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This petition is sponsored by the JCC Rockland and Ankie Spitzer

Minute of Silence at the 2012 London Olympics.

To Dr. Jacques Rogge

I just signed the following petition addressed to: International Olympic Committee.

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Minute of Silence at the 2012 London Olympics.

Tell the International Olympic Committee: 40 Years is Enough!

At the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, eleven members of the Israeli team were murdered. For forty years their families have asked the International Olympic Committee to observe a minute of silence, in their memory.

We are asking for one minute of silence for the memory of the eleven Israeli athletes, coaches and referees murdered at the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich. Just one minute — at the 2012 London Summer Olympics and at every Olympic Game, to promote peace.

These men were sons; fathers; uncles; brothers; friends; teammates; athletes. They came to Munich in 1972 to play as athletes in the Olympics; they came in peace and went home in coffins, killed in the Olympic Village and during hostage negotiations.

The families of the Munich 11 have worked for four decades to obtain recognition of the Munich massacre from the International Olympic Committee. We have requested a minute of silence during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics starting with the ’76 Montreal Games. Repeatedly, these requests have been turned down. The 11 murdered athletes were members of the Olympic family; we feel they should be remembered within the framework of the Olympic Games.

We are asking again to be heard in time for the 2012 London Summer Olympics. In 2010 JCC Rockland, New York contacted me and offered their help and made it their mission for their 2012 JCC Maccabi Games to honor the Munich 11 through multiple events as well as spearheading this petition.

Silence is a fitting tribute for athletes who lost their lives on the Olympic stage. Silence contains no statements, assumptions or beliefs and requires no understanding of language to interpret.

We have no political or religious agenda. Just the hope that my husband and the other men who went to the Olympics in peace, friendship and sportsmanship are given what they deserve. One minute of silence will clearly say to the world that what happened in 1972 can never happen again. Please do not let history repeat itself.

For Andrei Spitzer and the others killed, we must remember the doctrine of the Olympic Spirit, “to build a peaceful and better world which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play," is more powerful than politics.

40 years is long enough to wait.

Thank you. The Undersigned.



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[Your name]

RememberThe11.com is an initiative that aims to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre, during which 11 Israeli Olympians were taken hostage and murdered by Palestinian PLO terrorists known as Black September at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Since those tragic events, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has hesitated to commemorate the 11 Israeli lives lost during an Olympic Games. It has refused to conduct a moment of silence during the Opening Ceremonies of this year's Olympic Games in London, claiming that such an endeavor would only politicize this year's event and the Olympics in general. RememberThe11 aims to shed light on the IOC's inaction as a means of politicizing the event -- a moment of silence would demonstrate that the Olympic Games are no place for terror and murder. Those who lost their lives during the Olympic Games must be honored by the IOC. Through your voices and actions, RememberThe11 will bring this matter to the IOC's attention.

"For people like me who have experienced the pain of loss at the hands of barbaric terrorists, it is doubly painful when our loss is ignored. Terrorism is everyone's problem. Responding to it with calm, dignified resoluteness sends a message. The terrorists (and there are many more today than 40 years ago) must know that civilized society utterly rejects their claims and their tactics. Collective silence is an appropriate way to articulate that."

Arnold Roth, Father of Keren Malki, murdered by Palestinian terrorists in a suicide bombing at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, August 9, 2001.