Political Mavens » I stand with Guri Weinberg!

I think the conclusion is inescapable that something is terribly, deeply wrong, at the very center of the International Olympics Committee.

Evidence of the infection goes back at least to the Berlin Olympics, but reached an incredible low in 1972 where it continues to fester.

I think the failed the attempt for recognition by some of the Munich massacre victims, which gained international attention at the highest levels, may have served an even more important purpose than the minute of silence they pleaded for would have done.

It exposed the rotten core of the organization.

Since it was so obviously the right thing to do, to hold a minute of silence for those victims, and the refusal so inexplicable, some have started digging around to try and find an explanation.

And what they’re finding makes my skin crawl.

Someone posted a brief historical roundup of the issue on Facebook: “In 1972 the IOC decided to continue the games and celebrations while the Israeli team was held captive, tortured in public view, and even after one body was thrown from a window after being castrated and force fed parts of his own body in the Olympic compound.

They only limited the celebrations after the terrorists requested use of the road to make an escape to the airport.

The IOC refuses to make a public apology or hold a moment of silence for the victims.

In 1936 the Olympics were held in Berlin while Jews were being massacred just miles from the Olympic village. Hitler used the event for his own political needs.

The IOC has never made a public apology.”

After 40 years, this is the first I knew that one Israeli Olympian had been mutilated while still alive and thrown out an Olympic Village window. For some reason, I thought these men had simply been gunned down, which made me sad and angry. Learning this information makes me sick and livid.

This makes the refusal of the IOC to recognize the atrocity that much uglier and more sinister. There have been minutes of silence held at other Olympics commemorating tragedies that had nothing to do with the Olympics itself. But this one, during which the whole premise of the Games as a place where the hatreds and disputes of the world are set aside for a moment, was blown to smithereens – this one they won’t acknowledge.

Moments of silence were held elsewhere Friday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the darkest days in modern Olympic history – no thanks to the IOC – and all kinds of great remarks were made by all kinds of important people. Yet the IOC, in the person of Jacques Rogge, could not be made to do the right thing.

It’s inexplicable, until you read what the son of one of the Munich victims wrote recently.

I’m including it here in its entirety (italics are mine) with the hope that everyone in the world eventually reads it. And before you do, let it be known, that I stand with Guri Weinberg!

Why the IOC will never memorialize the ‘72 Munich massacre

By Guri Weinberg

Published July 27, 2012

FoxNews.com

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.

This was not too shocking, as the head of the IOC in 1972 was Avery Brundage, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite.

His protégé, Juan Samaranch, eventually served the second longest IOC term as president, but his support of Nazis and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was kept a dirty secret. Most IOC members knew the truth but stayed silent because he organized a regal lifestyle for them — with money diverted from sport.

Another interesting fact is that Abu Iyad, one of the co-founders of the PLO, has said publicly that the reason “Black September” chose the 1972 Olympics as the stage for their hostage plot was because the PLO’s request to the IOC for inclusion of the Palestinian delegation at the Olympic Games was completely ignored. This snub from the IOC came at a time when tension was at a boiling point in the Middle East. Yet, having incited the PLO, the IOC denied the Israeli government’s request for security for the athletes.

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.

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.

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.

Now, I have a message to all the members of the IOC. The torture inflicted by “Black September” on the 11 Israeli athletes and their families took 48 hours. Your torture of the families and the memories of those esteemed athletes has lasted 40 years. I am not satisfied with a moment of silence in every Opening Ceremony of the Summer Games. Now I want all of you to lose your jobs and be replaced by real Olympians who care about the athletes and believe in the Olympic charter.

The threat of the IOC coming after me does not scare me anymore. When you have no more dignity, you have nothing to lose. So, members of the IOC — my name is Guri Weinberg and I am the son of Moshe Weinberg, the wrestling coach murdered at the 1972 Olympics. And I am not going away.

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