In 1936, the Olympics were held in Nazi Germany, to Hitler's delight, until Jesse Owens, a black man, walked away with four gold medals.
In 1972, when 'Palestinian' terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes in Munich, while the hostage drama was being played out and thereafter, IOC Chairman Avery Brundage famously insisted that 'the games must go on.' It took 40 years afterward for the 11 murdered Israelis to even be memorialized at the Games, and even that was in a side ceremony and not at the main stadium. For more than 40 years, the IOC has gone out of its way to cover up what actually happened on September 6, 1972. On Wednesday, there was finally a proper memorial ceremony for the Munich 11 - 44 years later - albeit not at the opening ceremony where it would have been watched by a huge worldwide audience.
What happened on Friday pales by comparison, but nevertheless shows that the 'Olympic spirit' is as big a fraud as ever. The Lebanese Olympic team prevented members of the Israeli Olympic team from boarding a bus at the Olympic village, because... well they're Israelis. And it goes without saying that there were no consequences to the Lebanese team.
“I kept on insisting that we board the bus and
said that if the Lebanese did not want to board as well they are
welcome to leave,” Udi Gal, the Israeli sailing team trainer, wrote in a
Facebook post Friday.
“The bus driver opened the door, but this time
the head of the Lebanese delegation blocked the aisle and entrance. The
organizers wanted to avoid an international and physical incident and
sent us away to a different bus.”
So far, no official response on behalf of the
delegations was given regarding the incident. The Olympic organizing
committee has not yet offered any statement about the incident either.
Back home, the head of the Lebanese delegation is being hailed as a hero.
Saleem a-Haj Nacoula told Lebanese media that
the Israelis were “looking for trouble” as they insisted on boarding the
same bus when they had their own assigned transportation.
“There were more than 250 buses assigned to
transport delegations from the Olympics village to the ceremony. After
we boarded bus number 22, for the Lebanese delegation, I was surprised
to see the Israeli delegation approaching and trying to get on,” Nacoula
said.
“I told the bus driver to close the door but a
trainer who was with the Israelis prevented him from doing so. I had to
physically stand at the door and block him and the rest of the
delegation from boarding, knowing that some were trying to force their
way through and were looking for trouble,” he went on.
Nacoula alleged that the Israeli had their own
bus to take them. “Why did they want to board a bus with the Lebanese
delegation?”
“I stood at the door and told those responsible that we would not let them on the bus with us,” he said.
Members of the Israeli delegation were taken to the opening ceremony on other buses arranged through Olympics organizers.
Back home, Nacoula was praised in the press and on social media as a hero.
Maybe the reason the Israelis were looking to board the bus was that there were too many of them to fit on one bus.
For the 2016 Olympic Games, which officially opened on Friday, Israel
proudly showed off its largest delegation ever, with 47 athletes
competing in 17 categories. Israel’s delegation also includes 34 coaches
and about 25 support staff.
The Lebanese delegation consists of 9 athletes, and probably far fewer coaches and support staff than the Israelis have. The Lebanese did not need their own bus. This was nothing but pettiness (and worse). But it will go unpunished. Because the 'Olympic spirit' is a fraud.
Islam is a sick religion: When Muslims make war it's all about torturing and castrating their enemies
My friend Professor Jacobson cites a New York Times report that purports to reveal to the world that the eleven Israeli athletes and coaches who were murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972 were tortured, and in at least one case, castrated.
In September 1992, two Israeli widows went to the home of
their lawyer. When the women arrived, the lawyer told them that he had
received some photographs during his recent trip to Munich but that he
did not think they should view them. When they insisted, he urged them
to let him call a doctor who could be present when they did.
Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, whose husbands were among the Israeli
athletes held hostage and killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972
Olympics in Munich, rejected that request, too. They looked at the
pictures that for decades they had been told did not exist, and then
agreed never to discuss them publicly….
For the first time, Ms. Romano, Ms. Spitzer and other victims’ family
members are choosing to speak openly about documentation previously
unknown to the public in an effort to get their loved ones the
recognition they believe is deserved.
Among the most jarring details are these: The Israeli Olympic team members were beaten and, in at least one case, castrated.
“What they did is that they cut off his genitals through his
underwear and abused him,” Ms. Romano said of her husband, Yossef. Her
voice rose.
“Can you imagine the nine others sitting around tied up?” she
continued, speaking in Hebrew through a translator. “They watched this.”
In fact, readers of this blog might recall that Ilana Romano has revealed even more gruesome details on a previous occasion.
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!"
This sort of behavior is unfortunately routine in the Muslim world, whether or not Jews are involved. This is from a description of the terror attack at a mall in Nairobi, Kenya in 2013:
The images of the Westgate mall terror attack in Nairobi, Kenya, are simply horrific.
Soldiers told of the horrific torture meted out by terrorists in the
Nairobi mall massacre yesterday with claims hostages were dismembered,
had their eyes gouged out and were left hanging from hooks in the
ceiling.
Men were said to have been castrated and had fingers removed with pliers before being blinded and hanged.
Children were found dead in the food court fridges with knives still embedded in their bodies, it was claimed.
...
Yesterday, soldiers and doctors who were among the first people into the
mall after it was reclaimed on Tuesday, spoke of the horrifying scenes
inside.
‘You find people with hooks hanging from the roof,’ said one Kenyan doctor, who asked not to be named.
‘They removed eyes, ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a
pencil then they tell you to write your name with the blood.
‘They drive knives inside a child’s body.
'Actually if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were
escaping, fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers.
Here it was pain.’
