A Suggestion for Israel’s Olympic Delegation: Stop Marching for One Minute
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International Olympic Committee Israel IOC Munich Israel News Israel Olympics Israeli Athletes Jewish News Olympic massacre Israel Olympic Minute of Silence
Aerial photo of the Olympic Park main stadium and Orbit tower under construction. Photo: Baldboris.
In The Hollywood Reporter, Bob Costas – the NBC TV host for the London Olympics – talked about the fact that the International Olympic Committee refused to hold a moment of silence for the victims of the Olympic massacre in Munich 40 years ago:
When the Israeli delegation enters the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium, Costas will stage his own protest: “I intend to note that the IOC denied the request,” he says, modulating his voice as if he were on the air. “Many people find that denial more than puzzling but insensitive. Here’s a minute of silence right now.”
This gave me an idea.
Why doesn’t the Israeli delegation, upon entering the stadium, simply stop in their tracks and stand still for exactly sixty seconds?
Better yet – instead of blindsiding the IOC (not that they deserve any slack), but they should announce today that they intend to hold their own minute of silence.
This way, the IOC can choose to do the right thing – ensure that the music stops playing, put a brief announcement on the screens in the stadium explaining what is happening – or it can be faced with the prospect of the Italy and Ivory Coast delegates crashing into the immobile Israelis they are trying to follow into the stadium.
There is no downside. Arab TV stations will probably cut away for commercials, but besides that the world would not blame Israel one bit.
Israel has gone through the proper channels to ensure that the IOC does the right thing. It didn’t work.
Sometimes, one has to break the rules to do what is right.
6:01 pm
Not only should the Israeli team stop for 60 seconds in remembrance of the slain Olympians but all other democratic countries teams should do the same.
3:37 pm
The idea is wonderful; stop marching for one minute. The Israelis can, as a courtesy, tell those in charge that this is what they’ll be doing, period, in advance, but do it.
If England has not yet learned morality on its own, then they can watch it for a minute and we’ll hope they’ll catch on. If not… tough
8:48 am
Perhaps there could be a compromise? One minute’s silence for the murdered Israeli athletes and one minute of giving thanks to the Palestinians without whom we wouldn’t be protected by all those thousands of soldiers, police and G4S contractors.
7:54 pm
Really, disrupting the games. This is not the way to make a point. Its a terrorist act,itself. Think about it. It terminates communication rather than fostering it. Respect the process,if not the decision.
11:48 pm
@Robert, let’s see. 40 years ago, 11 innocent Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches were murdered in cold blood during the Munich Olympics.
Their families and hundreds of thousands of supporters are demanding one minute of silence–finally–to show respect for their memories. And in your way of thinking this is comparable with “disrupting the games”. Seriously?
You say: “It’s a terrorist act itself”. So now you conflate the proposed Israeli Olympic team’s one minute non-violent protest that the IOC will not allow 60 seconds of respect for those murdered during an Olympics with terrorism.
Oh, please.
And Israel has not even made any decision to do this, it’s Bob Costas’ idea!
Then you write: “Respect the process,if not the decision.”
How leftist, defeatist, appeasing of terrorism of you. How do you respect a decision that has absolutely respectable about it? This is clearly a slap at Israel and the Jewish people, and Bob Costas is brave enough to stand up and protest it himself.
You Go Bob!
12:40 am
“A TERRORIST act?!?” Isn’t that a bit over the top? Israel has been dissed by the historically anti-Semitie IOC, and such a VERY BRIEF statement would send a message – if only that Israel (if no one else) remembers that 40 years ago, on this very same Continent, one of the very first acts of modern-day terrorism was commited – and the whole world watched horrified, but unable to prevent the massacre.
If that offends anyone, TOO DAMN BAD!!
12:27 pm
Terrorism has no place in the Olympics or hate or killing. They are athletes and it does not matter if they are Israelis, Italians, Arabic,or what ever country they are from. That is stupidity what your talking about, politics have little to do with Olympics …. There are other ways to speak out about operation or hate and do it peacefully, not by violence and killing. You just created martyrs out of the athletes. And remember forever and ever they will be our Olympic martyrs. They will never be forgotten! Now you see, violence does not solve anything. The Black Sept. group just made martyrs out of them on Sept 5th out of the athletes who never did anything wrong in their life but be there for brotherly competition not war. But they had a dream of being in the Olympics and that dream had been realized and they died for that dream. They died themselves like cowards, murdering cowards die one dayand they will be in hell forever.
12:41 am
“A TERRORIST act?!?” Isn’t that a bit over the top? Israel has been dissed by the historically anti-Semitie IOC, and such a VERY BRIEF statement would send a message – if only that Israel (if no one else) remembers that 40 years ago, on this very same Continent, one of the very first acts of modern-day terrorism was commited – and the whole world watched horrified, but unable to prevent the massacre.
If that offends anyone, TOO DAMN BAD!!
12:42 am
“A TERRORIST act?!?” Isn’t that a bit over the top? Israel has been dissed by the historically anti-Semitie IOC, and such a VERY BRIEF statement would send a message – if only that Israel (if no one else) remembers that 40 years ago, on this very same Continent, one of the very first acts of modern-day terrorism was commited – and the whole world watched horrified, but unable to prevent the massacre.
If that offends anyone, TOO DAMN BAD!!
9:20 am
i replay to robert sklar……i wish you will never be confronted to a terrorist attack it can happend everywhere and everyone pitty but thats the world today did you forgot all ready new york england spain etc etc its a very lowanswer of you about the one minut of silence to remember the cowerd attack on the israeli who came just to participate like every one else at the olympic games very low
10:37 pm
Excellent idea! And how about a computer worm that makes the (Israeli) cellphone technology in Britain stop working for one minute, at the same time? Maybe that will get London’s attention.