attitudes towards Jewish people’.

March 2018: 

It is revealed that Jeremy Corbyn defended an artist who painted an anti-Semitic mural and said the offensive art should be removed.

He apologises saying he did not properly look at the picture before he made the post.

Jewish leaders take the unprecedented step of holding a demonstration outside Parliament protesting Mr Corbyn’s failure to tackle anti-Semitism.

Several Labour MPs address the crowds.

April 2018:

Marc Wadsworth is expelled from Labour after being accused of anti-Semitism. 

Meanwhile, Labour Jewish MPs tell of the anti-Semitic abuse they have suffered in a powerful parliamentary debate – and round on their leader for failing to tackle it. 

July 2018:

The Labour leadership sparks fresh anger by failing to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism

And Peter Willsman, a strong ally of Jeremy Corbyn, is secretly taped ranting that ‘Jewish Trump fanatics’ invented the anti-Semitism storm engulfing Labour. 

In an angry diatribe at a meeting of Labour’s ruling executive committee, he said he was ‘amazed’ there was evidence party members hated Jews.

He claimed ‘some of these people in the Jewish community support Trump – they are Trump fanatics and all the rest of it’ before shouting: ‘So I am not going to be lectured to by Trump fanatics making up duff information without any evidence at all.’

August 2018:

Jeremy Corbyn issues a video insisting he is committed to tackling the racism – but it is panned by Jewish leaders.

Corbynistas mount a social media campaign to get deputy Labour leader Tom Watson to quit after he criticises the party’s handling of anti-Semitism. 

The campaign attracts 50,000 posts and makes the hashtag ‘ResignWatson’ trend on Twitter. 

The latest controversy to rock Labour exploded on Saturday when The Daily Mail ran a photograph of  Mr Corbyn holding the wreath at a ceremony in Tunis in 2014.

Eleven Israelis were killed after being taken hostage by the Palestinian terror group Black September at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.

Sources close to Mr Corbyn had insisted he was at the service to commemorate only the air strike victims.

But their monument is 15 yards from where Mr Corbyn is pictured – and in a different part of the cemetery complex. 

Instead he was in front of a plaque that lies beside the graves of Black September members. 

It honours Salah Khalaf, who founded Black September; his key aide Fakhri al-Omari; and also Hayel Abdel-Hamid, PLO chief of security.

Adjacent to their graves is that of Atef Bseiso, a PLO intelligence chief who has been linked to the Munich atrocity.

Euan Philipps, spokesman for Labour Against Antisemitism, told MailOnline that Mr Corbyn must be honest and admit the damage the latest scandal has done to his party.

He said:  ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that he wasn’t involved in the wreath-laying ceremony, when pictures exist showing him laying the wreath himself, stretches credulity.

‘Mr Corbyn must first address the distress he has caused the widows of the Munich victims by being honest about what happened. 

‘He must then publicly admit to the damage his leadership is doing to the Labour Party, accept responsibility for its ongoing antisemitism crisis, and resign.

We hope that all Labour MPs, members and those in the media will show the integrity that this case demands and continue to hold Mr Corbyn to account over this appalling incident.’

Widows of Munich victims last night slammed the Labour leader’s ‘act of maliciousness, cruelty and stupidity’ for visiting the grave and demanded an apology. 

And Jewish groups and Labour MPs have also torn into his ‘despicable’ trip to Tunisia. 

The Daily Mail’s revelations about the trip in 2014 have deepened the anti-Semitism row engulfing Mr Corbyn. 

Photographs in Saturday’s newspaper showed him holding a wreath near the graves of those implicated in Black September and the Munich attack. 

Mr Corbyn was also apparently observing a prayer during a service to honour Palestinian ‘martyrs’.

Labour has insisted he was there to commemorate 47 victims of an Israeli air strike on a Palestine Liberation Organisation base in Tunisia in 1985.

But he wrote shortly after the trip that wreaths had been laid not just for the 1985 victims but ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad’ – Israel’s security force.

And it emerged yesterday that the air strike memorial at the cemetery is inscribed with the names of some of the terror chiefs.

Ilana Romano, whose husband Yossef, a champion weightlifter, was castrated and shot dead by the Munich terrorists, said Mr Corbyn was ‘a danger’.

