Stephen Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich opens with a group of young athletes returning to the Olympic Village late at night. Rather than make the long walk to the entrance gate, the group — being athletes — decided to scale the chain-link fence surrounding the Village. Lingering nearby in the shadows were four men who did not look like Olympians. They joined the athletes in the climb, and the groups parted ways on the other side. The athletes turned out to be Canadians returning from the press building after having watched a game in the Canada-Russia hockey series. The others turned out to be members of the infamous squad of terrorists that would murder 11 athletes at the Munich Summer Games. On that evening – September 5th, 1972 – I was one of those naïve athletes who unwittingly brushed with evil.…. All of this helps explain why I was surprised, incensed and even pained to hear that the City of Ottawa’s public arts program is hosting Rehab Nazzal’s Invisible…. 

…I know I speak on behalf of all decent and peace-loving Canadians who abhor terror as a means to obtain political ends. For the citizens of Ottawa, this exhibit is a particular travesty since their tax dollars are being used to glorify the murder of innocent civilians. The mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, and his city councillors claim to be powerless to confront this despicable rebuke of Canadian values. They have cast themselves in the roles of defenders of freedom of speech, rather than as enablers of hate…. If honouring such murderers and terrorists is how the city of Ottawa wishes to express its attachment to the value of free speech then let me use my freedom of speech here to express my utter contempt.…