Jewish commentator, Debbie Schlussel calls Israel's I.O.C. member, Alex Gilady, a self-interested, traitorous, leftist kapo.
Jewish widow, groups dismiss IOC president's move to honor Munich dead before small group at Olympic Village. British & American Jews fill void by staging their own tributes.
by Philip Hersh in the Chicago Tribune July 23, 2012
President Obama threw his support behind an online petition for the minute of silence that now has more than 103,000 signatures.Guri, the son of '72 Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, knows Mr. Gilady led the lobbying on the Int'l Olympics Committee's rejecting of an internationally televised commemoration of the athletes and their survivors on the 40th anniversary of their slaying by Palestinian Islamists. But Gury Weinberg sees both the I.O.C. and Gilady as working to protect their members complicity and personal interests.
“Yes, we absolutely support the campaign for a minute of silence at the Olympics to honor the Israeli athletes killed in Munich,” said US National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.
IOC President Jacques Rogge of Belgium rebuffed those calls at a press conference Saturday night.
“We always pay deep attention to recommendations coming from the political world,” he said. “We are not necessarily following this advice.”
The IOC’s attitude involves an element of realpolitik. It clearly is fearful of the potential uproar that could follow from the nearly two dozen Arab countries and some two dozen more primarily Muslim countries sending teams to London.
That Israel is a lightning rod for enmity in parts of the world obviously complicates the situation. That is why Mrs. Ankie Spitzer, who has spent four decades as a leader in the effort for a memorial moment during an opening ceremony, is willing to strip such a moment of all religious and nationalistic references.
“You don’t even have to say they were Jews or Israelis,” Spitzer said during a recent telephone interview. “Just tell the world that in 1972, 11 members of the Olympic family, athletes and coaches, were killed.”
Spitzer’s husband, fencing coach Andrei, was among those killed by the Palestinian terrorist group, Black September.
“Ours is not a message of hate and revenge,” she said. “Quite the opposite: we want people to remember, so that this will never happen again."
Beginning a Monday Olympic Village ceremony promoting the idea of an Olympic truce, Rogge surprisingly made a call to honor the memory of the 11 Israelis and then stood in silence for a minute.
"They came to Munich in the spirit of peace and solidarity," Rogge said, according to wire service reports. "We owe it to them to keep the spirit alive and to remember them."
The same news reports said there were only about 100 witnesses to Rogge's action. . . .
Spitzer (also) found the gesture insufficient.
"This is not the right solution, to hold some ceremony in front of 30 or 40 people," she told the Jerusalem Post. "We asked for a moment of silence at the opening ceremony, not for someone to mumble something in front of a few dozen people."
Israel’s IOC member, Alex Gilady, is among those opposed to having a moment of silence in the London opening ceremony, a stand many in his country find incomprehensible.
Gilady’s rationale is simple: he remembers when Israel was thrown out of the Asian Olympic Association in 1981 and could not get another continental sports affiliation until the efforts of people including Rogge helped Israel become a member of the European Olympic Committees in 1994. Gilady fears a moment of silence will create a backlash endangering Israel’s place in international sport.
“I believe I am acting in best interest of Israeli sport,” Gilady said in a telephone interview. “For me, the most important thing at the moment is that Israel have stages to compete on….I hope the moment will come we can have appropriate commemoration in the Olympic stadium for the Israelis killed in Munich.”
When might that be?
“When we have a better environment,” he said. “When there is peace.”
Spitzer, 66, a Middle East correspondent for Dutch and Belgian television networks, calls Gilady, “the main obstacle.” She has tried to plead the case with Rogge, IOC president since 2001, and London Olympic Organizing Committee chairman Seb Coe, both Olympic athletes.
Why the IOC will never memorialize the '72 Munich massacre Fox News.com July 27
"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.
"Germany had a tip-off three weeks ahead of Munich massacre, Der Spiegel claims.
Beirut informant’s warning of Palestinian ‘incident’ was ignored, then covered up for 40 years, magazine says. by Raphael Ahren in The Times of Israel
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.
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| Alex Gilady & Sue Malden Int'l Fed of TV Archives 10/04 |
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.After being turned-down for an acknowledgment during the Olympic Opening Ceremony,
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."
20,000 Londoners hold Munich moment of silence by JTA, JPost Staff
More than 20,000 people in various venues in London on Friday attended the British Zionist Federation’s “Minute for Munich” program that was promoted via social media.
A short memorial service at the Israeli Embassy that was organized by the Zionist Federation was streamed live online Friday.
The families of the victims of the 1972 Munich massacre, in which 11 Israeli Olympics athletes and coaches were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, have mounted a global campaign to get the International Olympic Committee to hold an official moment of silence at the Games. The IOC continues to reject the call, despite its being endorsed by President Obama, GOP presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the US Senate, the German Bundestag, the Canadian and Australian parliaments, about 50 members of the British Parliament, the Israeli government and Jewish organizations worldwide.
Also speaking at the ceremony, British Zionist Federation Chairman Harvey Rose lashed out at the Olympic Committee for it's decision. "Shame on the IOC, for not appreciating and recognizing what the Olympics is all about...shame on the IOC for its clear anti-Israel bias," he said.
In a further development surrounding the issue, Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat announced that she would stand in protest at the Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday evening, over the Olympic Committee's refusal to hold a minute of silence.
While the Olympic Games have a near-century history of anti-Semitism from Avery Brundage to Jacques Rogge, this time around the refusal to recognize the Israeli athletes who gave their lives for this over-hyped, meaningless faux-amateur sports-fest rests not just on Rogge and the IOC’s pandering to Muslims. Nope, this time around, it’s Israel’s Jewish representative to the IOC, Gilady, who is leading the charge with Rogge, to deny these slaughtered athletes some recognition as the victims of Islamic terrorism. Like many of the corruptocrat Israelis appointed by Israel to the IOC, Mr. Gilady is a far-left journalist who is more interested in money and riches than doing the right thing for his country.
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| Rabbi Moshe Parry stands silently in memory of the murdered Israeli athletes, and in defiance to the I.O.C. & Alex Gilady |
Rabbi Moshe Parry of Los Angeles decided to stage a video standing tribute to the victims, which anyone could stand and join during the Opening Ceremonies, or at any time. (Play video).
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