Black September
Black September
The Black September Organization (BSO) was a Palestinian terrorist group most active in the early 1970s. The BSO named itself after the particularly bloody month in 1970 when King Hussein of Jordan declared military rule, expelling and killing thousands of Palestinian fedayeen (self-sacrificers). These fedayeen threatened to undermine Hussein’s power in working with a “state within a state,” the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), established to mobilize the Palestinian population against Israel. Black September most likely began as the Revenging Palestinians, a group dedicated to avenging the death of Abu Ali Iyad, the last charismatic leader of the fedayeen, whose torture and murder was intended as a symbol of defeat for the Palestinian guerrillas. After regrouping in Lebanon, where they were given control of fifteen refugee camps by the government, the Revolutionary Council of al-Fatah (the PLO’s military force) met in Damascus, Syria, and debated whether it should continue using the tactics of Iyad’s followers. The council, it is suspected, agreed to remain affiliated with the group, which later renamed itself Black September, and agreed to operate as a clandestine arm of al-Fatah.
Black September carried out its first act of violence on November 28, 1971, with the assassination of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasif al-Tali. Al-Tali, believed to have personally killed Abu Ali Iyad, was attending the Arab League summit in Cairo, Egypt, when four gunmen shot him outside the Sheraton Hotel. The BSO also attempted to assassinate King Hussein and Zaid al-Rifai, Jordan’s ambassador to London and former chief of the Jordanian royal court, in December 1971. These acts of revenge foreshadowed several bold attempts that the BSO would make to alter the political landscape of the Middle East and advance the cause of the Palestinian people.
The BSO is probably best known for taking members of the Israeli team as hostages on September 5 of the 1972 Munich Olympics. In return for the hostages, the BSO demanded the release of roughly 220 prisoners (mostly Palestinian) from West German and Israeli jails. After attempts to negotiate failed, the BSO members demanded to be transported by helicopters, with the Israelis in tow, to the nearby military base of Furstenfeldbruck, where they hoped to board a jetliner that would allow them to escape to an Arab country. Shooting broke out between German officials and the BSO at Furstenfeldbruck as West Germany made its last attempt to prevent the hostages from being taken out of the country. By the end of the bloody ordeal early September 6, all eleven Israeli hostages were dead (two at the Olympic village, the other nine at Furstenfeldbruck). Also killed were five members of the BSO and one German police officer, shot at the airbase.
In response to the massacre at Munich, Israel declared war on terrorist activity and targeted Black September and al-Fatah equally. Some of Israel’s immediate retaliatory acts included killing hundreds of people, most of whom are believed to have been unaffiliated with the terrorist group, during raids of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. These attacks added to already existing tensions between Israel and its neighboring Arab nations, and they would ultimately lead to further military conflict. In the fall of 1973 the PLO dissolved Black September. A year later Yassir Arafat, the PLO’s leader, ordered his followers to withdraw from acts of violence outside Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
SEE ALSO Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dobson, Christopher. 1974. Black September: Its Short, Violent History. New York: Macmillan Publishing.
Morris, Benny. 2001. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001. New York: Vintage Books.
Tehama Lopez
Black September
BLACK SEPTEMBER
a palestinian terrorist group that grew out of the defeat of the palestinians in the september 1970 jordanian civil war.
Black September is generally believed to have been established by elements of al-Fatah in the autumn of 1971 as a result of pressure from groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to wage a more radical war against the Palestinians' enemies. The group took its name from the term used by some Palestinians to describe their military defeat during the Jordanian Civil War of 1970. It is widely believed that Black September was the creation of al-Fatah's intelligence chief Salah Khalaf (a.k.a. Abu Iyad), who recruited Ali Hasan Salama as its operational mastermind. Al-Fatah always denied any connection with the organization, and many details about the group remain unclear. The shadowy group's first strikes were aimed against Jordanian targets; they included the assassination of Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tall in Cairo in November 1971.
Black September's most dramatic attack involved seizing eleven Israeli athletes as hostages at the September 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. All the athletes and five Black September operatives later died during a gun battle with the West German police. Black September was also at the forefront of an underground war of assassination between the Israelis and the Palestinians that was carried out in Europe and the Middle East. In March 1973, Black September terrorists seized guests at a diplomatic reception at the Saudi embassy in Sudan in March 1973, and later murdered the U.S. ambassador. No actions were carried out in Black September's name thereafter.
see also fatah, al-; jordanian civil war (1970–1971); khalaf, salah; popular front for the liberation of palestine; tall, wasfi al-.
Bibliography
Bar Zohar, Michael, and Haber, Eitan. The Quest for the Red Prince: Israel's Relentless Manhunt for One of the World's Dead-liest and Most Wanted Arab Terrorists. New York: The Lyon's Press, 2002.
Cooley, John K. Green March, Black September: The Story of the Palestinian Arabs. London: Frank Cass, 1973.
Reeve, Simon. One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation "Wrath of God." New York: Arcade Books, 2001.
Sayigh, Yezid. Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Steve Tamari
Updated by Michael R. Fischbach