WhatsappIt is the continuation of a policy rooted in the Olympics’ massacre in 1972: Israel will reach its enemies, wherever they hide.
(Sept. 11, 2025 / JNS)
In September 1972, the world watched in horror as Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic Village in Munich, taking members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage. By the time the ordeal ended, 11 Israeli athletes were dead. The world’s reaction was predictable: outrage, speeches and hand-wringing, but little action. The International Olympic Committee hurried to resume the Games. West German officials bungled the rescue attempt and then quietly released three of the captured terrorists.
Israel drew a very different conclusion. Then-Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized the Mossad to pursue every member of the Black September network that had orchestrated the Munich attack. The message was unmistakable: Those who spill Jewish blood will never be safe. Over the following years—in cities from Paris to Beirut to Cyprus—the long arm of Israeli justice reached the perpetrators of Munich.
More than 50 years later, that same doctrine is alive in the aftermath of the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The world again saw Jews butchered in cold blood in their homes and at a music festival. The world again expressed sympathy … and then moved on.
Israel, however, has not moved on. And just as in the 1970s, the masterminds of mass murder are discovering that safe houses in Tehran or luxury hotels in Doha are no refuge.
Reports of targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders in Tehran and now Qatar’s capital city, Doha, are not improvisations. They are the continuation of a policy rooted in Munich: Israel will reach its enemies wherever they hide.
The parallels are striking.
In both 1972 and 2023, the murderers believed that distance, politics and foreign patronage would shield them. Black September operatives slipped across European borders, confident that they could disappear. Hamas leaders today rely on Iranian sponsorship and Qatari hospitality. Both miscalculated.
Munich taught Israel—and the Jewish people—that international institutions could not be relied upon to protect us. Oct. 7 reinforced that lesson with painful clarity.
Critics call these killings vengeance. That is a fundamental misunderstanding. Israel’s targeted operations are not revenge; they are justice, deterrence and self-preservation.
Justice, because the blood of murdered Jews cannot be brushed aside with a U.N. resolution or a “peace process” that drags on indefinitely. Deterrence, because future terrorists must learn that planning atrocities against Jews means that they will spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulder. And self-preservation, because allowing terror leaders to live freely and plot the next massacre is to invite repetition of Oct. 7.
The world often prefers Israel to “move on.” After Munich, the International Olympic Committee didn’t even pause the Games for long. Today, the international community demands ceasefires and concessions, as if Hamas were a legitimate negotiating partner rather than the butchers of men, women, children and babies. In both eras, Israel answered with action, not platitudes.
It is also worth remembering who these terror leaders are. The Munich plotters were not impoverished freedom fighters; they were operatives of a well-funded, politically connected terror machine. Likewise, those Hamas leaders who reside in Tehran and Doha are not struggling refugees; they live in opulence while ordinary Gazans languish under their misrule. Their deaths do not deprive their people of leadership; they liberate them from tyrants who profit from endless war.
The principle behind Israel’s campaign is both ancient and modern. The Bible teaches, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” Israel has taken that imperative into its national security doctrine. The long arm of justice, whether carried out by Mossad agents in the 1970s or Israeli operatives today, tells the world that Jewish lives are not cheap, Jewish dignity is not expendable, and Jewish sovereignty has meaning.
When the Munich terrorists struck in 1972, they aimed to humiliate Israel on the world stage. Instead, they birthed a doctrine of deterrence that outlived them all. When Hamas struck on Oct. 7, they sought to terrorize Israelis into paralysis. Instead, they reawakened Israel’s determination to ensure that Jewish blood is never spilled without consequence.
From Munich to Tehran, from 1972 to today, Israel has demonstrated that the Jewish people will not rely on others to secure justice. If the international community cannot—or will not—prevent the murder of Jews, then Israel will act alone. That is not vengeance. It is the meaning of sovereignty.
The names change—Munich, Black September, Hamas, Tehran, Doha—but the principle remains constant: If you slaughter Jews, your day of reckoning will come.
