Reacting to reports that the Pan American Gymnastics Confederation will support the participation of “Palestine” in the International Gymnastics Federation, the Venezuelan Jewish community has asked national governmental and sporting authorities to help block this development, the World Jewish Congress reported today.
According to the Latin American branch of the WJC, the president of the Pan American Confederation, Jorge Ochoa, upon his return from the organization’s meeting in Havana, told reporters that the majority of the organization’s affiliated countries would vote for the inclusion of “Palestine” in the international federation.
Participants at the Havana meeting were the national federations of Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Venezuela.
In respons, the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela, the representative body of Venezuelan Jewry and the WJC affiliate here, immediately sent a letter to Dr. Milena Sardi, Minister of Youth in Venezuela, as well as to Domingo Eduardo Vina, president of the National Sports Institute.
The letter, signed by the Jewish Confederation’s president, Walter Czenstochowski, and its secretary-general, Max Kreisler, requests intervention so that the Venezuelan Gymnastics Federation does not lend its supoort to the proposed inclusion of “Palestine.”
The letter denounces the effort to secure membership for “Palestine” as a cover for the PLO, ” the terrorist organization, ” to infiltrate an international organization. The responsibility of the massacre of Israeli athletes by PLO terrorists at the Munich Olympics is recalled in this connection.
LETTER BY THE JEWISH CONFEDERATION
The letter to Sardi and Eduardo Vina states: “When reference is made to the affiliation of Palestine representation, in reality the wish of the PLO — the terrorist organization — to infiltrate an international organization is being covered up. Has the world forgotten the sadly famous ‘activity’ of the PLO during the Munich Olympic Games of 1972?
“It was no accident that precisely during such an event, which was to symbolize the highest degree of fratemization among peoples, the PLO terrorists spoke in the only language valid for them, that of terror and death.
“The Jewish community of Venezuela can only be alarmed at the possibility of the Venezuelan delegation giving its support to the PLO within the International Gymnastics Federation. That is why we are taking the liberty of requesting your intervention so that the Venezuelan Gymnastics Federation should reconsider its attitude and instead act within the spirit which has always characterized our nation.”
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