But the 69-year-old former guerrilla leader is as militant as ever: In an interview with The Associated Press, he recounts how PLO leaders -- angry that the Palestinians were denied an Olympic slot -- dreamed up the attack while sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Rome.
And he shows no regret.
Discussing the Palestinians' struggle for a homeland and rejecting the use of the word ''terrorist'' to describe its fighters, he said of the Munich days: ''There was nothing we weren't prepared to do to keep the Palestinian cause in the public eye.''
''Before Munich, we were simply terrorists. After Munich, at least people started asking who are these terrorists? What do they want? Before Munich, nobody had the slightest idea about Palestine,'' he said.
He insists Israel must make concessions if it ever wants peace.
''Today, I cannot fight you anymore, but my grandson will and his grandsons, too,'' Abu Daoud said, addressing Israelis.
Director Steven Spielberg's movie ''Munich'' has revived discussions of the Sept. 5, 1972, hostage-taking that shocked the world. Abu Daoud, who did not participate in the attack itself, has not seen the film, but has read about it and hopes someday to see it on DVD.
The movie focuses on the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency's actions to hunt down and kill those it believed responsible for the assault on the Munich Olympic village by members of Abu Daoud's ''Black September'' group. The group was a violent offshoot of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah faction, and staged attacks on Israelis in Europe in the 1970s.
Two Israeli athletes were killed in the assault, and nine others died in a botched rescue attempt by the German police. A German policeman and five Palestinian gunmen also were killed.
Abu Daoud first acknowledged having a role in the Munich operation in a 1999 book, ''Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich,'' that caused an uproar when it came out.
After the 1972 attack, he lived in eastern Europe and then in Lebanon until civil war broke out in 1975. He went to Jordan, and from there to Ramallah in the West Bank in 1993 after the Palestinians' Oslo peace accords with Israel.
But when Abu Daoud's book came out in 1999, he was banned from returning to Ramallah after a trip to Jordan, and finally settled in Syria -- the only country that would take him.
He agreed to be interviewed by the AP at a Damascus hospital where he said he was having a checkup.
Talking about the 1972 attack, Abu Daoud recalled sitting at a cafe in Rome with fellow PLO guerrilla leader Abu Iyad and his assistant, Mohammed al-Omari, when they read in a newspaper that the International Olympics Committee had refused the PLO's request to send a Palestinian delegation to the Munich Olympics.
Morale was already sagging after the PLO's humiliating retreat from Jordan, where the late King Hussein had crushed Palestinian guerrillas.
''I remember Abu Iyad looked at me and said: 'Let's participate in the Olympics in our own way. Let's kidnap (Israeli) hostages and swap them for prisoners in Israel,''' Abu Daoud said.
Abu Daoud said he immediately took to the idea, and was given the task of doing the operation's groundwork. After several reconnaissance missions to Munich, it was agreed that eight masked gunmen would storm the Israeli athletes' dormitory and take them hostage.
He said that 10 days before the attack, he went to Munich again and took from Abu Iyad weapons, mainly Kalashnikov assault rifles, that had been smuggled in.
On the night of the attack, Abu Daoud said he took the eight attackers to dinner in a restaurant at the Munich train station, then the group got taxis for the Olympic Village. They carried their weapons in sports bags.
The plan was to cut through the fence and break in. But when the group arrived, the eight attackers were able to mingle with drunken American athletes who were climbing over a fence, Abu Daoud said. Inside the dormitory, the gunmen put on masks and began their assault. Abu Daoud, who had stayed at the fence, slipped away.
He said he had no qualms about the operation because he considered the Israeli athletes, as military reservists, legitimate targets. But he said the intent was not to kill the Israelis but to use them as bargaining chips to free more than 200 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
''We had strict orders not to kill anyone except in self defense,'' he said.
Things did not go as planned. Two athletes resisted the gunmen and were fatally shot, and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to negotiate. By the time the standoff ended 21 hours later in the German rescue attempt, 17 people were dead.
Still, the Palestinians considered it a victory.
''Through Munich, we were able to force our cause into the homes of 500 million people,'' Abu Daoud said.
Abu Daoud himself almost died in what he believes was a Mossad attack. In 1981, as he sat in a hotel cafe in Warsaw, Poland, a gunman fired on him, hitting Abu Daoud in his left wrist, chest, stomach and jaw.
''It was a Palestinian double agent, recruited by the Mossad. ... He was arrested 10 years later, put on trial (by the PLO) and executed,'' Abu Daoud said. It was not possible to verify his account.
Abu Daoud watches Palestinian events closely, including the election victory by the militant group Hamas.
He said he is opposed ''in principle'' to suicide bombings.
''But then I remind myself that the Palestinians have nothing else to fight with. We have absolutely nothing while our enemy is armed to the teeth. How can you face such an enemy with all its might, if you don't use unconventional and illogical means?'' he said.
''In Fatah, we were a bit lenient and ready to give a little. The Israelis didn't want to give anything in return. Now they have Hamas. If they (Israelis) don't give them something, someone even harsher than Hamas will emerge,'' Abu Daoud said.
''This is the logic of history.''