A soldier, who took pictures at a bread counter and at the ArtCaffe,
said he was so traumatised by what he saw he has had to seek
counselling.
Bomb disposal experts with sniffer dogs were yesterday painstakingly
combing the part of the building still standing for explosives before
clearing forensic officers, police and troops to search for bodies.
Just last week, Palestinian Media Watch showed a terrorist from the 'moderate' Fatah terror group eating a live snake on television.
Islam is a sick religion. It teaches its adherents extreme cruelty to all who are not a part of it. The world would be a better place without it.
Torah Bright is an Australian snowboarder who wanted to wear a sticker on her helmet honoring Sarah Burke, her friend who was killed in an accident two years ago. The International Olympic Committee said no, as you can see from Bright's posting above.
But the International Olympic Committee denied Bright's request based on
the strict bylaws related to equipment in the Olympic charter
prohibiting any "form of publicity or propaganda, commercial or
otherwise" except for the name of the manufacturer.
On Feb. 7, Bright posted the following on Facebook and Instagram: "I
ride with a Sarah sticker on my snowboard and helmet always. The IOC
however, consider Sarah stickers "a political statement" and have banned
them. WOW. Sarah is a beautiful, talented, powerful women, who's spirit
inspires me still. She is a big reason why skier pipe/slope are now
Olympic events."
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the organization
has "huge sympathy" for friends of athletes who died performing their
craft but that the organization doesn't consider it appropriate to
acknowledge it within the competition.
"Absolutely we want to help
the athletes to remember her in some way, so there's all sorts of
things we can do," Adams said. "For example, we can help them if they
want to have a press conference in various places we can organize
something individually or collectively. We really feel that and think
she's an important person to be remembered.
"From our side we'd
say the competitions themselves, which are a place of celebration, are
not the right place in our opinion to really do that and we kind of like
to keep that separate but we absolutely will support any kind of
remembrance the athletes want to do."
Of course. Commercialization (by having brand names on your equipment), yes. 'Politics' (since when is an athlete killed in a skiing accident 'politics'?), no.
Oh wait. Of course. It's not hard to figure out why the IOC said no to Torah Bright (aside from her name). If they allowed her to commemorate Burke, someone might want to commemorate those pesky 11 Israelis who were murdered at the 1972 Munich games....
Murdered Israeli athletes remembered... but not by the IOC
In a ceremony by Russian Jewry and the Israeli Olympic team, the members of the 1972 Olympic team who were murdered in Munich were remembered in Sochi. Unfortunately, once again, the International Olympic Committee was not there.
Chief Russian Rabbi Berel Lazar said the memorial was meant to connect and embolden the Jewish diaspora.
"So
when you think of the history of Israeli athletes going to different
Olympics, mentioning the Munich '72 massacre, is...always tell us you
know being Jewish sometimes is not as comfortable as you would like it
to be. But it really depends on us to move forward, not be ashamed and
then the people around us are going to understand that we are here to
stay and we are open about it," Lazar said.
Andrea Davidovich, a US-born Israeli figure skater, said she felt close to the 1972 athletes.
"I
feel like we are representing them and what they couldn't achieve
because of people who are against us, and we have to all be together the
way were were greeted today and stand behind each other, because we're
Jewish and we are all a part of this community and have to support each
other," Davidovich said.
Widows of two of the athletes who were
killed have long campaigned for the 1972 victims to be remembered at
Olympic opening ceremonies.
...
An International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesman said the IOC
remembered the victims in other official ways - with services and by the
statues in Munich commemorating the tragedy.
It figures: New International Olympic Committee chief heads group that helps comply with Arab boycott of Israel
Given the Nazi history of the International Olympic Committee, no one should be surprised that the Committee's new chairman also chairs a German-based organization that helps companies to guarantee that their products do not contain anything from Israel. Note: Not 'just' from the 'territories,' which would be noxious enough, but from Israel.
Thomas Bach, a German who was elected Tuesday at an IOC session in
Buenos Aires, is chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce
and Industry, which was set up in the 1970s by Arab countries to
boycott trade with Israel.
“It betrays the principles of sportsmanship and fair play for the IOC
to be headed by someone who actively participates in ongoing Israel
boycott campaign measures,” said Deidre Berger, director of the American
Jewish Committee Berlin Ramer Institute.
Ghorfa helps German
companies ensure that products meet the import requirements of Arab
governments, some of which ban products and services from Israel.
The
group continues to issue certificates of German origin for trade with
Arab countries. Its earlier practice of certificates verifying that no
product parts were produced in Israel stopped in the early 1990s when
Germany enacted trade regulations forbidding the use of certificates of
origin to enable de facto trade boycotts, according to the AJC.
Part of the problem is that we Jews are too polite to call someone an anti-Semite. Recall, for example, Alex Giladi.
Bach’s candidacy came under criticism in Germany in past weeks for its
strong support by Arab leaders. But Charlotte Knobloch, president of the
Jewish Community of Bavaria and former head of the Central Council of
Jews in Germany, said in a statement that Bach “stands for central
values such as tolerance, fairness — sportsmanship in the best sense of
the word — and cosmopolitanism.”
Six years ago I wrote a letter to then-President Bush in which I attempted to show why Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is not a 'moderate.'
Abu Mazen is not a man of peace. He is an anti-Semite and at least an accessory to murder. Abu Mazen is a Holocaust denier.
