Belgium calls for Olympic ceremony to commemorate Munich massacre
Flemish sports minister joins officials from Israel, US, Canada and Australia in supporting moment of silence
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THE HAGUE (JTA) — The sports minister of Flanders said he supports commemorating the victims of the 1972 Munich massacre during the London 2012 Olympics.
In a letter this week to Joods Actueel, Belgium’s main Jewish publication, the sports minister of the Flemish region, Philippe Muyters, wrote that “I am sympathetic to the proposal that IOC president Jacques Rogge should hold a commemorative ceremony during the 2012 Olympics in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes who, along with a German police officer, were killed during a hijacking.”
The International Olympic Committee has declined requests to hold a moment of silence in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches who were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympics in Munich.
Rogge, the IOC president, was born in Ghent, in Belgium’s semi-autonomous Flemish region.
Muyters added that “one does not need to take a stand on the Israeli-Palestinian question to find the events of September 1972 heinous.”
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has also spoken in favor of holding the ceremony, along with American and Canadian lawmakers and Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Ankie Rechess, a Dutch-Israeli journalist, launched an international campaign in April and a petition asking for the commemoration ceremony. Her husband, Andre Spitzer, was killed in the Munich Olympics, which he attended as a coach for the Israeli delegation.
The Times of Israel Community.