Editorial II
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr. & Krieger, Terry
Editorial II: The Response to Munich, Today and Tomorrow It is natural that people have been shocked by the murder in Munich of eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team by Arab terrorists; it is...
...it is appropriate that people have mourned the slain Israelis by issuing statements, holding ceremonies and so on...
...Now, to talk about "man's inhumanity to man" is to talk about how one abstraction ("man") acts (inhumanly) toward another abstraction ("man"), which turns out to be the same abstraction...
...And many of the efforts to make sense out of the slaughter at Munich have been based on simplistic notions about political and social circumstances in the Middle East...
...It was not "man" but Arab terrorists who killed the Israeli athletes, (continued on page 24...
...Most of the shock over the murder of the Israeli Olympians apparently has been evoked simply by the act itself and its disruptive effect on the Olympic games, not by the general activities and ultimate ends of the terrorists and their supporters...
...It is difficult to see what such abstract talk is good for except to divert attention from important concrete matters or dilute the matters themselves...
...But what is natural, appropriate and understandable is, from a practical standpoint, not necessarily adequate or even helpful...
...Since Munich, we repeatedly have been lectured to, in one way or another, about "man's inhumanity to man" and we repeatedly have been told, in one way or another, that "violence solves nothing...
...Much of the mourning over the slain Israelis has been accompanied by moralizing that confuses or obscures important matters and inhibits strong action against the terrorists and their supporters...
...Consider some examples of the moralizing that has accompanied much of the mourning...
...and it is understandable that people have tried to make sense out of this senseless event and expressed the hope that such an event will never happen again...
Vol. 6 • November 1972 • No. 2
