May 23, 2012
One-minute video calls for moment of silence at Olympics [VIDEO]
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Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. Photo by Kathrin Möbius
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has created a one-minute video in the campaign to have the Munich 11 remembered at this summer’s Olympic Games in London.
The video, part of the appeal that Israel is calling Just One Minute, asks the International Olympic Committee to have a minute of silence in memory for the Israeli athletes and coaches slain at the 1972 Munich Games by the the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.
“This video is one minute long, the same amount of time we are asking the International Olympic Committee to stop and remember, contemplate and to send a message that the international sporting community will stand against hatred and violence,” Ayalon says in the video.
The IOC rejected an official letter sent from Ayalon asking that the London Games open with the moment of silence honoring the 11 Israelis. In turning down the request, IOC President Jacques Rogge wrote in a letter dated May 15 that “The IOC has officially paid tribute to the memory of the athletes on several occasions. Within the Olympic family, the memory of the victims of the terrible massacre in Munich in 1972 will never fade away.”
The Israel National Olympic Committee will hold its own memorial ceremony during the Games, as it has at every Olympics. Rogge pledged that IOC representatives would attend the ceremony.
Israel has regularly requested a moment of silence at the Olympics; the IOC has consistently turned down that proposal.
“These terrorists did not just target Israelis; they tried to pierce the very spirit and fraternity upon which the Olympic Games were built,” Ayalon said in the video.
