Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumObama backs moment of silence at Olympics
Obama backs moment of silence at Olympics
July 19, 2012
(JTA) – President Obama joined the campaign for a moment of silence at the London Olympics to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympians at the 1972 Olympics.
“We absolutely support the campaign for a minute of silence at the Olympics to honor the Israeli athletes killed in Munich,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo News in an email.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/19/3101251/obama-backs-moment-of-silence-at-olympics
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King_David
(14,851 posts)''Aside from Obama, the U.S. Senate, the German Bundestag, the Canadian and Australian parliaments, about 50 members of the British Parliament, the Israeli government, Jewish organizations worldwide and about 100 members of Australia's Parliament have urged the IOC to hold a moment of silence.''
Happyhippychick
(8,379 posts)Dovid Rees
(21 posts)But a lot don't actually doing much for them.
They claim to support Israel while every politician has sent BILLIONS to Palestine and other Arab countries. If America is going to support Israel the should not try to play both sides of the game. For all the billions we are giving to Arab states, we could quadruple the aid to Israel and provide them with the latest equipment.
Israel is the only Jewish state in the world and its existence shouldn't be reduced to simply being a "convenient" ally of the US. I think it's time to take the kid gloves off with respect to Israel' enemies and truly stand behind Israel, unconditionally and without any reservations.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)however it should be noted that it is not a 'moment' of silence that is being demanded it is a full minute during the opening ceremonies a moment of silence was held during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta oh and some other bombing victims were included too
oberliner
(58,724 posts)And it is being "demanded" no less!
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)to commemorate the assassination of Count Folk Bernadotte? Or perhaps the 5 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli shelling at Qana?
Or perhaps a minutes' silence in the UK House of Commons to commemorate the assassination of Lord Moyne?
True, plenty of other UN peacekeepers have been killed by parties other than Israel, but then again terrorism has killed other people at the Olympics (the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta comes to mind). And Irish as well as Jewish terrorists have been responsible for the assassinations of British cabinet ministers over the years. But I suppose if you can single out one, you can single out the other, right?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I would not oppose any such proposals.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)it would only be decency, much like the Olympics
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)I suspect had one of your colleagues gotten to that question before you did, I would currently be having one of those torturous twisting conversations about why those assassinations were either not terrorism, or even if they were, nowhere near as bad as anything the Arabs have done.
shira
(30,109 posts)Do you believe the killing at Qana was pre-meditated and deliberate?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)The post was more to do with the merit of commemorating the dead than distinguishing how they died.
Interesting that you omitted any mention of the assassinations of Bernadotte or Moyne - presumably you wouldn't object to a minutes' silence for either of them?
shira
(30,109 posts)...you have posted in response to Oberliner that your opponents here would minimize or deny terror?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)what do you think of those?
shira
(30,109 posts)No, I don't have a problem with moments or minutes of silence for Bernadotte or Moyne. I'd question those tributes if they were the only ones (singling out Israel).
I believe that the Olympic Committee could have, at the very least, agreed to a moment (if not a minute) of silence not only for Munich but also Atlanta 1996.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)It would smack of politics, I suppose, if Moyne was singled out, but no commemoration given for the two British politicians killed by Irish republicans as well as one that was killed by an obscure Black power group in the Bahamas.
By the same token, it would probably be best to have a moment of silence for all the victims of terror, rather than just some.
Its worth noting that until 2002, there was no memorial in Israel for the Munich massacre, after which a plaque was erected in the Ben-Shemen forest by the JNF and Mount Moriah School in Sydney, Australia (of all people). Certainly the government has never bothered to build one and I don't know that they have ever commemorated the 10, 20, or 30 year anniversary of the Munich massacre either.
A good job that the JNF thought to build one, otherwise the whole thing would look ever so slightly...political.
Bradlad
(206 posts)any public display of sorrow and especially mass disapproval of the killing of innocent civilians has several purposes. One of those IMO is psychological. It is to send a clear message to those who find the murder of innocents as somehow acceptable or even heroic - that the world as a whole is united in our anger and revulsion of such acts - and that those who commit them will earn nothing but the scorn and even hatred of all the world's leading nations. It is a form of mass public humiliation of the perpetrators and those who support them that they can not easily ignore or dismiss.
For that reason, among others, the Olympic Games is the ideal place to provide such a public display because it was at the Olympics - a symbol of good will and peaceful competition between the world's nations - that the tragedy occurred. A moment (or minute) of silence would to some extent be a pointed statement that the world is not afraid to stand behind our peaceful values, which the Olympics represent.
