Sunday, August 22, 2004

The History Channel

I enjoy the study of history, and, because I do not have cable teevee, I don’t often have an opportunity to sit down and watch The History Channel.

For most of the past week, though, while I acted as a presence and a dog sitter at a friend’s home, I was able to catch a few shows.  One in particular, though there were others that caught my attention for the poetic license taken with history, irked me.

The story was about the 1972 Olympics.  Remember what happened there?  I do, and I was only twelve at the time.  The show was titled Revenge!, and rather than actually being about the 1972 Olympic incident when Palestinian terrorists grabbed world headlines by blantantly killing Israeli athletes, the show focused on Israel’s response, after the fact, thus the supposed clever title “Revenge!”

The reason this show irked me so, is, I can recall the year 1972, and the thoughts that went through my mind when the Palestinians took the Israeli athletes hostage, Israel’s response of no negotiation, which the inept Germans totally ignored, and my support for Israel’s desire to take charge of the situation themselves, which, of course, the Germans also ignored.

The situation ended badly, with all the Israeli athletes dead, the Palestinians terrorists dead, except for three who were captured and did a bit of jail time before other Palestinian terrorists hijacked a plane, threatening to kill the passengers, unless the three captured Palestinian terrorists were released, which of course they were, so Israel had to clean up the mess left by the Germans originally when the whole thing started in the Olympic village.

As I listened to this show, I could not help but recall my outrage at the Palestinian terrorists, the way the Germans pussyfooted around, ignoring Israel’s desire to handle the situation, and the totally inept end to the situation as handled by German police and military.

Israel’s response, after the bungled mess wasn’t revenge, it was justice, and if I could figure this all out at the age of twelve, why can’t supposedly intelligent adults figure it out now.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/22 at 10:44 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages