The IOC is beyond shame - shamelessness is a job requirement. Personally I feel the politics have long since eclipsed the athletics. I’m grateful for our athletes like Michael Phelps, Missy Franklin, and Gabriella Douglas, but the stench of PC and kowtowing to the Third World is impossible to abide.
Really? A commemoration of Munich 1972 would have caused a walkout by 40 Arab nations? Sounds like a twofer. Since when can they play sports anyway?
Mr. Weinberg had more to say. MUCH more....
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Monday, July 30, 2012
Guri Weinberg: Why the IOC will never memorialize the 72 Munich massacre
Why the IOC will never memorialize the ‘72 Munich massacre
By Guri Weinberg Published July 27, 2012 FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/27/why-ioc-will-never-memorialize-72-munich-massacre/#ixzz225vKymi2
Recently, new information about the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic
Games was released by German police as a result of pressure from German
investigative reporters. It was reported that the “Black September”
terrorists were helped by a Nazi group in Germany to get fake IDs, weapons
and access to the Olympic Village.
This was not too shocking, as the head of the IOC in 1972 was Avery
Brundage, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite. His 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.
Most IOC members knew the truth but stayed silent because he organized a
regal lifestyle for them — with money diverted from sport.
Another interesting fact is that Abu Iyad, one of the co-founders of the
PLO, has said publicly that the reason “Black September” chose the 1972
Olympics as the stage for their hostage plot was because the PLO’s request
to the IOC for inclusion of the Palestinian delegation at the Olympic Games
was completely ignored. This snub from the IOC came at a time when tension
was at a boiling point in the Middle East. Yet, having incited the PLO, the
IOC denied the Israeli government’s request for security for the athletes.
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!”
I looked at Gilady’s face as he sat there, stone cold with no emotion. This
man knew these athletes personally. This man led the Israeli media
delegation at the 1972 Olympics and saw this atrocity first hand. This man
saw my father’s dead, naked body thrown out front of the Olympic Village for
all the world to see.
Without a hint of empathy, Gilady excused himself from our meeting.
That’s when I understood that the IOC wasn’t turning us down because of
their resistance to :politics.” Rather, it was due to the specific politics
the IOC apparently still embraces. Based on its history of Nazi support,
greed and the blood on their own hands for inciting the PLO, they would
never support Israeli athletes.
Now, I have a message to all the members of the IOC. The torture inflicted
by “Black September” on the 11 Israeli athletes and their families took 48
hours. Your torture of the families and the memories of those esteemed
athletes has lasted 40 years. I am not satisfied with a moment of silence in
every Opening Ceremony of the Summer Games. Now I want all of you to lose
your jobs and be replaced by real Olympians who care about the athletes and
believe in the Olympic charter.
The threat of the IOC coming after me does not scare me anymore. When you
have no more dignity, you have nothing to lose. So, members of the IOC — my
name is Guri Weinberg and I am the son of Moshe Weinberg, the wrestling
coach murdered at the 1972 Olympics. And I am not going away.
And a moment of silence for all the gays executed by Arab nations, and then a bell toll for every woman executed for such crimes as driving a car, showing a wrist, daring to talk to another human...
40 years; for all that was awful about the opening ceremony, the remembering of the terrorism that took place in Britain had far more relevance.
For the Closing Ceremony... Rather than march behind their flag, the Israeli team should carry 11 flag draped coffins.
I have a question I hope someone can answer. Have previous summer olympics since 1972-Munich held a moment of silence in memory of those murdered in 1972? If not, then why hold these olympics to a different standard? Or if there have been previous observances at the summer olympics in 76, 80, 84, etc., then I can understand the outrage for not doing so this time around.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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