He wrote his doctoral thesis in 1982 at the Moscow Institute for
Oriental Studies. The heading of his doctoral thesis was: "Zionist
leadership and the Nazis." The introduction dealt, among other topics,
with a loaded issue: How many Jews perished in the Holocaust. In the
Soviet period, especially in the anti-Israel institute that Abu Mazen
attended, they often dealt with such questions. The Soviet Union, more
than any other country, was addicted to Holocaust denial. The victims
were not recognized by their origin, but rather by their nationality.
And this is what the diligent researcher Abu Mazen wrote:
World
War Two caused the death of 40 million people from different parts of
the world. Ten million Germans, 20 million Soviets, and more…Rumors at
the end of the war said that 6 million of the world's Jews were among
the victims in the war of extermination that was waged against the
Jewish people and later on against other peoples. The fact is that no
one can confirm this number or deny it. The number could be 6 million,
but it could be much smaller, perhaps even smaller than one million.
"Many researchers who discussed the number reached the unconventional
conclusion that it is no more than several hundred thousand," he wrote.
Later on, Abu Mazen quotes a Holocaust denier who claimed that "at first
the Zionists spoke about 12 million Jews who were killed in the death
camps. They later narrowed the number down to 6 and to 4 million. It is
not possible that the Germans murdered more Jews than existed in the
world at the time." He quotes another Holocaust denier who counted
896,000 Jewish victims in all. Abu Mazen has consistently refused to
distance himself from his thesis.
Mr. President, you are a few years older than I am, but we are from the
same generation. I am sure that you remember as vividly as I do watching
eleven Israeli athletes being held hostage at the Munich Olympic games
in 1972 and their eventual murder by their 'Palestinian' kidnappers. But
perhaps you never knew that Abu Mazen, whom you now call a 'man of
peace' financed that terror attack
and has never expressed any remorse for it. In case you have forgotten,
I am enclosing a picture of one of the terrorists on the balcony
outside the room in the Olympic village where the Israeli athletes were
held. I'm sure you recognize it. It was taken from ABC television's live
coverage of the 'event.'
I know that when you ask Secretary Rice about Abu Mazen's thesis and the Munich Olympics, she's going to tell you that's all ancient history and that you should ask Scowcroft about it. But I'd like to show you a few statements that Abu Mazen has made in the last few months that ought to convince you that he is not a man of peace and should not be invited to any peace conferences.
Matters like Abu Mazen's anti-Semitism are things that Israel's chattering classes prefer to ignore, so they are not often discussed in Israel's media. But on Tuesday, in a rare display of honesty, they were discussed in the Knesset, and the media had little choice but to report on it.
Jerusalem and Diaspora Minister Naftali Bennett, who is responsible for
the government's efforts to battle anti-Semitism, attended a conference
of a Knesset caucus on the issue, led by MK Shimon Ohayon (Likud
Beytenu), and pointed out that Abbas denied the Holocaust.
"The President of the Palestinian Authority said he doesn't want to see
any Israelis on his land. Bad things happen when good people are silent.
Good people need to act," he stated.
...
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avigdor Liberman
(Likud Beytenu) said he keeps a copy of Abbas' book, which purports to
connect Zionism and Nazism and has a Star of David and a swastika on its
cover, in his office.
"I don't know why, now that we're all so excited about the peace
process, no one remembered to mention it. Abbas never took his words
back or apologized," Liberman stated.
As if an apology would undo all the damage Abu Mazen has done....
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said he read Abbas' dissertation
from the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, and explained that it
claims Zionism and Nazism worked together because both wanted to remove
all Jews from Europe.
"To this day, people ask me if I think anti-Semitism is a good thing,
because it brings people to Israel. What ignorance and lies!" Sharansky
said.
"Anti-Semitism is enemy number one of Zionism," he added. "For every one
person who makes aliya because of anti-Semitism, 10 assimilate.
Anti-Semitism and delegitimization of Israel lead Jews to distance
themselves from Judaism and Israel."
Sharansky said anti-Semitism "is reaching new heights" and that the Knesset must put it on its agenda.
And the Knesset can start putting it on the agenda by being honest and calling Abu Mazen what he is: An anti-Semite.
The basic grand strategy for the Middle East should be to form and lead a very broad and very loose — not institutionalized — alignment of forces opposing Islamism. This means showing real leadership to the Europeans; in fact, many European countries are better on this issue than Obama. It also means supporting Israel, of course, but there is a long list of others: Governments: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain (despite its faults), Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya (we hope Obama can claim credit for that one), Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia (despite its faults), and the United Arab Emirates. You can add some other former Soviet Muslim-majority republics. Opposition and democratic moderate movements: Iran, Lebanon, Syria (where the United States is supporting the Islamists!), Tunisia, and Turkey (see Syria, above). Let’s also keep in mind the Berbers, Christians, and Kurds in general as communities that overwhelmingly link their survival to fighting revolutionary Islamism. Such ethnic communities can also be found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This cooperation to defeat radical Islamism, however it disguises itself, should be the backbone of U.S. policy. It can be implemented in a thousand different ways. Post-victory planning, which better start soon (at least among independent analysts), needs to define these.
There's a lot more to the article, but this is its central theme and the way in which Prof Rubin hopes that a President Romney would differ from President Obama. Jackson Diehl lays out the differences between Obama's and Romney's foreign policies. Regarding the Middle East he writes:
In Syria, Obama has repeatedly rejected proposals that the United States help establish safe zones for civilians or supply weapons to the rebels. But Romney has come out for arming the opposition. And what of Iran? Both men have indicated they would use force as a last resort to stop Tehran’s nuclear program. But there is a significant difference: While Obama has said he has “a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Romney said in Israel this summer that he would not tolerate an Iranian nuclear “capability.” In other words, Obama probably would use force only if Iran actually tried to build a bomb, while a Romney attack could be triggered if Iran were merely close to acquiring all the means for a weapon — which it is. Last but not least comes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama came to office with a burning ambition to broker Palestinian statehood; that and the reduction of nuclear arms seem to be the foreign policy issues that engage him emotionally. The statehood push was one of the administration’s biggest busts, largely because of Obama’s own missteps, and during the election year it has been on hold. Yet it seems likely that a reelected Obama will try again, notwithstanding his poor relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Romney, in contrast, has made it clear that he, like George W. Bush in his first term, will put Palestinian statehood on a back burner.
