Germany marks 40 years since Munich massacre

BERLIN – The Bavarian state government held memorial services on Wednesday in Munich and at the Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, where Black September terrorists on September 5, 1972, attacked Israeli Olympic sportsmen.

The Palestinian attack resulted in the murders of 11 Israelis and a German police officer.

Vice Premier Silvan Shalom traveled to the southern German state to participate in the memorials with a 21-member Israel delegation, including widows and family members of the Israeli victims of the massacre.

Wearing a sky-blue kippa, Shalom cited the continuation of terrorism in connection with the July attack in Bulgaria, where a suicide bomber killed five Israeli tourists and their local driver, and the recent efforts to kill Israelis in India, Georgia, Cyprus and Thailand.

Shalom laid the blame for this squarely on the Islamic Republic. "Iran and its leaders are spreading the terror across the world and denying the Holocaust. Iran is not a problem of Israel, but of the international community,” he said.

"Iran tries to develop an atomic bomb and states that Israel does not have the right to exist. The international community has to be decisive against Iran,” added Shalom.

Current and former members of the Israel Olympic Committee attended the services. Israeli Ambassador Ya’acov Hadas-Handelsman and Tibor Shalev-Schlosser, head of the Israeli Consulate in Munich, appeared at the commemoration events. (...)