The Same Anti-semitism: Israeli Athletes Face 2024 Paris Olympics under Threat - Opinion
The 1972 Munich Olympics massacre scarred Jewish history. Now, with Israeli athletes facing death threats ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, it’s clear little has changed.
By: Zina Rakhamilova – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com
The 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre was a moment in history that evokes profound devastation and Jewish trauma. With the recent targeting, threats, and harassment of Israeli athletes leading up to the Paris Olympics, it is evident that in 2024, nothing has changed since those horrific games.
The Munich Olympics were nicknamed die Heiteren Spiele, “the Happy Games,” attempting to overcome the specter of Germany’s previous Olympic Games held in Berlin in 1936. Instead, Jewish people around the world witnessed the murder of their athletes on live television while 900 million viewers watched and did nothing. The world failed us, Germany failed us, and Palestinian terrorists slaughtered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches.
Much like October 7, the Munich massacre demonstrated that cruelty and inhumanity toward Jewish people knows no bounds. Even more disheartening is that this atrocity did not affect the rest of the Olympics; it was business as usual. Despite knowing that Palestinian terrorists were holding Israeli athletes hostage and slaughtering them, Avery Brundage, the president of the Olympic Committee, declared that the games must go on. The parallels between this and October 7 are uncanny.
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