2) Those who don't learn from history are doomed to write bad op-eds - Part 2 There have been a couple more retorts to the appalling op-ed, When it pays to talk to terrorists that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. Jonathan Tobin writes:
Thus, the principle prop of Chamberlin’s thesis that “failing to strengthen moderates within the P.L.O. and effectively locking the Palestinians out of the Arab-Israeli peace process, American officials sidelined potential peacemakers,” is not merely incorrect. It is a blatant falsehood. If the use of Black September as a false front for Fatah seems familiar it is because it was not the last time Arafat tried that game. During the second intifada when his Hamas rivals were being seen by Palestinians as having more success at carrying out terrorist operations, the Palestinian Authority chief authorized the formation of new Fatah groups that could compete with the Islamists for the honor of killing the most Jews. The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade was initially presented, like Black September, as a Fatah splinter not under Arafat’s control. But the world soon learned that not only had Arafat authorized it, but he was actually paying for the group’s activities with funds contributed by European donors to the PA. Indeed, all we have to do is look at Arafat’s record after Israel not only started talking to him but empowered the terrorist chieftain by handing the West Bank and Gaza over to Fatah via the 1993 Oslo Accords. Rather than seeking to bolster peace, he continued a policy of funding violence throughout the 1990s, a stance that culminated in his launching of a terrorist war of attrition known as the second intifada after he refused Israeli offers of an independent state including most of the West Bank, all of Gaza and a share of Jerusalem in 2000 and 2001.
You would think that the author, Paul Thomas Chamberlin, an assistant professor of history would know a little history.
The New York Jewish Week applies similar logic, but its conclusion is well worth emphasizing:
Surely The Times could have found a more worthy essay to publish on the 40th anniversary of the Olympic killings than a critique of those who sought to defeat the terrorists.
The Washington Post and the New York Times owned Boston Globe both featured editorials advocating for the moment of silence at the Olympics in memory of the Israeli athletes killed in 1972. According to my memory and research, the New York Times featured no comparable editorial or op-ed. So the only editorial acknowledgment at the New York Times of the Munich massacre, is Professor Chamberlin's disgraceful essay arguing that the massacre was a sign that it was necessary to talk to terrorists. By publishing the essay the New York Times showed its disregard for the eleven Israeli athletes and all victims of terror since.
Germany cooperated with the PLO terror organization after the latter murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Their excuse was fear of further terror attacks.
In its Sunday issue, Spiegel reported that the talks were initiated at the behest of the West German government, located at the time in Bonn, for fear that Black September would commit additional acts of terror on German soil.
According to the report, just several months after the murders, the government proposed a secret meeting between a Black September official and then-German foreign minister Walter Scheel, the aim of the which was to create a "new basis of trust."
Germany’s government demanded a quid pro quo: the PLO would cease terror attacks on German soil in exchange for a political upgrade of the PLO. In addition, the German government would pull the plug on any criminal charges for the murders in Munich.
...
The magazine reported that when the French police arrested Oudeh Abu Daoud, one of the main organizers of the Munich killing spree, and inquired about extraditing him to the German authorities, the Bavarian justice secretary Alfred Seidl (Christian Social Union party) recommended that Germany take no action. The French released Abu Daoud, and Syria’s Assad regime protected him until his death at a Damascus hospital in 2010.
For every Olympics since 1976, Spitzer has asked the IOC for a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies to honor the murdered Israelis. For every Olympics since 1976, she has been rebuffed. She says that the IOC's explanations have varied over the years, but none have been satisfactory. She says that she was once told that such a moment of silence wasn't in the Olympic protocol. Yet there have been acknowledgements of atrocities ranging from the Bosnian conflict to 9/11; as recently as the Vancouver Olympics, there was a moment of silence to honor the Georgian luger who died before the Games in a training run. Spitzer says she was told the moment of silence could spur a boycott among Arab countries. "If they don't understand the Olympic spirit, they should stay home," she says flatly. Similarly, Spitzer has also been told that such a moment of silence would politicize the Games. "Fine," she responded. "Just say they were Olympic athletes, part of the Olympic family." (Officials did stage a moment of silence for those 'who are not with us' during the opening ceremony.) In the spring, she met with IOC President Jacques Rogge -- who, ironically, had competed as a yachtsman in the Munich Olympics -- but again was told no. "The lame excuses have culminated," she says. "I hate to conclude this but [rejection of the moment of silence] is because they were from the wrong country and had the wrong religion."
The article illustrates the hatred expressed by the Muslim world for Israel. While it gives some space to the political cover used, it is sympathetic to Spitzer's effort.
Another woman said that she'd have observed the moment of silence. In this case it's gold medal winning gymnast Aly Raisman. Responding to why she used "Hava Nagila" as music for her floor exercise, Raisman explained: (via memeorandum):
“But the fact it was on the 40th anniversary is special, and winning the gold today means a lot to me.” Then Raisman stuck the landing. “If there had been a moment’s silence,” the 18-year-old woman told the world, “I would have supported it and respected it.”
