One Day In September 
Directed by Kevin McDonald 
1999

Last year's Oscar winning best documentary is a 
close-up account of the 1972 Olympic Games in 
Munich, Germany, in which members of the 
Palestinian group Black September kidnapped and 
then killed 11 members of the Israeli team. Taking 
advantage of the relatively weak security in the 
village (Germans were explicitly trying to 
overcome the images from the 1936 Nazi-hosted 
Olympics in Berlin), the assailants entered the 
Olympic village disguised as athletes and took 
Israeli hostages.

Black September hoped to free 
200 political prisoners held by Israel in exchange 
for the athletes. When Israel refused to negotiate 
their release, and the German police failed 
miserably in their military attempt to rescue 
them, the athletes along with most of their 
captors were killed. While exhaustive of its 
coverage of the blow-by-blow events, the film is 
weak on context for the Palestinian struggle for 
independence, and the relationship of Black 
September to that overall struggle. 

The film interviews Jamal al Gashey, one of many 
participants and the only living member of Black 
September who was involved in the operation. 
Although we are briefly introduced to his 
childhood in a Palestinian refugee camp, he is not 
in the film to provide insight into the oppression 
of Palestinians. Rather, the filmmakers portray 
him as a "terrorist" who remains proud of his role 
in the Olympic attack. There is no other pro-
Palestinian voice in the movie. More deeply 
explored in the film is the meaning of the events 
to Israel, and the context of Nazism to the 
oppression of Jews -- the added irony of an attack 
on German soil. Such a focus in 1972 -- and in 
2000 -- attempts to raise the state of Israel 
above reproach for its colonial occupation of 
Palestine, and links Palestinians to Nazis as 
Jewish oppressors. 

MIM objects to the film's 
portrayal of Israel as the ultimate victim and its 
backwards ideas about "terrorism." Israel got to 
send a team of athletes to the Olympics because it 
had a nation state for them to represent -- unlike 
its Palestinian colonial subjects. In 
participating in the games, like any other public 
forum, Israel exposed its athletes to the risks 
associated with oppressor nationhood. As long as 
Israel suppresses the Palestinian right to self 
determination, "the chickens will come home to 
roost." The documentary's theatrical release today 
coincides with a resurgence in the Palestinian 
resistance, and corresponding increased state-
sponsored violence against them. In recent months, 
Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed hundreds 
of Palestinians. In an economic assault on 
Palestine, the government has also imposed travel 
bans on the West Bank and Gaza. The justness of 
the Palestinian demand for national self-
determination, Israel's colonial role, and the 
U.$. domination of the entire situation, should be 
a central part of any historical account of the 
Israeli-Palestinian wars.