WASHINGTON — Families of terrorist victims are pressuring American booksellers not to sell a controversial volume written by the mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
The issue has touched off debate between the retailers, who cite their First Amendment right to publish the book, and the families, who believe an accused criminal should not be given the chance to make money off his story.
Abu Daoud, also known as Mohammed Oudeh, admits in “Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich” that he planned the hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics, which led to the murder of 11 Israeli athletes.
One of those killed was David Berger, a dual American-Israeli citizen from Cleveland who was a member of the Israeli Olympic weightlifting team.
Germany has issued a warrant for Abu Daoud’s arrest. In June, Israel barred him from entering the West Bank, where he had been living for the past three years. Abu Daoud had been in Jordan, but his current whereabouts are unknown.
The book was published earlier this year in France and had been slated for release here this summer by Arcade Publishing, though a publication date has not been officially set.
Following word of plans to release the book in the United States, the families of Americans killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks protested to the publisher and the nation’s leading book retailers.
The Zionist Organization of America and former Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, who now serves as chairman of the Consumer Federation of America, also raised objections.
In a letter sent to the heads of Borders Group, Barnes & Noble, amazon.com and Crown Books Corp., Metzenbaum, who had been a close friend of Berger, wrote the fact that Abu Daoud is walking free “is very painful to me.”
“The idea that the terrorist stands to profit from the sale of a book in which he boasts about his role in the murder is all the more painful,” he wrote.
Stephen Flatow, whose daughter, Alisa, was killed in a 1995 suicide bombing attack in Israel, wrote a letter to Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of barnesandnoble.com.
“Having myself experienced the tragic loss of a child to terrorists,” Flatow wrote, “I can well imagine the pain it will cause Dr. and Mrs. Berger to go to your Web site and see that you are selling a book in which the killer of their son boasts of the murder.”
New York-based Arcade Publishing said it would look into the matter but a representative did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Borders Group spokeswoman Ann Binkley said, however, she was told by the publisher that no publication date has been set, adding, “They don’t know when — if ever — it will come out.”
If the book is published, she said, Borders would carry “a limited number of copies” in some stores.
Refusing to sell the book would be “censorship,” she said. “One of our policies has always been that we respect our customers as intelligent individuals and we give them the right to choose what they buy, what they listen to and what they read.”
Lizzie Allen, a spokeswoman for amazon.com, said the book presents a “tough issue” but “basically our policy and our commitment is to the First Amendment and free speech, and we will carry any book that is published as long as it is not illegal or banned.”
At the same time, she said, “We will never promote a book like that and that book will be very difficult to find.”
Barnes & Noble did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Those who have raised objections to the potential sale of Abu Daoud’s book stress that the issue should not be considered a matter of free speech.
“I am not questioning your legal right to carry Abu Daoud’s book,” Metzenbaum wrote in his letter, noting that state laws prohibiting killers from profiting from books or movies about their crimes do not necessarily apply to crimes committed overseas.
“But surely the spirit of such laws mandates that you refrain from selling such a book, and I appeal to your sense of moral judgment,” he wrote.