Though it's probably better known for its annual swimsuit issue, Sports Illustrated occasionally features some investigative reporting. Ten years, one of this writers interview the mastermind of the Munich massacre, Abu Daoud. The interview included this:
Though he didn't know what the money was being spent for, longtime Fatah official Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen could not be reached for comment regarding Abu Daoud's allegation. After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it." Today the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
I don't know if there's any other source confirming this.
While I knew of Avery Brundage and I now know of Jacques Rogge, Peter Martino gives the history of another Olympic official who made excuses for hatred of Jews.
Meanwhile, Joods Actueel, a Jewish monthly magazine in Antwerp, Belgium, published details of the shameful anti-Semitic past of the International Olympic Committee and its former president, Count Henri de Baillet-Latour – like Rogge, a Belgian aristocrat. Baillet-Latour was IOC president from 1925 until his death in 1942. Joods Actueel delved into the Count's past. Journalists Geert Versyck and Guido Joris discovered that the Count and his wife were Nazi sympathizers. To keep this truth hidden, the IOC is trying to rewrite its own history, presenting Baillet-Latour as a critic of the Nazis rather than a supporter. Baillet-Latour was IOC President in 1931, when the decision was made to hold the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. In 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany, the Nazis began to turn the Games into a propaganda tool to demonstrate to the world the superiority of the Aryan race. In 1933, Jews were barred from civil service in Germany and Jewish athletes were excluded from sports clubs. Even Gretel Bergmann, the high-jumper who held the German record, was banned -- because she was a Jew -- from participating in the Olympics.
2) We wouldn't want to make the same mistake again
David Ignatius in a column, The Myth of the Mad Mullahs, celebrating the 2007 NIE that concluded that Iran had stopped working towards producing a nuclear weapon, wrote:
The debate about what the NIE should mean for U.S. policy toward Iran is just beginning. But for the intelligence community, this rebuttal of conventional wisdom will restore some integrity after the Iraq WMD debacle. In challenging the previous certitudes about Iran and the Bomb, the NIE recalls the admonition many decades ago by the godfather of CIA analysts, Sherman Kent: "When the evidence seems to force a single and immediate conclusion, then that is the time to worry about one's bigotry, and to do a little conscientious introspection."
Challah Hu Akbar quotes from Ha'aretz that “recently received a new National Intelligence Estimate report on the Iranian nuclear program, which shares Israel's view that Iran has made surprising, significant progress toward military nuclear capability.”
Wouild Ignatius say that failing to assess an enemy's capabilities correctly would constitute a debacle?
By any measure, I am not a Jew. I was not born to a Jewish woman. I was not raised nor educated as a Jew; therefore I do not, as Adam Garfinkle might argue, see the world through the eyes of a Jew, evincing Jewish moral sensibilities or exhibiting any sign of Jewish historical memory. But I do have the power of recall, and I do, as a non-Jew, recognize vicious anti-Semitism when I see it. The Iranian government is as anti-Semitic as the Third Reich. Listen to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and you hear strains of Adolf Hitler.
I do not know where King stands regarding Israel. But this is a remarkable essay that makes no excuses for Iranian hatred of Jews. It is a far cry from what we'd see in the opinion pages of the New York Times where Roger Cohen excused the tyranny of the Iranian regime and editorials portray Israel as a complication to American effort to counter Iran.
I'm sure that many of you recall Aly Raisman, the young American woman who did a floor exercise to the tune of Hava Nagila. Raisman won two gold medals at the Olympics, and afterward said that she would have stood behind a moment of silence in memory of the Munich 11.
After a flawless floor routine, performed to the tune of “Hava Nagila”, U.S. gymnast Aly Raisman won her second gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and then invoked the memory of the 11 slain Israeli athletes and coaches killed at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
“Having that floor music wasn’t intentional,” said Raisman, who became the first American woman to win gold in the floor exercise. “But the fact it was on the 40th anniversary is special, and winning the gold today means a lot to me.”
Confirming what she told The Algemeiner in July, Raisman, who is Jewish, remarked to reporters in London that she would have stood behind the decision to hold a minute of silence to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the murders in Munich, had the International Olympic Committee decided to agree to it.
“If there had been a moment’s silence, I would have supported it and respected it,” she said.
I suspect that she would have done a lot more than 'supported it and respected it,' but that she was afraid of saying more than that to the media at the Olympics.
The New York Post put it in slightly more dramatic terms (Hat Tip: Gary P), comparing Raisman to John Carlos and Tommie Smith, who gave a black power salute after winning medals at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
It wasn’t a gloved-fist salute from the medal stand, but Jewish-American gymnast Aly Raisman made quite a statement yesterday by winning a gold medal and invoking the memory of the Israeli athletes killed 40 years ago in Munich.
Raisman finished first in the women’s floor exercise, but she deserves to have another medal draped around her neck for having the chutzpah to face the world and do what needed to be done and say what needed to be said.
At the same Olympic Games where bigoted organizers stubbornly refuse to honor the slain athletes with a moment of silence, 18-year-old Raisman loudly shocked observers first by winning, then by paying her own tribute to 11 sportsmen who died long before she was born.
And if that weren’t enough, she won her event with the Hebrew folk song “Hava Nagila” playing in the background.
“Having that floor music wasn’t intentional,” an emotional but poised Raisman told reporters after her performance.
“But the fact it was on the 40th anniversary is special, and winning the gold today means a lot to me.”
Then Raisman stuck the landing.
“If there had been a moment’s silence,” the 18-year-old woman told the world, “I would have supported it and respected it.”
