For 40 years these documents lay in the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, many of them hidden, kept out of the reach of researchers and the general public. Now, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics, which is coming up next week, the State Archives revealed 45 records related to the event.

On the menu are protocols of a cabinet meeting, consultations held by ministers, and of sessions of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, as well as, various reports and telegram exchanges. Half of the material was never before published, and is now being made public for the first time. In the interest of those readers and researchers interested in these documents, we have chosen to focus on the hitherto unpublished material. The remaining records can be viewed in full on the State Archives website.

The archive and its employees deserve special praise for the initiative to reveal so many high quality, authentic, and classified documents. Their location, selection, categorization, and scanning, as well as, getting the okay to publish them from the different security organization, took both time and expertise.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

That said, certain partsof the documents, whose publication was not cleared, were redacted. In addition, an unknown number of records remain unpublished, probably on orders of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service. These orders can and should be questioned: Whose interest is being served by the suppression of information about an event that took place 40 years ago? What information about this event has not yet been revealed, and how can its publication today harm national security? These questions will have to wait for future revelations.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount