Israel Matzav: Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon blasts IOC refusal to honor murdered Israeli Olympians

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon blasts IOC refusal to honor murdered Israeli Olympians

40 years ago, at the Games of the 20th Olympiad in Munich, an Olympics that was supposed to 'make up' for Hitler's 1936 Olympics, 11 Israeli athletes were murdered. I grew up with this stuff, but I'm sure that many of you did not.

Let's go to the videotape.

Note that he calls them 'Arab terrorists.' There was no such thing as a 'Palestinian' in 1972.

Here's another video. Let's go to the videotape.

But the games went on, and for 40 years, Israel has attempted to convince the World that the athletes should at least be remembered with a moment of silence at the beginning of the Olympic games. That has never happened. And IOC President Jacques Rogge has said once again that it won't happen this year either, 40 years after Munich. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon blasted Rogge on Thursday.

Today (Thursday , May 17, 2012), Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon responded to the letter he received from International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge rejecting his request to hold a minute silence in memory of the members of the Israeli Olympic team murdered at the Munich
Olympics in 1972 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/munich.html
during the upcoming London Olympic Games.

“Unfortunately, this response is unacceptable as it rejects the central principles of global fraternity on which the Olympic ideal is supposed to rest,” Ayalon said. “The terrorist murders of the Israeli athletes were not just an attack on people because of their nationality and religion; it was an attack on the Olympic Games and the international community. Thus it is necessary for the Olympic Games as a whole to commemorate this event in the open rather than only in a side event.”

IOC President Rogge’s reply was in response to Ayalon’s letter, sent a few weeks ago, requesting the minute silence on behalf of representatives of the families, Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, the widows of two of the murdered athletes.

“This rejection told us as Israelis that this tragedy is yours alone and not a tragedy within the family of nations. This is a very disappointing approach and we hope that this decision will be overturned so the international community as one can remember, reflect and learn the appropriate lesson from this dark stain on Olympic history.”

Ayalon passed Rogge's response to the athletes families, including Spitzer and Romano who advocated for the minute silence. Ayalon told them that the Ministry will in the coming weeks launch a campaign that it is hoped will reverse the decision.

Maybe one of the reasons they don't want to hold a moment of silence is that the 'Palestinian' Olympic team is being sponsored by the same man who sponsored the Munich Olympic Massacre, Abu Mazen. They also may not want to remind anyone that the same Abu Mazen eulogized the massacre's mastermind.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Danny Ayalon, financiing terror, Munich Olympic massacre