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Were it not for young Aly and her wedding dance/bat mitzvah accompaniment, the Munich dead may have never gotten their due.
“I am Jewish, that’s why I wanted that floor music,’’ Raisman said.
“I wanted something the crowd could clap to, especially being here in London.
“It makes it even much more if the audience is going through everything with you. That was really cool and fun to hear the audience clapping.’’
Raisman’s eyes opened as wide as the gold medal she would win when the judges announced her score of 15.600 points after her mistake-free routine.
Her top finish was the first by an American woman in the Olympic floor exercise, and the win gave Raisman her second gold medal. Raisman admitted the 40th anniversary of the Munich Games made her “hora” gold even more special.
“That was the best floor performance I’ve ever done, and to do it for the Olympics is like a dream,’’ Raisman said.
And here's something kind of neat: Raisman is from Newton, Mass, which just happens to be where yours truly grew up (Hat Tip: NY Nana). Someone please tell me she wants to make aliya....
Munich widow blasts International Olympic Committee
On Monday night, there was a memorial in London for the eleven Israeli athletes who were murdered at the Munich Olympic games 40 years ago. While the memorial was outside the framework of the Olympics, International Olympic Committee chairman Jacques Rogge was there, and was blasted by Munich widow Ankie Spitzer.
IOC President likely to be blasted at Munich memorial in London
IOC President Jacques Rogge plans to attend a memorial service in London on Monday for the eleven Israeli athletes who were murdered at the Munich Olympics 40 years ago. It ought to be justifiably uncomfortable for him.
Monday’s service, which is a Jewish community event, has created a “dilemma” for organizers, according to the London Jewish Chronicle.
IOC president Jacques Rogge refused international appeals including from that of President Barack Obama to the Israeli widows of the Munich 11 to legislators around the world to hold a moment of silence during last week’s opening ceremonies of the London Olympics for Israelis slain by Palestinian terrorists during the Munich games.
British Jewish leaders said they did not feel that they could withdraw an invitation to Rogge because they did not formally offer one, according to the Chronicle. Rogge has said he will attend the event and he has met privately with two widows of the murdered Israelis.
One of those women, Ankie Spitzer, told the Chronicle, “I have been asked to speak. What I am going to say to the IOC will not be nice. But that’s too bad. I do not want to see them there… I will tell them they are two-faced hypocrites and should have stayed at home. ”
Actually, if Mrs. Spitzer has the courage to tell Rogge to his face what she thinks of him, I think he ought to be forced to hear that.
#JustOneMinute Italian and French athletes protest IOC's 'moment of silence' refusal
Olympic athletes from Italy and France have staged protests at the Olympic games against the IOC's refusal to have a moment of silence at the opening ceremony in memory of the eleven Israeli athletes who were murdered 40 years ago in Munich (Hat Tip: Ricky G).
The IOC’s refusal to permit a minute’s silence for victims of the Munich terror attack 40 years ago has already provoked a protest from the Italian team, who staged a minute’s solidarity silence outside the Israeli team’s quarters.
Now a French swimmer has found another method of commemoration. Fabien Gilot, a member of the gold medal-winning 4 x 100 team raised his arm in triumph to reveal a tattoo in Hebrew reading: אני כלום בלעדיהם - in English: I am nothing without them.
We appreciate the sentiment. There are fundamental changes needed in the makeup of the IOC.
Think of it: The United States, Canada, Germany and Israel have insufficient international influence to obtain, in the sporting arena of international "brotherhood," one minute of respect for the memory of 11 Israeli victims of what we persist in calling "terrorism." In fact, this was an early attack of resurgent jihad.
And therein lies the problem. What we are witnessing is more than a measure of the clout of nations in which the United States and a pathetically small handful of allies come up short. It is the definition of "terrorism" itself that is under contention. In the world of Islam, the 1972 attack by Fatah's Black September terrorists, committed with the support of PLO/PA leaders, is not an outrage against civilization, it's a successful "operation." To this day, these murderers are officially revered in the Palestinian Authority and elsewhere in the Islamic world as "shahids," or Islamic martyrs. Indeed, murdering Israelis is religiously permitted under Islam.
Long before we surrendered one minute of silence for the atheletes and a German policeman killed in the attack, we agreed to perpetual silence on these terrible facts about Islam and jihad. Now, such appalling barbarities do not even enter the quiet sputtering over the IOC's refusal to respect the Olympic war dead.
The terrorist-worshipping PA will field an Olympic team -- in itself an offense against civilization. And this is to be applauded by an IOC leadership that in addition to its usual contingent of European princelings and Jean-Claude Killy, also includes an expanding contingent from the Islamic world. With 46 Islamic nations sending teams to London, practically the whole OIC will be on the field. And that's exactly what Olympics chief Jacques Rogge meant when he said his "hands were tied" in response to the request from the Munich widows.
Yes, NBC's Bob Costas really did do a moment of silence in memory of the 11 Israelis murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The moment lasted about give seconds, and then NBC went to a commercial break.
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!"
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.
According to Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee:
"Sports are meant for peace, not for racism... Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations]." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]
Had the call for a minutes silence remained an online issue, and had it remained an issue about Israelis, the IOC could have continued to ignore it. They have done so in the past without much difficulty. This, however, is 2012. The threat of terrorism, and efforts to mitigate that threat, permeate the games. The threat of terrorism, and the erosion of fundamental rights through anti-terror measures around the world, is a topic of public interest and conversation. Enough time has passed since September 11 for the world to again begin thinking about the balance between security and the cost it imposes on our daily lives.
