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Wael Zwaiter

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Abdel Wael Zwaiter (Arabic: وائل زعيتر; also known as Wa'el Zu'aytir;[1] 2 January 1934 – 16 October 1972) was a Palestinian writer and translator. He was assassinated as the first target of Israel's Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre. Israel considered Zwaiter a terrorist for his role in the Black September group,[2] while his supporters argued that he was "never conclusively linked" with Black September or the Munich massacre and was killed in retribution.[3][4] Today Zwaiter is regarded with a high degree of certainty as innocent.[5]

Biography

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Zwaiter was born in Nablus in 1934, the son of Adel Zu'aiter.[6][7] He went to Iraq and studied Arabic literature and philosophy at the University of Baghdad. Zwaiter moved then to Libya and afterwards to Rome, where he was a PLO representative and worked as a translator for the Libyan embassy. In addition to his native Arabic, Zwaiter spoke French, Italian, and English. During his time in Italy, Zwaiter was in the process of translating One Thousand and One Nights from Arabic into Italian, but according to Emily Jacir, he never completed this.

Zwaiter was held for questioning by Italian police in August 1972 in relation to a bombing by the group Black September against an oil refinery, but was later released. The Israeli Mossad suspected him of being the head of Black September in Rome, and put him on an assassination list after Black September's attack in Munich. When he returned to his apartment building on the night of 16 October 1972, he was killed by two Mossad agents who shot him 11 times in the lobby of the building – one bullet for each Israeli athlete killed.[8]

At the time, Zwaiter was the PLO representative in Italy, and while Israel privately claimed he was a member of Black September and was involved in a failed plot against an El Al airliner, members of the PLO have argued that he was in no way connected. Abu Iyad, deputy-chief of the PLO, stated that Zwaiter was "energetically" against political violence.[9] Zwaiter was living with his partner Janet Venn-Brown, an Australian artist, in Rome.[10] That year, Mossad also assassinated senior PLO diplomat to France Mahmoud Hamshari by planting a bomb in the phone at his Paris apartment, which detonated when he answered a call.

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) declared that it disapproved of the killing of Zwaiter.[11] A funeral ceremony was held for Zwaiter in Rome with the attendance of many people, including officials of the PCI.[11] He was buried in his hometown, Nablus.[12]

“Some of the Arabs we killed in that period, we didn’t know why we were killing them, and they also don’t know to this day why they died,” a Caesarea officer said. “Zwaiter had nothing to do with the killing of the athletes, except, perhaps, that their plane flew over Rome on the way to Munich.” A top Mossad official who looked at the Zwaiter file years too late admitted that “it was a terrible mistake.” Indeed, Palestinians have long insisted that Zwaiter was a peaceable intellectual who abhorred violence. (Granted, similar claims have been made about nearly every other Bayonet target from that period.)[13]

Portrayal in film

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  • Wael Zwaiter is portrayed by actor Makram Khoury in Steven Spielberg's Munich.
  • "Material for a film": Retracing Wael Zuaiter (Part 1)], installation in the 2007 La Biennale di Venezia by Emily Jacir.[14]
  • Emily Jacir: "Material for a film": A performance (Part 2)], 16 July 2007, The Electronic Intifada[15]
    • Najwan Darwis: Emily Jacir’s Material for a Film: Ongoing homage and artistic revenge for Wa’el Zuaiter.[16]

References

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  1. ^ Khalidi, Rashid. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Kindle edition. Profile Books, 2020.
  2. ^ Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber. (2005). Massacre in Munich. The Lyons Press. p. 146
  3. ^ Johnson, Ken. "Material for a Palestinian’s Life and Death". New York Times. 12 February 2009.
  4. ^ Simon, Bob. "An Eye for an Eye". CBS News. 21 November 2001
  5. ^ Stéphanie Duncan (2022): Espions, une histoire vraie. Paris, France Inter/Éditions Tallandier. ISBN 979-1-02105452-3. Chapter: Mike Harari pp. 30–39; p. 32
  6. ^ "Palenstinian Personalities". Archived 21 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine Passia.org.
  7. ^ "Historical Events". Archived 4 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine Passia.org.
  8. ^ James Bruce Phillips (1987). Administrative revenge (PhD thesis). University of North Carolina at Greensboro. p. 38. ISBN 979-8-206-39314-9. ProQuest 303585950.
  9. ^ Nasr, Kameel B. Arab and Israeli Terrorism: The Causes and Effects of Political Violence, 1936–1993. McFarland & Company, 1996. ISBN 0-7864-0280-6 p. 68
  10. ^ Sarah Irving (24 September 2011). "Murdered for being Palestinian; Wael Zuaiter remembered 40 years on". The Electronic Intifada. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  11. ^ a b Martino, Claudia De (2015). "Israel and the Italian Communist Party (1948–2015): From fondness to enmity". Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 48 (4): 285. doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2015.07.004. JSTOR 48610416.
  12. ^ "Fotografie di Zuaiter e dei familiari". Lazio 900 (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  13. ^ Ronen Bergman: Rise and Kill First – The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33598223-rise-and-kill-first
  14. ^ ""Material for a film": Retracing Wael Zuaiter (Part 1)". The Electronic Intifada. 9 July 2007. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  15. ^ ""Material for a film": A performance (Part 2)". The Electronic Intifada. 8 July 2007. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  16. ^ Najwan Darwish (January 2008). "Emily Jacir's Material for a Film: Ongoing homage and artistic revenge for Wa'el Zuaiter". This Week in Palestine. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013.

Further reading

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  • Klein, Aaron J. Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response. New York: Random House, Inc., 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6427-9
  • Janet Venn-Brown (ed.) (English): For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter, 1984. ISBN 0-7103-0039-5
  • Khalidi, Walid (1984): Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948. Institute for Palestine Studies. (Has picture of Wael Zuaiter as a child with his father and brother, see also here (scroll down the page). ISBN 0-88728-144-3
  • Nico Perrone: In memoria di Wael e di Nablus, in il manifesto (daily), Rome, September 9, 1993.
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