Israel minister: ‘We will not forgive Abbas for Munich attack’

Israeli Minister of Communications Yoaz Hendel arrives for a photo at the President’s residence during a ceremony for the new coalition government in Jerusalem, on 14 June 2021. [EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images]

Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel claimed on Friday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was one of the planners of the Munich attack on Israeli athletes in 1972, stressing, “we will never forgive him,” Israeli media reported.

During the inauguration of the series Munich 72, Hendel accused the PA president, whom many Israeli politicians see as a legitimate leader and partner, of being “one of the planners” of the Munich attack, according to Jewish News One news network.

“We will never forgive him,” Hendel stressed. “I do not see him as a legitimate partner in anything – not in talks or building a future of peace.”

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The Palestinians for Black September, an old military formation affiliated with Fatah, organised and carried out the attack, which planned to kidnap the Israeli athletes to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners experiencing dire conditions in Israeli jails.

Abbas could never have been one of the planners as, since the early years of the PLO and Fatah Movement, he was tasked by the late Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Fatah leader Yasser Arafat to seek peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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