The 71-year-old from Tel Aviv added: ‘To go to the grave of a person behind the killing of 11 athletes, he should be ashamed and apologise. 

He’s not a person of peace. It doesn’t bother him to hurt the families. 

‘A person who goes to the grave of killers doesn’t want peace.’

Ankie Spitzer, who lost her husband Andre, a fencing coach, at Munich, said Mr Corbyn was ‘hate-filled’.

She and Mrs Romano together said: ‘We do not recall a visit of Mr Corbyn to the graves of our murdered fathers, sons and husbands. 

‘They only went to the Olympics to participate in this festival of love, peace and brotherhood; but they all returned home in coffins.

‘For Mr Corbyn to honour these terrorists, is the ultimate act of maliciousness, cruelty and stupidity.’

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has called for Mr Corbyn to quit over the controversy.  

Jonathan Goldstein, chairman of Jewish Leadership Council, said the revelations in the Mail were ‘despicable’.

He added: ‘It is reprehensible that the man who wishes to be our prime minister honoured ruthless terrorists who committed an act described by the late King Hussein of Jordan as ‘a savage crime against humanity’.

‘This man is not fit to be a member of parliament, let alone a national leader.

‘He has spent his entire political career cavorting with conspiracy theorists, terrorists and revolutionaries who seek to undo all the good for which our ancestors have given their lives. In so many ways, enough is enough.’

 Mr Corbyn  wrote shortly after the trip that wreaths had been laid not just for the 1985 victims but ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad’

 Mr Corbyn  wrote shortly after the trip that wreaths had been laid not just for the 1985 victims but ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad’

Atef Bseiso, pictured,  was head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) before his assassination outside a Paris hotel in 1992. It was widely reported he was shot because he helped plan the Munich Massacre in 1972

Hayel Abdel-Hamid, pictured, was chief of security for the PLO.
He was a close adviser to Salah Khalaf, and the pair were killed in an attack in Abdel-Hamid’s home in the Tunisian capital Tunis in 1991

Atef Bseiso (left) was head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) before his assassination outside a Paris hotel in 1992. It was widely reported he was shot because he helped plan the Munich Massacre in 1972. Hayel Abdel-Hamidwas chief of security for the PLO. He was a close adviser to Salah Khalaf, and the pair were killed in an attack in Abdel-Hamid’s home in the Tunisian capital Tunis in 1991

Salah Khalaf, pictured, is widely believed to have masterminded the Munich Massacre. 
He created Black September and went on to become Yasser Arafat’s second-in-command in the PLO. In 1991 he was gunned down in Tunis

Fakhri Alomari, pictured, was a senior member of Black September and was also implicated in the Munich Massacre. He was a close adviser to Salah Khalaf and was killed during the same attack  in Tunis.

Salah Khalaf (left) is widely believed to have masterminded the Munich Massacre. He created Black September and went on to become Yasser Arafat’s second-in-command in the PLO. In 1991 he was gunned down in Tunis. FakhriAlomari was a senior member of Black September and was also implicated in the Munich Massacre. He was a close adviser to Salah Khalaf and was killed during the same attack in Tunis

Labour MP Joan Ryan, chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, said: ‘These pictures appear to show Jeremy Corbyn standing at the grave of the founder of the terrorist group which cold-bloodedly murdered 11 Israeli athletes at Munich.

‘He must now both urgently explain why he chose to honour such a man and unreservedly apologise to the families of the innocent sportsmen who were butchered in the most horrific manner.’

Another Labour MP said: ‘Jeremy’s past is catching up with him. 

‘He’s spent the last 40 years supporting or defending all sorts of extremists and in some cases terrorists and anti-Semites.

Why is Labour’s new code of conduct on anti-Semitism so controversial?

The Labour anti-Semitism row erupted again after the party leadership refused to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition.

The party’s code explicitly endorses the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism and includes a list of behaviours likely to be regarded as anti-Semitic copied word-for-word from the organisation’s own document.

But it omits four examples from the IHRA list:

– Accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country;

– Claiming that Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour;

– Requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations; and

– Comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis.

Labour insisted that while the examples are not reproduced word-for-word, they are covered in the new code. 

But critics say the decision to not include the four examples allows anti-Semitism to continue to fester and go unchallenged among party supporters.  

