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Friday, July 27, 2012

Are Olympics Meeting Modern Goal of Promoting Peace?

Nadene Goldfoot
It may mean nothing to the IOC but it means something to Israel and many Jews all over the world that this Olympics 2012 is the 40th year since the massacre of 1972's 11 Israeli athletes in Munich's summer games and that there has never been a recognition of  one minute of silence to honor them at an Olympic event.  The IOC has refused to do so this year.  Most of us feel that the refusal comes from being that the massacred were Israelis and that this is a slap in the face.  The officials do not dare to offend the many Muslims who will be there as well by recognizing a terrible fate that Israelis suffered by their attendance; being killed for being Israeli Jews by Palestinian Arab terrorists.  The war had followed these innocents to the Olympics.  It was really a slap in the face to the Olympics that the event was used to get recognition by terrorists.

New York City, hit with the refusal, including President Obama's demand that the International Olympic Committee hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremony, decided to do it on their own in New York, and so they have.  Ambassador Ido Aharoni, Consul General of Israel in New York was joined by other Jewish and community leaders and elected officials in honor of the 11 Israeli Olympians.  Avi Melamed was a survivor of the 1972 Israeli Olympic swim team and was there.  He told about attendees about the horrific event, having been there himself.  Munich, Bavaria is in southern West Germany.  Two were shot and killed immediately The remaining 9 were taken hostage and  were then killed by the Black September terrorists.

Of all the contestants, Israel manages to come out each time amid danger for their lives.  This doesn't happen to other athletes.  It isn't what the Olympics were created for so long ago in Greece.


But the egotism and amorality are still apparent from the ancient days; as is the antipathy for Jews.
Some still alive remember the summer Games of 1936 in Berlin, which Adolph Hitler exploited to help promote the Third Reich's image. 


Lebanon's Judo team is refusing to train alongside the Israeli team today and are demanding a curtain screen to be erected so that they don't have to see them.  Iran said they would compete with Israel, which they had refused to do before, but now are withdrawing that statement and most likely won't.  .

Another slap in the face to Israel is the IOC not recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but listing the Palestinian "capital as East Jerusalem."  Have the Palestinians taken over Jerusalem now?  Unfortunately, the UN must be said to be the blame of this, but it isn't how Israel sees it.  To an Israeli, Jerusalem is and always has been and will be the capital of Israel.  It's like they had said that New York City was the capital of the USA.  Let's just forget about old George Washington and all that ancient history.

According to the Olympic philosophy, sport is being used as a means of educating people to good sportsmanship, sense of fair play, and respect for fellow athletes that comes from the participation.  It teaches men and women of different races, religions and nationalities to work peacefully together in competition toward common goals.  The Olympic Movement works to expand such lessons beyond the sports arena in the hope of promoting peace and a sense of brotherhood throughout the world!  These are excellent goals but are missing the mark with people who are non-compliant in learning them.

Their creed or guiding principal is: " The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.  The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."  This is a quote form Baron de Couberlin.  This is really not followed up by the big nations who brag about how many gold medals their athletes bring home.  The pressure is on them to win.  

The Olympic symbol of the 5 interlocking colored rings  represent the continents of North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.  They symbolize the uniting of athletes from all over the world to compete at the Olympics.

The flame that is carried on the torch symbolizes the continuity between the ancient games starting in Greece to modern days.  The runners carry a burning torch brought from the Temple of Zeus in Olympia and it is carried overland from Greece by a relay of athletes.  It is used to light the flame in a giant torch, or cauldron in London, which will burn for the duration of the Games.  The flame was first used in the 1928 Games.

The Olympic flag's plain white background  is symbolic of peace throughout the games.

"Yael Arad delivered a silver medal, Israel’s first-ever medal, at the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992, 500 years — almost to the day — after the Jews were evicted from Spain…on Tisha B’Av. It was a stunning way to say to the Spanish people, “We’re baaack,” and to cap a century of nation-building that began with Herzl."

Resource:http://www.jcrcny.org/
 http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/athens_games/principles.htm
http://australianjoeyscouts1.4t.com/olympic/rings.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/files-show-neo-nazis-helped-palestinian-terrorists-in-munich-1972-massacre-a-839467.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece_at_the_Olympics
http://www.torah.org/features/holydays/nonolympicflame.html
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005680  1936 Olympics in Germany
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/olympic-dreams-jewish-nightmares-and-herzls-normalcy/

3 comments:

Nadene Goldfoot said...

Nadene, I understand that Italy stood for a minute{?] of silence re Munich’72 before entering the stadium. I hope there is a way to thank the Italian Olympic team for what they did.
Ian

Nadene Goldfoot said...

Thank you, Italy. Your thoughtfulness has been recognized and appreciated.
Nadene

Nadene Goldfoot said...

On Sunday, approximately 30 members of the Italian Olympic team held their own moment of silence to remember the slain athletes outside the Israeli team’s quarters.

And then there is Fabien Gilot, a member of France’s 4x100-meter freestyle swimming team that won the gold medal, raised his arm in celebration after the win, revealing a tattoo on his inner left bicep in Hebrew that read, “I am nothing without them.”

The tattoo is a tribute to his grandmother’s Jewish husband, Max Goldschmidt, a Holocaust survivor who greatly influenced his life (yet, unfortunately, passed away earlier this year). Gilot himself is not Jewish.