Israel Matzav

#JustOneMinute Israeli Olympian's orphaned son: Why the IOC will never memorialize the Israeli athletes

Guri Weinberg, the son of murdered Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, on why the International Olympic Committee will never honor the 11 Israelis who were murdered at the Munich games 40 years ago.

In 1996, I, along with other Munich orphans and three of the widows, were invited for the first time to the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Before the Opening Ceremony, we met with Alex Gilady. Gilady has been a member of the IOC's Radio and Television Commission since 1984 and has been the senior vice president of NBC Sports since 1996.

I have known Mr. Gilady since I was a kid; in fact, I grew up with his daughter. He had been supportive in the past regarding our plea for a moment of silence during the Opening Ceremonies, so we arrived with high hopes. Gilady informed us that a moment of silence was not possible because if the IOC had a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes, they would also have to do the same for the Palestinians who died at the Olympics in 1972.

My mother said, "But no Palestinian athletes died."

Gilady responded, "Well, there were Palestinians who died at the 1972 Olympics."

I heard one of the widows say to Gilady, "Are you equating the murder of my husband to the terrorists that killed him?"

Silence.

Then Ilana Romano burst out with a cry that has haunted me to this day. She screamed at Gilady, "How DARE you! You KNOW what they did to my husband! They let him lay there for hours, dying slowly, and then finished him off by castrating him and shoving it in his mouth, ALEX!"

Read the whole thing. It's disgusting.

Alex Gilady, as you might recall, is an Israeli who led the Israeli media delegation at the 1972 Olympics. Avery Brundage, who was the IOC President who infamously said in 1972 'let the games go on,' was a Nazi. Weinberg adds

[Brundage's] protege, Juan Samaranch, eventually served the second longest IOC term as president, but his support of Nazis and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was kept a dirty secret.

That's right folks, the International Olympic Committee is full of Nazis.

What is Israel doing there at all? Maybe what we Israelis really ought to be doing is to call on our own government to stop showing up at the Olympic games every four years as if nothing happened.

Labels: London Olympics, Munich Olympic massacre, Nazis

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:41 AM