The response to terrorism is something Israel began dealing with a long time ago. The world has changed and today more than ever people around the globe acknowledge the loss of terror victims and the suffering of their families. This is increasingly done without regard for nationality. The IOC’s mistake was thinking the minutes silence was about placating Israelis and the families of the victims. Whatever the wishes of the victims’ families, the campaign gained worldwide support for its own reasons and on its own merits. It spoke to people, and they connected with it and shared it.
The 1972 terrorist attack was not an attack on Israelis as much as it was an attack on the Olympics itself. The decision to ban Apartheid South Africa from the games all those decades ago shows that the Olympics is not entirely free of world politics, it is just very cautious and only acts in line with world consensus. That’s where the IOC went wrong; in this matter there is a consensus and the IOC is trying to ignore it.
Today’s global consensus is actively against terror. In the face of terror, be it a natural disaster or the politically motivated terror human kind invents for itself, people around the world stand together as one. Social media plays a role as the world becomes ever more connected. The IOC’s failure to incorporate a minutes silence into the opening of the games appears as a failure of leadership; a failure to stand with the people of the world and speak out against our greatest fear.
The timing too is significant. Let us for a moment recall that the Olympics only occur every four years. This is therefore the tenth games since the terrorists attacked. There will be no fiftieth anniversary at the 2022 Olympic Games. Indeed, due to the Olympic schedule there will be no 2022 Games. In this context, the failure by the International Olympic Committee to very publicly acknowledge that the games too have been a victim of terror, is akin to an American President refusing to commemorate September 11 on a major anniversary of that tragic event. It is indeed incomprehensible.
The IOC has a clear moral choice to make tomorrow - to stand with the terrorists of the 'Palestinian Authority' or to be true to the Olympic Games and their participants. Given the IOC's pasthistory, the odds of them making the right choice are not too promising.
There's a great piece by former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar, whom, as some of you might recall, I greatly admire. Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall at the Times of London, but I have managed to obtain a copy and will post a significant chunk of it below.
As a terrorism victim myself, who was fortunate to survive a car-bomb attack, I cannot understand or justify the marginalisation of other terrorist victims just for political reasons. If we extrapolate Israel's experience of slaughter to Britain, it would mean that in the past 12 years about 11,000 British citizens would have died and 60,000 would have been injured in terrorist attacks. In the case of the United States, the figures would be 65,000 dead and 300,000 injured. Israel's ordeal is far from insignificant.
It is even more poignant if one considers Israel's willingness to face up to terrorism and the practical experience that it has acquired to defeat it. Israel has much to contribute in this area and everyone else has a lot to learn if we really want to defeat the terrorists.
Fiamma Nirenstein, the vicepresident of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (and a member of the Friends of Israel Initiative) has made a proposal that is as fair as it is attractive - to hold a moment of silence at the London Olympics in memory of the 1972 massacre. Remembering is important, first, because of the victims, but also because many Europeans adopted the wrong attitude towards Palestinian terrorism after the Munich attack. The culprits who were arrested were later quietly released for fear of further attacks. And because of that initial fear the terrorists knew how to take advantage of the situation and to press for more rewards.
I have experienced terrorism at first hand. Many of my friends and some political colleagues have been killed by terrorists whose only merit was to have a hood, a gun or a bomb. Nonetheless, even in the most difficult times, I have always believed that weakness and appeasement are the wrong choices. Terrorism is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn't happen spontaneously; it's not something ethereal. It can and must be fought using all the tools provided by the law and democracy - and most importantly, it can be defeated if there is the will to defeat it. Israel has provided ample proof that it possesses that will, since its own existence is at stake.
To marginalise or isolate Israel to avoid irritating Turkey is a big mistake. All of the Middle East, from Morocco to the Gulf, is undergoing profound, although not always peaceful, change, which is yielding very disturbing results.
...
Isolation not only renders Israel weaker against its enemies, but also makes all Westerners weaker. And the practitioners of terrorism know all too well how to exploit our differences.
Remembering Munich 40 years on should be a useful reminder of our successes and failures. It should help us to enhance our collective abilities to fight terrorism. Israel is key in this fight.Israel is a part of the West. Israel is not the problem; it is part of the solution. We will become the problem if we continue to cold-shoulder Israel, the country most affected by terrorism and, possibly, the one that knows best how to defeat it.
Isn't it a pity that the feckless Obama administration won't listen? Here's hoping that a Romney administration would tell the Turks and the Arabs that if Israel isn't a party, there is no conference.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, July 24.
1) Candid Egyptian Camera
A numberof bloggershavewrittenabouttheMEMRI video of Egyptian actors appearing on a TV show under the pretext that it's an interview with a German TV station. Then it slips that it is really an Israeli TV show and the subjects fly into rages over the deception. In the end each one is told that it was all a joke and the hosts and producers are all good Egyptians and Muslims and all is well.
I was struck by this exchange between the first actor and the hostess. In his rage the actor, a beefy middle aged man, decked the hostess, a slight young woman. (Unsurprisingly, she did not appear to be amused by his reaction.)
You brought it upon yourself. Why did you fall so quickly?
Iman Mubarak: You hit me so hard.
Ayman Kandeel: It was just one slap.
Iman Mubarak: You see what can happen to the interviewer?
Amr ‘Alaa: People, let’s have a round of applause for Iman.
Ayman Kandeel [to Iman Mubarak]: After the show, come to my car with me. I’ll put some lotion on your back.
Iman Mubarak: I don’t want anything.
