1972 Olympics and the Ukraine War: Learning from Israel means learning to win!

1972 Olympics and the Ukraine War: Learning from Israel means learning to win!

It is interesting how intensive and broad the media coverage of the 1972 Olympics  in the former capital of the movement Munich is. On the one hand, the spirit of optimism in the 1970s under bright rainbow colors, the cosmopolitanism and the peaceful, new Germany as a contrast to Nazi Germany, the post-war pacifist Pippi Langstrumpf naivety even of the police and responsible politicians of the SDP-FDP government under Willy Brandt and then just that sudden end and rude awakening of all this by the attack of the Palestinians and Black September. This is reminiscent of the current debate about Ostpolitik, post-war pacifism, change through trade philosophy, which now came to an equally abrupt end and a rude awakening with Putin’s Ukraine war. The central meta-message and the grand narrative of the current “Zeitenwende”/“turning point” are conveyed with the reporting of the Olympics: No appeasement. If you want peace, prepare for war! And especially when it comes to security thinking and German history: Learning from Israel means learning to win. Yesterday’s ARD documentary also described the motives of the stateless Palestinian refugee people, but unfortunately the historical and geopolitical time frame of Black September was missing: The Six-Day War in 1967, Black September in Jordan in 1970 and that the 1972 Olympics were taking place immediately before the Yom Kippur War 1973.

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