Aaron J. Klein
After watching Spielberg’s excellent “Munich“, I was curious as to how much of the story, “inspired by real events”, was true. The answer - which doesn’t detract from the movie - is, according to Aaron Klein, “not much”.
Klein’s “Striking Back” is not one of those non-fiction books that reads like a novel. However, it does seem to be based on extensive research on the 1972 terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and on the Israeli assassination campaign that followed.
Despite the fact that the campaign didn’t succeed in killing the high-level planners, or even the surviving participants, it did apparently succeed in sowing fear in the hearts of Palestinian terrorists and materially affected their ability to strike at Israeli targets. Klein emphasizes that the targets were sometimes loosely connected (and, in the infamous Lillehammer killing, not at all connected) with the terrorists but he also claims that the killings were conducted with an eye to the safety of non-combatants and Israeli agents. He also points out that it was generally “human intelligence” (HUMINT) that allowed Israel’s security forces to go after its enemies. It’s a shame that the Bush administration hasn’t taken a similar measured, considered, proportionate, and effective approach to the “war on terror” following 9/11.
(Klein commented on “Munich” in “Slate”.)