I assume that the first line here is from Ayman Kandeel, the actor. But it's pretty incredible that he comes on to her so blatantly, though given what we know of abuse of women in Egypt it's not all that surprising. (Though the offer of the massage wasn't an attack, it shows a lack of regard for the hostess as a person.)
2) Syria by the sea
Two weeks ago Jonathan Spyer wrote in an extensive overview, The Sovereignty of Violence of the civil war in Syria:
In Idleb, the army controls the main highways, but the troops now rarely venture too far away from the main road. In the open areas and in the villages, armed men wait to strike at cumbersome, unsuspecting patrols. It is a cruel, ugly and brutal conflict. Assad, aware that the walls are closing in, is employing his sectarian thugs in what looks like a systematic attempt to clear out non-Alawis from the Latakia Governate in the north-west. He appears to be creating a stronghold of Alawi population, which will form a safe zone and baseline for his side in the sectarian civil war now under way in Syria. His forces routinely butcher civilians. Whole families in Taftanaz, in Idleb Province. Children in Houla. These are only the examples that the news media or researchers managed to reach. This is a regime steeped in blood.
As Tony Badran, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has documented, the regime seems to be waging a campaign of sectarian cleansing in order to carve out a rump state along the Mediterranean coast, reflecting the geographical contours of the traditional Alawite heartland, with its capital in Latakia. The regime has lost the -hinterland and may be on the verge of losing Damascus, but it is still counting on survival. If Assad can’t have all of Syria, then he and his Russian and Iranian backers will console themselves with an Alawite state on the Mediterranean. The Obama administration should ensure that this doesn’t come to pass.
Perhaps the IRGC doth protest too much. Suleimani, who during the past three years or so has built up quite a personality cult in the press despite being the head of a shadowy organization, has yet to be seen in public since the explosion, either in Syria or Iran. Should Suleimani, the mastermind of so many suicide bombs and terrorist attacks, perished in one himself, it is hard not to see an element of divine justice at play.
Suleimani's death is, by no means, confirmed. But his absence gives credence to the earlier reports that he was in the room that was bombed.
The Munich massacre was not just an Israeli tragedy; it was an Olympic tragedy and a world tragedy. Forty years after the awful event, the fallen athletes deserve to be remembered at Friday’s opening ceremony, in front of 80,000 spectators and an estimated 4 billion TV viewers worldwide. Mr. Rogge’s priorities do no credit to the Olympic movement.
Though the New York Times has reported on this travesty, its editors have not (yet) seen fit to criticize Avery Brundage's despicable heir.
4) Libels, libels everywhere nor any drop of truth
In Lies like Water, David Weinberg publicizes a recent study:
In an exceptional study published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Gvirtzman shows that large differences in per-capita consumption of natural water between Jews and Arabs that existed in 1967, when the administration of Judea and Samaria was handed over from Jordan to Israel, has been reduced over the last 40 years and is now negligible. The Palestinian Authority currently consumes 200 million cubic meters (mcm) of water every year, with Israel providing more than 50 mcm of this – which, under the accords, is more than Israel it supposed to provide a full-fledged Palestinian state under a final settlement arrangement! Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority claims that it suffers from water shortages in its towns and villages due to the Israeli occupation and it cites international law in support of its claims. These claims amount to more than 700 million cubic meters of water per year, including rights over the groundwater reservoir of the Mountain Aquifer, the Gaza Strip Coastal Aquifer and the Jordan River. These demands amount to more than 50 percent of the total natural water available between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Gvirtzman refutes these claims and points to the real problem: The PA employs no sustainable development practices when it comes to water usage. It has done nothing to preventing massive leaking in its domestic pipelines, nothing to implement conservative irrigation techniques, and nothing to recycle sewage water for irrigation.
#JustOneMinute The International Olympic Committee's unannounced publicity stunt
Trying to deflect pressure for a minute of silence in the London Olympic Games' opening ceremony, the International Olympic Committee on Monday held its own, unannounced moment of silence at London's Olympic Village. The Israeli government was underwhelmed by this publicity stunt.
A ceremony that nobody knew about or paid attention to is not what Jerusalem was looking for, said one diplomatic official.
The official said that Israel thought that 40 years after the Munich massacre it was time for a tribute to be paid at a central Olympic event, like the opening of the games, and not at a side event as has been the case in years past.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has spearheaded efforts for a moment of silence at the opening game, something turned down by the International Olympic Committee.
One diplomatic official explained Israel's efforts, saying that the terrorism in Munich was not only a tragedy for Israel, but for the whole Olympic ideal and should be duly commemorated by the entire Olympic "family."
The families of the murdered athletes were even less impressed.
Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, the widows of Israeli athletes slain by Palestinians terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, told The Jerusalem Post they were outraged by the ceremony calling it a ruse intended to deflect criticism against the IOC.
"He is trying to do the bare minimum," said Romano over the phone, referring to Rogge. "This is shameful."
Spitzer and Romano, who will board a flight to London on Tuesday, speculated the last-minute ceremony was a bid to preempt a press conference they plan to hold on Wednesday where they will reiterate their demand that their loved ones be honored at the opening ceremony this Friday.
"He tried to pull the rug from under our feet, but we still have a few things to say," said Romano.
Spitzer added: "This is not the right solution, to hold some ceremony in front of 30 or 40 people. We asked for a moment of silence at the opening ceremony not for someone to mumble something in front of a few dozen people."
The whole notion of an 'Olympic family' is a farce. The 'memorial ceremony' in London on Monday is less than a farce. It's downright shameful.
While sports cannot cure the world's ills they also cannot ignore what goes on around them as if it does not exist.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