‘It is shocking to discover that less than a year before he became Labour leader he said himself he was present when wreaths were laid at the graves of the Black September terrorists who murdered athletes at the Olympics.’ 

In an October 2014 article for the communist Morning Star recording his visit to the Tunisian cemetery, Mr Corbyn said wreaths were laid to mark the 1985 bombing but also ‘on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991’.

There appears to be no record of Mossad having carried out an assassination in Paris in 1991. 

However, Khalaf, Abdul-Hamid and al-Omari were assassinated that year. Mossad is accused of killing Bseiso in Paris in 1992.

The names of Khalaf, Abdul-Hamid and al-Omari are also inscribed on the monument to the air strike.

Pictures and videos posted on the Facebook page of the Palestinian embassy in Tunisia over several years show that a wreath is routinely put on the plaque honouring Khalaf, Abdul-Hamid and al-Omari.

Yesterday when the Daily Mail posed a series of questions about the visit to the cemetery, a Labour source said: ‘We have got nothing to say beyond what we have already said.’

The Munich row comes amid controversy over Labour’s refusal to adopt in full an international definition of anti-Semitism, including a list of examples of anti-Semitic behaviour.

Three senior union leaders – from the GMB, Unison and Usdaw – have gone public with their demands for Labour to fully adopt the IHRA definition.

And Labour deputy leader Tom Watson has also made the demand – saying that his party risks being sucked into a vortex of ‘eternal shame’ of it does not finally act. 

A Labour Party spokesman said it had agreed to re-open the development of the code, in consultation with Jewish community organisations and groups.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: ‘Both Jeremy Corbyn and I have made clear that racism and anti-Semitism have no place in the Labour Party.’ 

First hooded Palestinian terrorists tortured 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich… then they murdered them in an atrocity that shocked the world, writes MARK ALMOND

The sadism shown by the terrorists of the Munich Olympic Massacre touched the depths of evil. After breaking into the Olympic Village during the Games in 1972, eight Palestinian gunmen rounded up Israeli athletes and their coaches.

During a bloody and unequal battle, one man was killed outright and another — weightlifter Yossef Romano, who was on crutches following a competiton injury — was shot and then castrated.

In a further act of unspeakable savagery, the attackers forced their captives to watch as his body was mutilated.

Whether he was still alive, and exactly what the terrorists thought this would achieve, has never been known. Other athletes were beaten until their bones snapped.

File photo shows a member of the Palestinian terrorist group who seized members of the Israeli Olympic team at their quarters at the Munich Olympic Village on September 5, 1972

File photo shows a member of the Palestinian terrorist group who seized members of the Israeli Olympic team at their quarters at the Munich Olympic Village on September 5, 1972

The scene of horror inside the apartment of the Israeli Olympic team's apartment which is riddled with bullet holes and blood covering the floor

The scene of horror inside the apartment of the Israeli Olympic team’s apartment which is riddled with bullet holes and blood covering the floor

The full horror was kept from Yossef’s widow, Ilana, for 20 years. When eventually she saw photographs of his corpse, it was, she said, ‘as bad as I could have imagined. Until that day, I remembered Yossef as a young man with a big smile. But it erased the entire Yossi that I knew’.

That degree of abhorrent cruelty was calculated. The gunmen set out to hijack the Olympics for their own cynical ends, sending out a potent message to their supporters.

It was the first time the Games had been held in Germany since the notorious 1936 Berlin event under Nazi rule. For Israeli athletes to be taking part, less than 30 years after the Holocaust, was deeply symbolic.

West German policemen wearing sweatsuits, bullet-proof vests and armed with submachine guns, take up positions on Olympic Village rooftops

West German policemen wearing sweatsuits, bullet-proof vests and armed with submachine guns, take up positions on Olympic Village rooftops

The terrorists’ goal, in 18 hours of crazed violence, was to shatter any fledgling spirit of reconciliation.

Indeed, at the climax of the atrocity, nine more Israeli athletes were slaughtered, apparently when they were just moments from freedom, on an airport runway.

This was also the first televised terrorism. Not until the Twin Towers attack of 9/11 would the world be so gripped and so sickened by an act of terror.

The mayhem that played out in Munich was watched by 900 million people in a hundred countries as it happened.

