Why are there people who don’t know what happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics?
How is it that there are people who watched the Beijing Olympic games, and have no idea that armed Palestinian terrorists snuck into the Israeli Olympic housing complex in the middle of the night and massacred 11 members of its delegation 36 years ago?
Perhaps it’s because no memorial to this horror has been made part of the Olympics tradition, despite years of trying, that’s allowed this terrible tragedy to slip from the collective consciousness.
This is unconscionable in the same way that permitting the Holocaust to be forgotten would be, and nearly as dangerous, not to mention insulting and insensitive.
Failing to publicly recognize the atrocity not only may condemn the world to a repeat performance against someone, someday, but it also in some way condones the anti-Semitic barbarism that continues to plague humanity.
The Israeli delegation visits the Tel Aviv memorial to the Munich victims on the eve of their departure for every Olympics, and since Sydney in 2000, a formal memorial ceremony his held during the Games. But it’s never been incorporated as an official program under the International Olympic Committee, though that would seem only appropriate, the tragedy being one of Olympic history’s defining moments and among the most shocking and outrageous terror attacks the world has ever seen.
Ephraim Zinger, secretary-general of the Israeli Olympic Committee, said the Israelis raise the issue at every meeting with the IOC, but nothing ever happens.
“Probably they are concerned about the reaction of those who will disagree with a memorial like this,” he said. “There are 205 NOCs (national Olympic committees) participating in the Olympics, and there are more than a few dozen that will strongly disagree with this kind of event.”
In other words, there are Arab and Muslim countries for whom the murder of Israelis is not so much a tragedy as a cause for celebration, who might object to a memorial.
Why can’t the civilized world get some guts and do the right thing, even though it will make some anti-Semites angry?
Even former IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who during his tenure refused to recognize the victims as part of the heritage of the Games and address their deaths in any opening ceremonies, recognizes the massacre’s significance. At this year’s event, he said, “This murder is the blackest event in the history of the Olympics. It is good to see that despite this Israel continues to move forward and grow, as a nation in general and in regards to its sports in particular.”
Ankie Schpitzer, whose husband, fencing referee Andrei Schpitzer, was killed in Munich, spoke this year’s event, saying, “This is not an Israeli issue, this concerns the whole Olympic family. Our sons, fathers and husbands were no accidental tourists or visitors to the Games; they were part of it. They believed in the spirit and the dreams of the Olympics, but they all came home in a coffin.”
The point is, the outrage should encompass more than Israelis.
“They were Israelis, yes, but they were Olympians,” the Zinger said in an interview, almost implying that their status as Israelis would excuse their assassinations if they weren’t also Olympics participants.
Schpitzer also called on Olympics officials to ban from the Games countries whose delegates refuse to compete against Israelis, and of course, she’s right. If there’s anything less sportsmanlike or more childish than refusing to “play” with a certain group of people, I don’t know what it is.
Schpitzer said she’s fought for official recognition of the Munich massacre since ‘72, and promised her children and grandchildren will continue the battle.
I hope they succeed.
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