A ceremony in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by PLO terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics was held Monday evening in Beijing's Olympic Village. As in past years, the Israeli Olympic Committee and the Israeli Foreign Ministry arranged the memorial on their own.
Hundreds of people attended the event, held at the Hilton hotel in Beijing, including foreign diplomats and Olympic representatives. Taking part in the memorial from Israel were Minister of Science, Culture and Sport Ghaleb 
Hundreds of people attended the event.
Majadele, members of the current Israeli Olympic delegation and the Israeli Olympic Committee, Israel's representative to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and ambassador to China Amos Nadai.
Among the IOC representatives in attendance were the head of the German Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, and former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, as well as a number of Olympic delegates from other nations. Current IOC president Jacques Rogge was in Hong Kong on Monday and unable to attend the Beijing event.
On September 4, 1972, a Fatah terrorist front group going under the name of Black September infiltrated the Olympic Village in Germany and took 11 Israeli athletes hostage. After negotiations, a botched rescue attempt led to the deaths of the bound Israeli captives. The mastermind of the Munich attack, Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, or Abu Daoud, revealed in a 1999 memoir that current Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas handled the financing for the Munich attack.
Since the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the Israeli delegation to the Games has held a memorial for the fallen athletes. The IOC has yet to take part in sponsoring the event or in officially marking the anniversary of the attacks in any way.
"We should have had this memorial in front of all the athletes, sponsored by the IOC," said Ankie Spitzer, widow of fencing coach Andre Spitzer. "This is not an Israeli issue. This concerns the whole Olympic family."
The widow of weightlifter Yosef Romano, Ilana, called on the IOC to "recognize those murdered as sons of the Olympic movement." Israel's next memorial ceremony for the 1972 Olympic delegation should be held "under the Olympics' five-ring banner," Romano said.
PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas handled the financing for the Munich attack.
In her words to the assembled IOC delegates, Spitzer commented that "nations that are not willing to condemn terrorism openly or refuse to compete against other nations because of their nationality or race or religion - they should not be part of the Olympics. It's contrary to the Olympic ideal."
In a brief speech, Samaranch called the Munich Massacre, as it came to be known, "the blackest event in the long history of the Olympic Games." The murder of 11 "athletes, coaches and judges of your country who came to the Olympic Games to compete in peace and harmony" was "an event that the world and the Olympic movement will never forget," he said.
"We will not allow terror to triumph," declared Israel Olympic Committee President Zvi Varshaviak, adding that the attack was targeted at Israelis, but all Olympic athletes "continue their path" by continuing to take part in the Games.
One Day in September is the Academy award winning film which documented the Munich Olympic Massacre. The film offers evidence to the allegation that the rescue operation was poorly planned and executed. For example, the snipers at the airport were not prepared and were poorly positioned. The film implies that had the German government prepared better, the athletes might have been saved.
Former Mossad Director Zvi Zamir, who was present at the airport during the final gunfight, is interviewed about his views on the failed rescue and expresses shock at the amateur fashion in which the operation was carried out.