By Eldad Beck
Submitted by correspondent Tom Ifrach
BERLIN – Germany joins a long list of leading politicians and advocacy groups calling for a moment of silence during the 2012 Olympic Games in London, in order to commemorate the 11 Israeli athletes who were massacred by Palestinian terrorists in the 1972 Munich Games.
Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle sent a letter to the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, urging him to hold a moment of silence, during the opening ceremony of this summer's games in London, to mark 40 years since the Munich massacre.
The IOC last month scotched any possibility of a tribute to the athletes, claiming that politics and sports should not be mixed.
"Holding a moment of silence in memory of the fallen Israeli athletes during the London Olympics will count as a kind humanitarian gesture and will send the message that violence and terror do not comply with the Olympic idea," said Westerwelle.
"The 1972 Munich massacre should not cast a shadow on the London Olympic Games, yet neither should it be forgotten," he added.
"The tragic terrorist attack that took place in Germany forty years ago was directed not only at the Israeli Olympic team, but was rather an attack on the Olympic Games and the Olympic idea of promoting peace and mutual understanding among the nations," he said, adding that "Germany looks back on the tragedy with deep regret and anguish."
"This was a tragedy that should not have happened and cannot happen again," he added.
Meanwhile, Germany's Green Party has recently raised demands which call to form a special committee which will be tasked with probing the 1972 massacre in all its aspects – the preparation, the execution and the outcome. Information regarding the committee's findings has yet to be released.
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Canada lawmakers want minute for
Munich Olympic dead
Source: YNet News
Canadian lawmakers on Thursday unanimously passed a motion calling for a minute of silence at the London Olympic Games to honor Israeli athletes killed at the Munich Games in 1972.
The spectacular hostage-taking by Palestinian militants from the Black September organization at the Olympic Village in Munich climaxed in the killing of 11 Israelis and a German policeman as well as five militants.
The International Olympic Committee last month scotched any possibility of a tribute to the athletes killed by Palestinian militants, but Canadian MPs said the 40th anniversary of the tragedy should be recognized.
In Ottawa, the House of Commons unanimously adopted the measure put forth by the Liberal Party to remember the "tragic terrorist events of the 1972 Munich Olympics wherein 11 Israeli athletes were murdered."
"Civil society groups and political leaders around the world have been calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremony of the London Games," said Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who proposed the motion.
"I am delighted that the Canadian parliament is the first to unanimously support this call."
The Israeli government wrote to the IOC in April to ask that the Games begin with a moment of silence, but the IOC said while there would be some form of commemoration; it would not come during the opening ceremony.
"The IOC has regularly commemorated the 1972 tragedy and will do so once more in London at a ceremony during the Games, but there will not be a minute's silence in the opening ceremony," an IOC spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the decision had been taken by the IOC in concert with the Israeli National Olympic Committee and that it had been relayed to the Israeli government by IOC president Jacques Rogge.
As during every Summer Olympics, the Israeli Olympic committee will organize a memorial and Rogge will take part, as he did in the 2008 Games in Beijing, the spokesperson added.
