Washington, DC--Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) slammed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for continuing their refusal of a minute of silence to honor the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Games by Palestinian terrorists.  Rep. Engel is a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and co-sponsor (with Rep. Nita Lowey) of H.Res 663, calling for the IOC to have a minute of silence at the London Games this week.

“Have the Palestinians become totally unmoored?  In 2010, they honored Dalal Mughrabi, who, in 1978, massacred 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, by naming a square after her.  Now, they are objecting to a minute of silence to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the terrorist murders of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics?  I ask them:  What should the world understand from these sad and bizarre positions?  Should we conclude that the Palestinian infatuation with terrorism has finally come to a close?  Or, is it painfully clear that their love affair with the mass murders of civilians – even after all of these years of peace talks – is still not over?  Unfortunately, I think the answer is obvious.”

“I have said that if any other country had their athletes brutally murdered by terrorists on Olympic soil, the IOC would have had multiple minutes of silence over the years in subsequent games.  I fear that the IOC won’t memorialize the Munich 11 at the Opening Ceremonies in London because they were Israeli, and the IOC has bent over backwards to pander to the Arab world.  Now that the Palestinian Authority has officially thanked the IOC for their choice to ignore their murdered athletes, I think the IOC should be utterly ashamed of themselves.  So much for the Olympic spirit. ” 

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