In the end, the families of the 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches who were murdered at the Munich Olympics 40 years ago and millions of Jews who mourned with them, got a bit of satisfaction out of the London Games. Though the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stubbornly refused to devote even a minute of an hours-long opening ceremony for a moment of silence for the victims of Munich (while giving several minutes to a memorial to the victims of the London subway bombings), American gymnast Alexandra Raisman had an appropriate response. By saying her gold medal-winning performance in the floor exercise was in part a memorial to the Israelis who perished long before she was born, Raisman gave us a genuine moment of Jewish pride that places the IOC’s shameful stand in perspective.
As the Massachusetts native told the New York Post, she did not select the “Hava Nagila” Hebrew dance music deliberately to honor the Munich 11, but she took special satisfaction from winning the gold 40 years after the massacre. Doing so, she said, “meant a lot” to her. She also said she would have supported and respected an Olympic moment of silence for Munich. Her statement and victory ought to comfort Jews who were rightly outraged by the double standard shown by the IOC, but it doesn’t change the fact that the decision to snub the Munich victims at the opening ceremony was a telling indication of the group’s prejudice against Israel and Jews.
Though events have been held to honor the victims in London and elsewhere, the IOC and its leader Jacques Rogge have made sure that none were held at the Games themselves. The reason, as we have written before, isn’t hard to figure out. Many of the participating countries at the Olympics approve of Palestinian terrorism and don’t recognize Israel’s existence. Before the opening ceremony, some of us speculated as to whether the organization would snub others as they’ve done to the Israelis, but after the tribute to the London bombing victims, we got our answer.
The IOC response to appeals for a moment of silence was yet another indication that what the State Department has called a “rising tide of anti-Semitism” has infected the global sports world as well as other sectors of international opinion. But Raisman’s win and her willingness to stand up for the victims is a reminder to the anti-Semites that the spirit of the Jewish people cannot be extinguished by their hate.
I wouldn't be surprised if the IOC revoked Raisman's medal.
Paranoia! nStop playing the "race card". Raisman is an American girl, not Israeli. But by constantly harping on her being jewish you're playing the race card.
Bollocks! n
You are full of it. This evangelical Christian in America says to Miss Raisman, right on! Thanks for your gesture, much appreciated.
Kol ha'kavod for that teenager. She has more beitzim than the whole IOC. And class, too.
Three Cheers for Alexandra Raisman and the Italian Olympic Team for trying to Keep the Olympic Flame burning brightly and a Beacon illuminating the Darkness of Hatred! (after the Lebanese Team and IOC did their best to extinguish it, barely a day after the games began!) n n "Italians hold moment of silence for Israeli athletes murdered in Munich"
Half_Right, can you post a link to the story about the Italians? Thanks.
Raisman's performance was brilliant; Hava Nagila made it even sweeter. So much for the Jew haters.
The games are great, the IOC leaders are disgusting. They may not be anti-Semites, though undoubtedly some are,, but they all don't give a damn for murdered Israeli athletes. Let's hope that there will emerge a new IOC president who will hang his head in shame at the Rio games in 4 years.
To Yamama…This is not paranoia nor race. Eleven decent human beings were murdered by Palestinians for no other reason than that they were Jews. That's a simple fact. To honour thier needless deaths would have been the decent response by the IOC. QED…..
A photo of the head of the Olympic Committee wearing a scarf around his neck showing the "flag of the Palestinian State" has been widely circulated. Since the Palestinian Arab People" were invented by the Soviet dezinformatsia as a political ploy so that they could claim a state, and the flag is of an alleged state as they don't have statehood, one must conclude that the head of the IOC is biased.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158388
covers the Italian Olympic moment of silence.
fwiw, yahoo had a Best and Worst dressed teams in the opening ceremony, and the Israeli team was cited as Best Dressed, as were the Italians. I was surprised that whoever made the picks was so fair and balanced.
Because Israel has not yet medalled (am still expecting a miracle for marathoner Zohar Zemiro), I like to think Raisman’s floor exercise gold to Hava Nagila was well received in Israel.
You don't really want the kind of support that the IOC represents. Just look at their history.
You ideologue jerks! what if 1 lunatic yelled, during the silence, "Death to oppressive Zionists!" or worse. I will tell u what happens. Riots, blood, and death.
Are you saying that his fellow lunatics would have started the riots, resulting in blood and death? Or just engaging in gratuitous slander of those who think that Olympic athletes murdered during the games are no less deserving of a memorial simply because they were Jews and Israelis?
I am surprised my message was not clear, but 1 more time. I was not evaluating who is right or who is wrong morally. I was just being practical: do not light a match in a dry forest. We can DEBATE who is wrong or right, but do not risk a riot, by inflaming passions, in a large arena!! All I am saying is if u provoke (again regardless whether u r right or wrong) a passionate lunatic, he will then provoke people on the other side to yell back, and very soon somebody throws a punch. then riots, and mobs to the exits. A very dangerous situation in a closed space. Use your kupf.
In other words, let the most bloodthirsty, hate filled lunatics control the dialogue? Yeah, that's worked well in the past. Shah, sthill. Using your kop does not mean buying a charter membership in the Society of Trembling Israelites.
whilst Alexandra embodies peace unity and olympic spirit , the IOC epitomizes strife separation and nhypocrisy in all the pomp and ceremony the Brits and Rogge displayed in passing on the baton nof antisemitism to the next generation.
It is not possible to reason with people who are jealous.
maybe I am missing something, Watsa. which "people" of jealous of whom? How is jealousy related to this topic?
Frankly, they should have cancelled the Munich games after the massacre, but Avery Brundage, being a crypto-Nazi, said the show must go on. n nWhat I don't understand: Every Olympics since Munich should have memorialized the massacre but didn't, so why pick on the London Olympics?
Note that in the parade of nations at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics the non-nation of "Palestine" was included. Calling Arabs "Palestinian" is a consequence of the invention of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" by Gamel Nasser
Arabs from the West Bank ruled by Fatah and from Gaza, ruled by terrorists of Hamas teach their children to put bomb belts on and go out to murder Jews and Americans, promising them a fast ticket to Paradise with 72 virgins and 8 boys to do as they please. 73% of those Arabs desire annihilation of Israel and looting what Jews had built there. n nPolitically correct IOC and many misguided left leaning Europeans, are fools not to see through propaganda of Arabs who had learned from Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, a Nazi war criminal who was let go by the British and French in 1946 to foment delusional Jew hatred in Middle East. This vile Mufti spent WWII in Berlin egging Hitler on to hurry up extermination of European Jews and come to exterminate them in Palestine. This Nazi criminal was a master of propaganda (improved his lies from Goebbels), murdering of his opponents (regardless of religion) and stealing of money from his people. n nMufti was connected to Muslim Brotherhood too, which is helped by Obama, and which also wants to annihilate Israel and push the Jews into the sea. All the subsequent Arab leaders, be it secular socialists or "faithful" Muslims used Mufti as a role model on how to make propaganda and fool the world, how to murder their opponents and how to steal money from their people. Europeans and Americans are nuts of sending money to those guys who then mostly stash it in Swiss and French banks, and use it to buy rockets to shoot on Israeli villages and towns.