Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response

There is a great story buried in this book, about Israel's response to the escalation of Palestinian terrorism in the 1970s, but the narrative structure defeats it: vignettes are not only told completely out of order, but the outcome of every episode is told before the details of the plot are revealed. For example, one chapter describes the Mossad's plans to covertly assassinate a high-level PLO terrorist in a European country; the dramatic tension of this mission is lessened by the chapter's title, which tells you that the plan will fail. This book is well worth reading for anyone interested in modern history of terrorism and special ops because it's full of relevant information gleaned directly from insiders. I'm just not sure why the show more author went out of his way to confuse the narrative. show less

I picked this book up because I'd come across a similar title and was reading reviews and all of them pointed to this book as the one book on the Munich Olympic massacre that people should read. I'd watched the movie Munich and a few short documentaries on the massacre, but my knowledge of the events was limited to popular culture. But after reading Aaron Klein's book, I feel as though I've discovered the truth.

Striking Back was published in 2006, so Klein is able to look at the events from a post 9/11 point of view, which I found to be extremely important. He was given unprecedented access to materials that remained hidden from public view until he asked.

What makes this book so good is not just limited to Klein's access to documents show more and people. It's the way he gives us an inside look at everything. We're not just talking about the athletes -- their families, the Israel Olympic Committee, the Israeli government, Mossad, the German government, as well as the terrorists themselves. But even then, Klein takes us on another journal.

It would be all too easy to write a biased book, focused on just the events of Munich, glossing over blame and Israel's response through rose colored glasses. Klein does not fall into the trap. Not only does he leave no one untouched, he explains the failings of both countries and then goes on to talk about Israel's response. While Munich takes a fictional view of realistic events, Striking Back fills in all the holes. Klein writes of the assassinations -- of the guilty, the supposed guilty and the accidental assassination of innocents.

Klein's writing is strong, he doesn't cushion the truth nor shy away from it when it's less than flattering. I found it to be a chilly story, even moreso because in some ways this feels like the beginning of something we've become used to -- non-state sponsored terrorism ending in a war that no one can win ad that is still going on. show less

I really liked the chapters about the Munich Olympics Massacre, they were both informative and gripping. However only 13 of the 35 chapters are about that event, the rest covering Israel's assassination and counter-terrorism programs. Not even assassinations related to Munich, simply how the Munich Massacre acted as the catalyst for Israel's decades-long assassination program. This aspect of the book didn't interest me, so the post-Munich chapters quickly became tedious. If the author had focused in solely on the Munich Massacre it would have been a solid 5 stars.

This is a fascinating, in-depth behind the scenes look at the Munich Olympics massacrea and the many years of plotted and accomplishing revenge assassiations by Israel's Mossad. The at times casual application of lethal shooting and explosives - with some collateral damage - comes across as irresponsible to do inthe apartments and streets of Europeans cities, etc.

There is also fascinating details on methods and misfires in this well-researched book.

Good narration.

The first sign that this was going to be an irritating read was the profusion of short paragraphs used by the author. Sadly, this was not a style choice to hook the reader at the outset, but rather, continued throughout the book, disrupting its flow and making it feel like a magazine article.

The second red flag was the extremely strong language used about Germany's response to security at the Games and their aftermath. The author used words like 'negligent', without providing any reasoned argument to support such a position, and in the end came off as sounding biased.

Finally, for a book purporting to reveal inside secrets of the Mossad, the author does not list a single source in a bibliography. Not one. The author thanks certain show more individuals, but it's impossible to know what documentary sources he consulted for his historical research, or what new information he gleaned from recently released files.

While I have found some journalists to be great writers of history, this is not one of those authors. Avoid this book if you can, and save yourself the three hours of your life that you'll never get back again if you read it. show less

"Striking Back" provides a good background on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict which endures to this day. The book centers on the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of the Israeli olympic team, and details a number of security failings of the Munich authorities which allowed the events to unfold as they did. Klein then tells the story of Israel's policy of preventive assassinations of the leaders of the Black September terrorists wing, using archived files of Israel's security forces. Unfortunately, you also get a sense of the endless cycle of attack and revenge on both sides, with a peaceful solution apparently still many generations away.

This book highlights the danger of releasing a security agency to kill those responsible for an attack. Without directly addressing the subject, it calls into question the idea of a "War against Terror." Once someone may be sentenced to death without the ability of a defense counsel or being able to face the accusers, political and personal witch hunting becomes a standard operating procedure and innocent people are killed for without improving national security . Unasked and unanswered is the question can a society governed by the rule of law defend itself from stateless aggression (i.e. terrorist)?