In one of the more ironic attempts to seek justice from the Israeli courts, a Palestinian leader who planned the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics is appealing to the Supreme Court for permission to gain entry to Israel, to try to escape extradition efforts by the German authorities.
A request for the arrest of Muhammad Daoud Ouda, also known as Abu Daoud, who in a recent autobiography admitted his role in planning the Munich hostage-taking, was issued earlier this month by the Munich state prosecutor. News of the request caused considerable embarrassment in Israel, which has allowed Mr Ouda to travel freely in and out of its territory, with VIP papers, since giving him permission to participate in a key conference of Palestinian leaders three years ago.
Since an effort to escape extradition could lead to an unpleasant confrontation with Germany, and a bid to implement it would likely cause tension with the Palestinian Authority, Israel yesterday sought a third alternative. Mr Ouda is currently in Jordan and had been expected to try to cross into the West Bank in the very near future, en route to his home in Ramallah. But Israel announced yesterday that he would not be allowed to cross the frontier.
Mr Ouda retorted by vowing to appeal that decision to the Israeli Supreme Court. And legal observers suggest he may have a strong case. After all, if it was deemed acceptable to allow him to enter Israel three years ago, why would it not be acceptable for him to enter now?
In interviews yesterday, Mr Ouda added that if people were going to start "raking up incidents from the past", some of Israel's current political leaders might find they had cases to answer.
It appears that Mr Ouda is the architect of his own difficulties, with the publication of his book stirring German prosecutors into action.
In a recent Qatar TV interview, he claimed that the objective of the hostage-taking, by the Palestinian Black September group, was "to bring about the release of 500 Palestinian prisoners" held by Israel. Mr Ouda is said by Israel to have been the mastermind behind the Munich operation, and possibly to have supplied those who carried it out with their weapons.
In his Qatar TV interview, he claimed that no orders were given to murder the athletes, and blamed their deaths on the German authorities. Two of the 11 who died had been killed when the Black September squad broke into the athletes sleeping quarters; the other nine died in the course of a botched German rescue mission.
Israeli schools yesterday began lessons with classroom debates on violence between children, in the wake of two murders that have shocked the nation.
In the past 10 days, two teenagers have been killed by fellow-youngsters, the first in upper Nazareth, in northern Israel, the second in a Jerusalem suburb. Most disturbing, in both cases, was the seeming indifference of the alleged murderers to the gravity of the crime.
The prime minister-elect, Mr Ehud Barak, is vowing to put a stop to the apparent increased tendency to violence among young Israelis, in part by allocating additional funding to the country's strained education system. Reuma Weizman, the wife of the country's president, meanwhile, is lead a task force to formulate recommendations for tackling the problem. The killings come amid a gradual rise in murders and other violent crimes in Israel over recent years.