Munich terror movie slammed by all sides

GAZA - The mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics raid has said director Steven Spielberg should have consulted him about a film on the massacre to be sure to get the story right.

In a supreme irony, Palestinian Mohammad Daoud echoed veterans of Israel's Mossad spy service in questioning the sources used for Munich, which chronicles the massacre and the Israeli revenge that followed.

"If someone really wanted to tell the truth about what happened he should talk to the people involved, people who know the truth," Daoud said.

As planner for Black September, a Palestine Liberation Organisation splinter group, Daoud sent gunmen to abduct Israeli athletes at the 1972 Games in the Bavarian capital.

Two hostages were killed in the raid, and another nine died during a botched rescue by German police.

Daoud blames Israel and German authorities for the deaths.

Reeling from the loss of its countrymen - particularly on what had been the staging ground for the Nazi Holocaust - Israel retaliated by assassinating at least 10 PLO men and also drove their comrades into hiding.

Daoud, who survived a 1981 gun attack in Poland which the PLO blamed on the Mossad, said Israel targeted innocents and he hoped that would also be shown in the film.

"They carried out vengeance against people who had nothing to do with the Munich attack, people who were merely politically active or had ties with the PLO," he said.

"If a film fails to make these points, it will be unjust in terms of truth."

Spielberg, best known in Israel for his Holocaust epic Schindler's List, has vowed that Munich will be sensitive to all sides.

"Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms," Spielberg said.

An Israeli actress cast in the film confirmed press reports that it is based, at least partly, on Vengeance, a book on the reprisals campaign that has been widely discredited.

"I am surprised that a director like him has chosen, out of all the sources, to rely on this particular book," retired Mossad chief Zvi Zamir told Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

The ex-spook's view was supported by ex-guerrilla Daoud.

"I read Vengeance," he said. "It is full of mistakes."

- REUTERS