Bipartisan moment of silence for Munich victims

July 27, 2012 Leave a comment

Members of Congress hold a moment of silence for the Munich 11 on July 26, 2012

Members of Congress hold a moment of silence for the Munich 11 on July 26, 2012

By Lauren Appelbaum, Political Director

Washington, July 27 – Fifteen  members of Congress representing both parties held a minute of silence Thursday to honor the 11 Israelis killed during the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre and called on the International Olympic Committee to remember these victims of Palestinian terrorism during tonight’s Opening Ceremony of the London games.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a simple message to the IOC: “Do the right thing.”

“For 40 years, the IOC has refused to hold a moment of silence at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in memory of the 11 Israeli Olympians – including an American citizen, David Mark Berger – murdered by violent extremists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich,” she said.

“We know why the IOC has refused: Because the murdered Olympians were Israelis, and the IOC does not want to draw the ire of foreign governments who still object to the very existence of a Jewish state in the homeland of the Jewish people.”

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Bipartisan support for moment of silence to honor Munich victims

July 26, 2012 2 Comments

An international campaign "Just One Minute" calls for the IOC to hold a moment of silence to remember the 11 Israeli athletes murdered during the Munich Games

An international campaign “Just One Minute” calls for the IOC to hold a moment of silence during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics to remember the 11 Israeli athletes murdered during the Munich Games

By Lauren Appelbaum, Political Director

Washington, July 26 – President Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, along with several governments around the world, have joined the call for the International Olympic Committee to hold a moment of silence during the opening ceremony of this year’s Olympics in London to commemorate the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches – and one German policeman – murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the Munich Olympics 40 years ago.

Romney, who led the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, did not listen to requests for the IOC to observe a moment of silence for the 30th anniversary of the Munich massacre. Now, ahead of a trip that takes him to both England for the Olympics and then Israel, Romney is aligning himself with Obama and officials in several countries who are calling for the IOC to remember the tragedy.

“Gov. Romney supports the moment of silence in remembrance of the Israeli athletes killed in the Munich Olympic Games,” Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Romney, told Reuters in an email on Monday.

Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council spokesman for Obama, told Yahoo News in an email last week that Obama is in support of the moment of silence. ”We absolutely support the campaign for a moment of silence at the Olympics to honor the Israeli athletes killed in Munich.”

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International Olympic Committee urged to honor those murdered at 1972 Games

June 9, 2012 8 Comments

By Lauren Appelbaum, Political Director

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Washington, June 9 -The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed a resolution yesterday urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to recognize with a minute of silence at every future Olympics Opening Ceremony for the 11 Israeli athletes who were taken hostage and killed by Palestinian violent extremists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), a co-sponsor of the legislation, called the IOC’s refusals “indefensible.”

This follows a statement Ros-Lehtinen released on May 18 in response to the IOC’s failure to accede to Israel’s request for a moment of silence at the 2012 Olympic Games to pay tribute to the Israeli athletes. Then she asked a simple question: “Is one minute too much for the IOC to spend in remembrance of 11 innocent lives brutally cut short at the 1972 Games?”

Following Friday’s resolution, Ros-Lehtinen said, “A minute of silence would be a small, well-deserved, and overdue tribute to the brave Olympians and police officer who lost their lives. A minute of silence would also reaffirm Olympic values of honor, harmony, and fraternity, and would be to the credit of the Olympic Games, the IOC, and all Olympians. And so, today, we make the same request of the IOC that is being made by the Israeli government, by the murdered Olympians’ families, and by thousands of people worldwide on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube:  ‘Just – one – minute’.”

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Ros-Lehtinen: “Is one minute too much to spend remembering murdered Israeli Olympians?”

May 21, 2012 2 Comments

By Ashley Gold, Staff Writer

Washington, May 21 - U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released the following statement Friday in response to the International Olympic Committee’s failure to accede to Israel’s request for a moment of silence at the 2012 Olympic Games to pay tribute to the 11 Israeli athletes who were taken hostage and killed by Palestinian violent extremists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich:

Is one minute too much for the IOC to spend in remembrance of 11 innocent lives brutally cut short at the 1972 Games?

At the service the IOC held after the murder of the Israeli Olympians in Munich in 1972, the IOC President failed to even mention them in his remarks.  In the four decades since, the IOC has repeatedly refused to allow a moment of silence in their memory.

All Israel asks for is ‘Just One Minute!’  The memory and families of those brave Olympians deserve much more than that.

I strongly encourage the IOC to reconsider and allow sixty seconds of tribute to be paid to these athletes, who were murdered by violent extremists in a horrific repudiation of the very values of honor, harmony, and fraternity that the Olympics represent.

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