Mixing murder with media spectacle, it set the template to be exploited by Osama Bin Laden’s hijackers as they crashed planes into Manhattan and Washington landmarks in 2001.

And yet, in a gesture that defies belief, it was close to the graves of the men who plotted this horror that Jeremy Corbyn, now the Labour Party leader, apparently laid wreaths and joined in an act of prayer at a Tunisian cemetery four years ago.

The remains of the helicopter which was used by Arab guerillas to escape from the Olympic village with 11 Israeli hostages. The helicopter was destroyed in a gun battle with German police

The remains of the helicopter which was used by Arab guerillas to escape from the Olympic village with 11 Israeli hostages. The helicopter was destroyed in a gun battle with German police

Their plan for the massacre took shape at a pavement cafe on a sunny piazza thronged with tourists in Rome in July 1972. As three Palestinians sat sipping coffee and watching the girls go by, they griped bitterly that, unlike Israel, their state had not been invited to send a team to the Olympic Games that would start in a matter of weeks in the southern Bavarian capital, Munich.

The Palestinian absence should not have been a surprise. No other country recognised the state — not even Communist Russia, which had broken off relations with Israel.

Mohammad Daoud Oudeh (better known by the nom de guerre Abu Daoud), a co-founder of the Black September terror organisation, listened as his two chief lieutenants planned their twisted vengeance.

‘Why don’t we enter the Olympics in our own way?’ asked Fakhri al-Omari, his chief aide.

Salah Khalaf (known as Abu Iyad), a co-founder of Black September and an intelligence chief with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), asked sceptically what they could do there.

Ilana Romano's husband, brave weightlifter Youssef says he was subjected to torture before being brutally murdered in 1972

Ilana Romano's husband, brave weightlifter Youssef says he was subjected to torture before being brutally murdered in 1972

Ilana Romano’s husband, brave weightlifter Yossef says he was subjected to torture before being brutally murdered in 1972

‘We could seize Israeli athletes,’ said al-Omari.

We know this conversation took place because, long after the other two had been assassinated, Mohammad Daoud Oudeh — by then a hard drinker, despite his Muslim faith — boasted to newspapers of the story. (He died of kidney disease in 2010.)

He also revealed how he flew to Munich at the start of the Games and posed as a Brazilian tourist to get a guided tour of the athletes’ quarters.

So it was that at 4.30am on September 5, 1972, a group of eight terrorists (it did not include the cowardly ringleaders) scaled an unguarded fence at the Olympic Village. Wearing tracksuits just like athletes would, they used stolen keys to break into the Israeli dormitory block at 31 Connollystrasse.

Daily Mail's coverage of the Munich Massacre a day after the helicopter was shot down, which resulted in five terrorists and all eleven athletes being killed

Daily Mail’s coverage of the Munich Massacre a day after the helicopter was shot down, which resulted in five terrorists and all eleven athletes being killed

Tribute: Jeremy Corbyn pictured in 2014 holding a wreath at a cemetery in Tunis. Sources close to Mr Corbyn insisted he was at the service to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian PLO base in 1985

Tribute: Jeremy Corbyn pictured in 2014 holding a wreath at a cemetery in Tunis. Sources close to Mr Corbyn insisted he was at the service to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian PLO base in 1985

11 VICTIMS OF MUNICH MASACRE 

Almost at once, they were confronted by wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and referee Yossef Gutfreund.

Both men were taken prisoner at gunpoint after a fight, in which Weinberg was injured. The kidnappers demanded to be taken to the athletes’ rooms. Knowing that his wrestlers would fight back hardest, Weinberg led the terrorists to their quarters in Apartment 3.

He was right. Even unarmed and startled from their sleep, the wrestlers nearly managed to overwhelm their attackers.

Weinberg was at the point of wresting a gun from a terrorist when he was shot and killed. It was then that Yossef Romano was also gunned down — to die horribly in front of his friends.

Nine others were held at the point of AK-47 assault rifles — weapons supplied to Black September by neo-Nazi groups in Germany. Unrepentant Nazis saw the PLO as their allies in a war on Jews. Weinberg’s body was dumped outside the front door and Black September’s demands were issued. They wanted the release of 234 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, along with the notorious leaders of the Baader-Meinhof terror gang in prison in West Germany.

