Olympics - the event of Brotherhood?

The Olympics, an event of brotherhood amongst the nations. The symbol's five rings are supposed to represent the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from around the world. But let us look back at darker times.

It is 1936, Germany is controlled by the Nazi Party, and Hitler wants to show the world that the Aryans are the superior race. Germany was awarded the right to hold the Olympics a few years before the Nazis came to power. It was supposed to signal Germany's return to the international community after her defeat in WWI.

Nazi Germany's hate filled anti-Semitic policies led to an international debate about a potential boycott of the games. The International Olympic Committee pressured the German government and received assurances that Jews would be a part of the German team and that the Games would not be used to promote Nazi ideology. But of course the Nazis were not to going to abide by this. They did, however, let a single Jewish athlete take part, Helene Mayer, a fencer, who was only partly Jewish. She was on Germany’s team as a public relations façade to fool the world into thinking Jewish people still had rights in Hitler’s Germany. Of course Goebbels refused to allow the media to talk about here Jewishness.

So now we are in the Olympics and the newly constructed sports complex was draped in Nazi banners and symbols because Hitler wanted to show off. This was going to be the first time the Games were going to be televised. A big feather in Hitler's cap.

 
So the Germans are winning gold medals, until along comes an American runner named Jesse Owens, who won three individual gold medals and a fourth as a member of the triumphant U.S. 4 × 100-metre relay team. The only problem was...Jesse was not white, he was black! What a blow to Hitler’s Aryan ideals of white supremacy. Hitler left before receiving the medal winners and of course the myth is that he left to avoid shaking Jesse's hand. Not nice. Of course today no one shakes hands anymore, we pump fists.

So Germany had supposedly to have changed, at least with regards to Jews, and was awarded the 1972 Olympics. This was supposed to fix the stain of the 1936 Olympics, discarding the military image of Germany and as a result, security was lax, if existing at all. The Munich Summer Olympics opened on August 26, 1972.

On the morning of September 5th, eight Palestinian terrorists, wearing tracksuits and carrying gym bags filled with grenades and assault rifles, breached the Olympic Village at the Summer Games in Munich. The terrorists were a part of a group known as Black September, a faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization; funding for the operation was provided by Mahmoud Abbas, current head of the Palestinian Authority.

As security was so lax, and the lack of armed personnel worried the Israeli delegation, the ski masked terrorists easily entered the apartment complex where the Israeli athletes were staying. Once inside, they murdered two members of the Israeli team and took nine others hostage.

Their demands? In return for the release of the hostages, they demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In those days, unlike today, Israel did not negotiate with terrorists.

When negotiations to free the nine Israelis broke down predictably, the terrorists took the hostages to the Munich airport. Once there, German police opened fire from rooftops and killed three of the terrorists. A gun battle erupted and left the hostages, two more Palestinians and a policeman dead. All of the nine Israeli hostages were killed. I actually know two of the Israeli athletes who were not taken hostage.

The Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the slain athletes.

Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the Israeli Defense Committee authorized a Mossad operation to track down and kill those allegedly responsible for the Munich massacre. This became known as Operation God of Wrath.

The International Olympic Committee regularly rejected demands for a moment of silence for the murdered Israelis, but it was always rejected. 

After 44 years, the IOC finally commemorated the victims of the Munich massacre for the first time in the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics and now in Tokyo, there was a moment of silence for this fiasco.

Unfortunately, even today, when Jews are killed, there is very little international outrage. People need to remember, Jewish Lives Also Matter.

Check out another item for the Olympics - A design error