One more reason for people of good will who love sports to ignore the Olympics

...The Olympics has consistently refused to commemorate the Munich massacre largely because of the resistance to any mention of the crime on the part of the movement’s Arab and Muslim countries. But Bach’s role in both boycotting Israel and supporting the IOC’s stonewalling of protests about its failure to have even a moment of silence puts him in the grand tradition of his predecessor Avery Brundage, the head of the movement from 1952-1972.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
12 September '13..

The history of the Olympics movement has long been marred by a persistent strain of anti-Semitism and bias against Israel. But those who thought the unhappy memories of Berlin in 1936 and Munich in 1972 should not influence our opinion of this behemoth of global sport were just sucker-punched by the election of a new head of the International Olympic Committee. German lawyer Thomas Bach won the presidency of the IOC on a second-ballot vote in Buenos Aires yesterday and began his reign over the sports empire by pledging neutrality in the political disputes that are part and parcel of the Olympics landscape. That notion was undermined by the fact that the first congratulatory phone call Bach received was from Russian President Vladimir Putin who is counting on the IOC head to protect the 2014 Sochi Winter Games from being derailed by protests over Russia’s anti-gay laws. But the pious talk about respecting the Olympic Charter and inclusion is also given the lie by a key fact about Bach’s biography.

Though Bach is being touted as a savvy veteran of Olympic legal tangles including leading anti-doping efforts as well as being a former Gold Medal fencer, the German lawyer’s day job is as chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. That sounds innocuous enough. But rather than just a straight-forward promoter of trade between Germany and the Arab world, as the Times of Israel reports, according to the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin Ramer Institute, Ghorfa was actually set up in the 1970s in order to facilitate the boycott of Israel:

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.

Such a record is hardly unusual in the Olympics hierarchy. Bach, who was a strong supporter of his predecessor’s refusal to hold even a moment of silence to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics at last year’s London Games had strong support from the Arab world in the IOC election.

The Olympics has consistently refused to commemorate the Munich massacre largely because of the resistance to any mention of the crime on the part of the movement’s Arab and Muslim countries. But Bach’s role in both boycotting Israel and supporting the IOC’s stonewalling of protests about its failure to have even a moment of silence puts him in the grand tradition of his predecessor Avery Brundage, the head of the movement from 1952-1972.

The International Olympic Committee:Building Barriers Between Nations

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
31 July '12..

Yup, there you have it - the true nature of the Olympics has come out within the first two days. The Lebanese refused to train next to the Israeli team. The Olympics Committee quickly capitulated - and put up screens lest the Lebanese be forced to continue seeing the Israeli team.

Of course, the IOC will now have to explain how this isn't politics - but then again, they should have no problems twisting lies and deception into their own unique type of reality. After all, after steadfastly refusing to honor the eleven Israeli athletes murdered at their Olympic games, on their watch, because of their failed security - they did allow a moment of silence for the London terror victims of July 7, 2005. Please don't misunderstand - I don't have a problem with the city of London remembering their own; I just find it grossly hypocritical that in that moment of silence, no one could think to dedicate it to someone else's victims of terror.

It could have been a moment for all victims of terror; it could have been. It should have been. But it wasn't. And according to the son of one of the Israeli victims, the International Olympic Committee had the nerve to tell the Israeli families that if they were to give a moment to the Israeli dead, they would have to likewise give a moment to the Palestinians who died at the Olympics games - to be fair of course.

An effective 'spontaneous minute' that will speak louder than the IOC's roaring hypocrisy

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
25 July '12..

The 2012 Olympic Games get underway in London in two days and three hours [check it here]. An online petition calling for sixty seconds of silence at the opening ceremony in memory of the eleven Israeli Olympians murdered in the Munich Olympic village exactly forty years ago by Palestinian Arabs has gotten more than 107,000 signatures. But it has failed to move the Olympic games organizers.

The families of the Munich 11 have tried for four long and lonely decades to obtain appropriate and respectful recognition of the Munich massacre from the International Olympic Committee.

Now that it is clear they have finally and absolutely failed, the widow of one of the Munich dead says people sitting in the stadium at Friday’s opening ceremony should stand up and observe what she calls "a spontaneous minute when the IOC president begins to speak". She's absolutely right. The rest of us who will not be there should be doing everything we can to spread the word.

How did the organizers articulate their objection? Insensitively.

"We feel that the Opening Ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident," Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said Saturday. [Source: CNN]

How did the widows object to the objection? Determinedly, and with admirable dignity.

“If you believe that the 11 murdered athletes must be mentioned, stand for a spontaneous minute when the IOC president begins to speak,” said Ilana Romano, wife of Yossef Romano, a weightlifter who was murdered in the 1972 attack. The media, she said, should follow the lead of NBC sportscaster Bob Costas [it's explained here], who has pledged to hold his own on-air minute of silence. “Silence your microphones for a minute in memory of our loved ones and to condemn terrorism,” she said... The IOC, led by president Jacques Rogge, has steadfastly refused [the request for a minute of respectful silence]... [The widows behind the petition] were in London to present the petition to Rogge in a last-ditch attempt to get him to agree. They were due to meet on Wednesday night, after Rogge postponed a Tuesday meeting. [Source: Times of Israel]

The IOC and Palestine politics at the Olympics

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
09 July '12..



The upcoming Olympic Games in London mark the 40th anniversary of the massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorist during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. But there won’t be any official commemoration, and it’s not hard to figure out why. As Jennifer Lipman put it:

“It seems clear that the IOC [International Olympic Committee] is worried about rocking the boat, angering Arab nations by honouring men who were killed by Palestinian terrorists. It’s afraid to take Israel’s side; it does not see it as a gamble worth the cost.”

To be sure, the Olympic Games are supposed to be apolitical, but the IOC’s refusal to commemorate the attack during the Munich Olympics is inevitably political. And the message is clear: the IOC accepts that up to this very day, Arab – and indeed Muslim – nations are unwilling to tolerate anything that would imply a condemnation of terrorism against Israeli Olympic athletes.