Ulrike Meinhof was a heroine to the radical Left in Europe because she had organised attacks on U.S. targets, as well as West German officials.

She dismissed victims of the Holocaust with contempt, calling them ‘money Jews’ or capitalists who deserved to be gassed — but the Left overlooked that.

The Palestinians had not missed the significance of Meinhof’s anti-Semitism. They saw her as a comrade-in-arms.

Bargaining with terrorists was out of the question for Israel, which said immediately that there would be no negotiation. But, in the first of a string of monumental blunders, the German government offered a cash ransom.

After a 12-hour standoff, Munich police, most with no training for a hostage rescue, took up positions ready to storm the building: the operation was called off when they realised their actions were being filmed by news crews from all over the world and broadcast live. The terrorists could see everything they did.

The TV broadcast showed the Israeli fencing coach Andre Spitzer, who spoke German, being dragged to a window with an AK-47 muzzle in his back, to demonstrate to the world that some hostages were still alive.

But, even as he attempted to answer a negotiator’s question, Spitzer was being clubbed to the ground with the rifle butt. (After seeing the room where he was held hostage, his journalist wife Ankie said: ‘I said to myself, ‘If this is what happened to that peace-loving man, my husband, who wanted nothing more than to take part in the Olympics, then I will never shut up, never stop talking about the travesty to the Olympic ideals.’ ‘)

The terrorists demanded an airliner on which to make their escape to Cairo, Egypt. With their captives bound and blindfolded, they were taken in buses to two helicopters, which airlifted them to Furstenfeldbruck Air Base 15 miles away.

German police made a ham-fisted attempt at an ambush, using a Boeing 727 on the Tarmac with 17 police disguised as Lufthansa air crew. But, after a panicked ‘vote’ among themselves, the police abandoned their posts. They later said that, without proper training or weapons, they had no hope of saving the hostages and regarded it as a suicide mission.

When the helicopters landed, bringing the eight terrorists and nine surviving athletes to the airfield, they were surrounded by police — concealed and at a distance.

Later analysis by the SAS revealed this was the perfect opportunity to kill the kidnappers. But the police had no radio contact with each other and, instead of sniper rifles, had been issued with assault weapons that lacked telescopic sights or night vision.

Armoured cars had been despatched, but were stuck in traffic.

After one policeman accidentally opened fire on his own comrades, a gun battle erupted. By the time it was over, five terrorists, a German policeman and all the athletes were dead. Five of the Israelis died when a terrorist threw a hand grenade into one of the helicopters where they were trapped.

Three terrorists were arrested but, in a final blunder, West Germany freed them two months later, in response to another hijack staged by Black September.

Western democracies might delude themselves into negotiating with hostage-takers, but Israel was less obliging. Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered the execution of all the ringleaders by her secret services, in an operation codenamed Wrath Of God.

This, as much as the atrocity in Munich, was the real game-changer in the fight against terrorism: for the first time, a Western government was prepared to use deadly force as a counter-terrorism policy.

One by one, over 20 years, the terrorists behind the massacre were hunted down. It was a murky, ruthless and even pitiless manhunt.

Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) was shot in the head by his own bodyguard in Tunisia in 1991, along with his fellow plotter Fakhri al-Omari at the home of Hayel Abdel-Hamid, PLO head of security and a close adviser to Khalaf (although his role in the massacre is not clear).

The Israelis were almost certainly behind the killings — though, of course, their Mossad secret service does not release such details.

The fourth man whose grave Jeremy Corbyn seemed to dignify with his close presence, wreath and prayers was Atef Bseiso, another senior PLO agent known to be directly involved in Munich. He was assassinated as he returned home from dinner in a Paris restaurant in 1992.

One unnamed Mossad source later remarked: ‘Our blood was boiling. When there was information implicating someone, we didn’t inspect it with a magnifying glass.’

The murderers of 1972 had started a cycle of violence that they would not survive.

Eventually, the PLO came to see terrorism as a dead-end. Hijackings and the killing of innocents such as the Israeli athletes made it impossible for the Palestinians to portray themselves as underdogs. Instead, it highlighted their merciless cruelty.

And, by appearing to ‘forget’ the horror of what happened in Munich in 1972, Corbyn’s actions are troubling, to say the least.

  • Mark Almond is the director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford.



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