I-24 NEWS – Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev on Sunday praised the International Olympic Committee for marking the 1972 Munich Olympics tragedy during which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, but said that more needs to be done to honor the memory of those who perished, the Times of Israel reported.
Regev was speaking at a commemoration ceremony held at the Rio De Janeiro city hall for the slain Israelis, which was attended by Israeli, Brazilian and Olympic officials, as well as family members of the Israeli victims, according to the Times of Israel.
Regev said that such memorial ceremonies must become part of every Olympics opening ceremony, the report said.
“This ceremony is not enough,” the minister said at the event, according to the Times of Israel. “The grief for the Munich athletes does not belong only to the families, only to Israel, only to the Jewish people. It is a tragedy also for the IOC which will have a black flag flying.”
Regev said that such ceremonies must become an integral part of the Olympic Games opening ceremony “to remind the free world what can happen when we let our guard down.”
A total of 11 Israeli Olympic team members were taken hostage during the Olympics in Munich and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian group Black September. The games were suspended for a day and then carried on.
Two days before the 2016 Games officially began in Rio, family members of the Israeli victims were joined by officials at a ceremony at the Olympic village in Rio, marking the culmination of a long struggle for official recognition of the tragedy.
The ceremony, which included a minute’s silence, was led by IOC President Thomas Bach, who inaugurated the Place of Mourning, which will now be a feature at every Olympics, with two stones from ancient Olympia encased in glass in a leafy part of the athletes’ village.
Ankie Spitzer, whose husband Andre, a fencing coach, was killed in the massacre, told reporters that the ceremony marked a “closure” for her and other family members. “This is incredibly important,” she said. “We waited 44 years to have this remembrance and recognition for our loved ones who were so brutally killed in Munich,”
“That they would be really accepted as members of the Olympic family,” she added. “It is what we wanted because they were members of the Olympic family.”
Ever since the massacre, the IOC has faced repeated criticism from across the world that it has not done enough to honor the victims.
Last year the IOC announced that it would set up a special place for athletes to commemorate the memory of those who died. Alex Gilady, Israel’s member of the IOC commented on the decision at the time saying it was “a good and positive step by the members of the International Olympic Committee. The ability to see the issue not only through Israeli eyes, but through a wider view, represents a change and a big step forward.”
““This ceremony is not enough,” the minister said at the event, according to the Times of Israel. “The grief for the Munich athletes does not belong only to the families, only to Israel, only to the Jewish people. It is a tragedy also for the IOC which will have a black flag flying.””
The manipulative swine neglects to mention the black flag they already are flying through their proxy military force, ISIS.
He would, wouldn’t he? Anything to reinforce the ‘victim-Israel’ narrative, to distract from its terrorist activity. However I notice he doesn’t suggest we also remember the secret, so-called “Operation Wrath of God”, that for at least twenty five years from 1972 (there is no guarantee that it does not continue, for which cite the ‘Chevaline Massacre’ that took place in Comb d’Ire*) http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/2010/02/201021818562529723.html;
NO! First – Palestinian victims of Israel!
Alright, so what was passed into law, that would allow Israel, the arrogance to demand, from the world, a memorial to the lose of 11, unproven israeli athletes.
Israel killed, four little boys, kicking a ball on a beach. where is the memorial, to them? Where is the memorial to the 560 murdered children during the 2014 slaughter of over 2600 Gazan’s, while Israel was mowing it’s grass.
Wasn’t it enough that Israel was able to get the U S. to cower to them, when Kennedy was assassinated, When Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967, the attack on 9/11, the three attacks and slaughters committed in Gaza since 2008, not to mention the attacks on Lebanon and Jordan.
Let us forget, the ceaseless expansion of the territories, stolen from the Palestinians, the humiliation and abuse at the check points, the summery killing of people on the streets, justified by the allegation of possessing a knife, the home invasions by the police and the army, the arresting of children, taken from their beds, in the middle of the night, the spraying of neighborhoods by pump trucks filled with liquid raw sewage (skunk water), the sniping of children at play in the streets.
I can’t help but see a for telling of the future of the United States, by taking notice of what is being done to the people of Gaza, and the contempt that has already been expressed to the people of the rest of the world.