The blatant hypocrisy and anti-Israel attitude of the International Olympic Committee and its president Jacques Rogge is, on its face, disgusting.
Forty years ago a group of terrorists calling themselves Black September murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich games. Prior to the next summer games (1976), the widows and families of the victims requested that the IOC provide a moment of silence in their memory. It was refused outright because, they said, the Arab countries would walk out.
This was no ordinary act of terrorism (is there any such thing?). This was the murder of Olympic athletes in the Olympic village; basically on IOC soil.
While it is almost unheard of to change Olympic Opening Ceremony protocol, and the IOC uses that as one of their excuses to deny a moment of silence for the Israelis, they did change these opening ceremonies.
In a segment which NBC edited out for US television viewers, the camera showed a memorial wall, with pictures of deceased family and friends of those attending the ceremony. It included pictures of the July 7, 2005 subway bombing victims as well as those of the late fathers of both Lord Coe (president of the London Olympic Committee) and ceremony director Danny Boyle.
What do any of these people have to do with the Olympics? An early section rightly remembered British war dead from two world wars.
It is tragic that, with the world watching, the IOC refused to provide the time and place to best remember those who were lost, and how and why they died.
The IOC program states, “The mission of Olympic Spirit is to build a peaceful and better world in the Olympic Spirit which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play . . “
Mutual understanding, fair play? Not when Israel is involved!
Alan Reff
East Williston
