Nationalism: History Repeats Itself

The film I felt did an excellent job of portraying this horrific scene during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. I can only speak for myself but I imagine most of us knew of the situation that occurred during these Olympics but after viewing the film I have much better understanding of the actual events. For example I did not know that nine of the hostages died at the airport. The ideas of Nationalism I see in this film concerning the nations Palestine, Israel, and Germany all further the ideas I had of them prior to watching this film with the exception of Germany. Germany in my mind from studying WWII was a forceful nation and a very racial and national prejudiced society. My opinion of them being a racial and national prejudiced society was upheld but as far as them being a powerful and forceful nation was not. They had security for the Olympic Games but they were all unarmed and they failed multiple times at trying to get the Israeli hostages out of the Palestinian’s hands. From the Palestinian standpoint they were fighting for their rights and their nation but took drastic matters into their owns hands to obtain it. Fighting still does occur between Palestinians and Israelis. This fighting comes from a long history of bad blood that really is a religious war between the two nations. Palestinians are upset with the land the Israelis own and believe it should be their own. Also countries such as the U.S. support this right that the Israelis are entitled to this land because of its ties to the Jewish faith. This was somewhat left out of the movie and for someone that as no idea that this tension exists in the world may be rather confused why Palestinian terrorists would just raid the Olympic games and hold these innocent Israelis hostage. This story makes me sick as do stories of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. History repeats itself and this type of thing happens far too often. Nationalism is an example of too much of a good thing can actually be a bad thing. Nationalism can be a negative when a group of people can be so proud of where and what they stand for and turn it in to a loss of lives at the expense of innocent people. To answer the question on whether sport and nationalism are intertwined in this event I would say no. Because this was a group of Palestinian terrorist that simply uses a glorified event like the Olympics which happens to be a worldwide event as leverage to let the world know they want justice.