Acting Premier Yigal Allon warned today that the Arab states supporting terrorists were as guilty as the terrorists themselves for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes at Munich and a long series of earlier atrocities and would have to pay for the crimes. He issued a fervent plea to nations of the free world to see to it that terrorists can no longer function on their soil. Allon spoke on behalf of the Israel government at the mass funeral services for the Munich victims at Lod Airport in the absence of Premier Golda Meir.
Referring to the victims, he said: “You went to that Olympic game which is a meeting place of all nations and a place where it can be proven that both patriotism and peace can exist together through sports. Into this place came the impure sect of Arab extremists, a sect that has turned murder into a religion. They murdered 11 Israelis and murdered the spirit of the Olympiad,” Allon said.
NOT ALL ARAB STATES GUILTY
He recited the long record of terrorist atrocities and declared: “All these are proof that they are not freedom fighters, not redeemers of a nation but a contemptible group whose sole aim is genocide.”It is the prospect of peace and continuation of the cease-fire that frightens them and encourages their acts,” he said.
In castigating the Arab countries that aided the terrorists, Allon noted that “not all” the Arab states were guilty. He said he had special words for a “neighboring country,” which he did not identify but which was taken to be Jordan whose ruler, King Hussein, expressed horror over the Munich killings. On the other hand, he noted, there were Arab countries where the bloodshed was praised. The time has come for the Western world to exert pressure on the Arab states to discontinue their aid to the terrorists, Allon said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