As it is, I suspect that those sick groups who applaud the massacre will be congratulating themselves at creating so much fear in the West that we are even afraid to mention the event too publicly so as to avoid another attack by them. As it is, we can only hope that the millions of pounds that England's taxpayers are being forced to pay for security at the event are sufficient.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)ceremonies that would receive very little publicity unlike the Olympic memorial which will be a
"ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people and watched by hundreds of millions more around the globe."
"" is a direct statement from some Israeli government officials taken from JPost
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I think that is why it's relevant in this context.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)ought not to be commemorated at the UN? He was the first UN peacekeeper to be murdered in the line of duty, after all.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)If i wanted to say something like that, i would say it.
You must not know me very well, I'm not big on nuance.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)I was being accurate as to what was actually the fact but if it satisfies some need then be my guest
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)it was televised to a large audience and a packed stadium, with the flags of the participating nations at half-mast, although the rather poorly-judged speech by Avery Brundages managed to foul it up somewhat.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's why some people took to referring to him as "Average Brundy".
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I agree 100%. There should be some recognition of that tragedy.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Note, he supports a MINUTE of silence - not just a MOMENT of silence.
This is a crucial difference for at least one poster here.
zellie
(437 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)is that the case, you've brought it up twice, or is it something else perhaps?
shira
(30,109 posts)The failure to act upon that tip-off at the time, and the subsequent failure to acknowledge that it had even been received, Der Spiegel added, is only part of a 40-year cover-up by the German authorities of the mishandling of the 1972 terror attack, in which 11 members of the Israeli team were massacred by Palestinian Black September terrorists.
“The federal government [in Bonn] and the local government of the state of Bavaria committed grave errors in their handling of the attack on Israeli athletes during the Olympic Games in Munich, and have kept the true extent of the failure true under wraps until today,” Der Spiegel asserted.
For the first 20 years after the massacre in Munich, the German authorities refused to release any information about the attack; nor did they accept any responsibility for the tragic results. This changed after Ankie Spitzer, widow of slain fencer Andrei Spitzer, appeared on ZDF West German TV in the spring of 1992 and appealed, in German, for information on how her husband had died.
Several weeks later she received a call from an anonymous government official with access to the files. As Aaron J. Klein reported in “Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response,” two weeks later 80 pages of original typewritten documents arrived at the Tel Aviv office of Pinchas Zeltzer, the lawyer representing the victims’ families, including autopsy logs and ballistic reports and yet the Bavarian justice minister steadfastly denied the existence of official government archives. Spitzer confronted him on national TV, waving a sheath of papers in his face.
On August 29, 1992 Zeltzer received word from Munich: the archive had been located. All told the government had been hiding 3,808 files, containing tens of thousands of documents. Their existence allowed the families to file suit in 1994 against the federal government, the Bavarian government and the city of Munich. In 2004 the families accepted the German offer of 3 million Euros as a form of monetary compensation and a muted acceptance of government responsibility.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/germany-had-a-tip-off-three-weeks-in-advance-that-palestinians-were-planning-incident-at-munich-olympics-but-failed-to-act-der-spiegel-claims/
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)but why is it so important to have a moment of silence about it at THIS particular Olympics?
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have the moment at the next Olympics that get held in Germany?
Should the Games as an institution be held responsible for the killings, rather than the host country of the games where the killings occurred?
(not trying to cause trouble here...just not sure why it has to be at the London Olympics, when the killings didn't happen in Britain...and why that got to be made into a litmust test for Obama to demand such a moment.)
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's not a question of "responsibility," it's a question of remembering what happened and reflecting on hte lives lost.
n/t.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)I expected him to be in support of this it is only decency I would be shocked by anyone who did not support this, however I am also disgusted by those who would wish to turn this into a political event also
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Israeli officials were underwhelmed Monday by a surprise tribute the International Olympic Committee paid at London's Olympic Village to the 11 Israeli athletes killed at the 1972 Munich games.
A ceremony that nobody knew about or paid attention to is not what Jerusalem was looking for, said one diplomatic official.
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Israeli officials had said that they wanted the event marked not at some side ceremony, but rather at the opening ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people and watched by hundreds of millions more around the globe.
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Spitzer and Romano, who will board a flight to London on Tuesday, speculated the last-minute ceremony was a bid to preempt a press conference they plan to hold on Wednesday where they will reiterate their demand that their loved ones be honored at the opening ceremony this Friday.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=278609
while for the widows of the athletes killed 40 years ago no doubt this is a very personal memorial , the very wording of the Israeli government show that perhaps it wants something closer to a political spectacle
