MUMBAI — Presenting Monday to the International Olympic Committee at its 141st assembly, Casey Wasserman, chair of the LA28 organizing committee, said, “I unequivocally stand in solidarity with Israel.
“But let me be clear. I also stand with the innocent civilians in Gaza who did not choose this war.”
Wasserman’s remarks marked part of a stirring one-two combo in which he and former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, now the U.S. ambassador to India, served noticed that sports and politics assuredly do mix.
U.S. Ambassador to India and former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, left, and LA28 chair Casey Wasserman meeting reporters after the LA28 presentation
Garcetti, who as a kid growing up in Los Angeles and then as mayor has loved the Olympics in a way he consistently has been able to express with tremendous soul, did so again Monday. He said, following Wasserman, referring to the power of the movement:
“I feel that I can see the world as we imagine it. When we close our eyes and wish for something but at the moment when this world needs us, I thank you for cross borders and cultures and languages. Representing something bigger than each one of ourselves.
“We can’t wait to welcome you to Los Angeles to write this next chapter of this Olympic movement and its impact on human history.”
The core role of the Olympics in our fragile and broken world is to try to build a more peaceful world. That can only work if, if, the right people do the right thing. That is, if leadership comes forth with the courage to say and do the right words, even when there unequivocally are going to be critics, as there were Monday in the IOC assembly.
The very first comment from the floor after Wasserman and the rest of the LA28 contingent finished? “I thought the political content tended to overshadow the sport content,” Pakistan’s Syed Shahid Ali, a member since 1996, said.
The IOC president, Thomas Bach, has made much during his presidency of the special role the Games and the Olympic movement’s role can undertake in helping to forge connection, dialogue and, in the end, perhaps a path toward peace. The 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang saw the unified North and South Korean teams, for instance; that marked an IOC triumph.
Bach, who is German, has also successfully moved to effect reconciliation with, in particular, the widows of the 1972 Munich Games attack — which saw Palestinian terrorists attack and murder 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
As IOC president, Bach has proven exceptionally sensitive to nuances of realpolitik. Time and again, he has proven his skill at this diplomatic art. Wasserman is also skilled. The difference is, Wasserman can be given to practicing a more robust version of political speech. Sometimes, as was obvious again Monday, this can spark tension with the IOC president.
For his part, Wasserman was steadfast.
“Sports organizations are role models,” Wasserman told reporters after the LA28 presentation. “And they are, in many ways, beacons of hope. And I think it’s important for organizations to stand up and talk about human rights and opportunity and excellence and, you know, have a stance.
“I think it’s naive to think that we’re immune to these things as sports organizations as athletes.” He smiled. “As business executives.
“And so I felt the responsibility.”
In September 2022, Bach made a trip to the Mideast. Visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Bach said, “This is the unwavering commitment of the entire Olympic movement: we will do everything we can do to ensure that this can never be repeated.”
Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7. More than 1,300 Israelis were slain in acts of mass killing, most civilians.
The parallels with what happened in World War II with the Nazi Einsatzgruppen are unavoidable. For 80 years, the slogan has been, never again. Now we have again — in 2023, Jews rounded up and killed, simply for being Jews.
Now put yourself in Bach’s position.
On the one hand, it would be easy enough to take a bright-line stance, as many U.S, sports entities, leagues and clubs, have done since Oct. 7, particularly when the record shows you on record as saying this very thing can never be repeated.
On the other, there is indeed a compelling argument that the demands of realpolitik, the realities of serving as president of the International Olympic Committee, command a more nuanced response. Further, while there is little doubt Wasserman commands a certain audience of considerable significance, Bach’s audience is — different. It just is. And there is no doubt, none, that Bach means well in this context because he has a proven record of doing right by Israeli and Jewish friends, of trying to do right, some significant amount of which never sees the press. He deserves a significant measure of grace.
This is what Bach said here:
"The members of the IOC Executive Board expressed our very strong feelings at the very beginning when we came together here at our working dinner on the eve of the Executive Board meeting, and expressed our deepest sympathy with the innocent victims of this terrible violence.
"It continued at the very beginning of our meetings yesterday morning.
"We have been in contact on the day these incidents and terrible violence started … with the president and the secretary general of the Israeli NOC,” its national Olympic committee.
"There have been contacts also with private friends over all these days."
Consider, too, that the IOC, traditionally Eurocentric, is perhaps one of the most non-Jewish internationally oriented organizations on Planet Earth. The room Wasserman was speaking to Monday held only a handful of other Jews, among them Garcetti and Yael Arad, the about-to-be new member from Israel. Alex Gilady, the longtime Israeli IOC member, died in April 2022.
Wasserman began his remarks by observing that Los Angeles is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the United States — Southern California is the second-largest, behind greater New York — and, he said, “many of our Jewish families escaped persecution from all parts of the world.”
His own family, Wasserman said, fled to the United States from pogroms in what is now Ukraine. If not for their escape, he said, “I would not be standing here today.”
He added, “Now, nearly 100 years later, I am deeply concerned about the people of Ukraine. We must help them in their time of need. They face an unfathomable path without us.”
He said, “I’m proud to be Jewish, as is the former mayor of Los Angeles, now the American ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, who is here with us today.”
Wasserman said, “There are no words that can fully capture the devastation and shock over the massacre in Israel on October 7. The world is still reeling from the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
“There is no justification for this organization’s taking of hostages and the slaughter of innocent lives.”
A few moments later, Guy Drut, the French hurdles champion who for years has been an IOC member, reminded the assembly that he was in Munich in 1972. “I subscribe to the words said by Casey,” Drut said, recalling the “sad events” which “cost the lives of our Israeli friends — our brothers from Israel, I should say.”
Wasserman also urged all to recall the Olympics at their “best,” when the world comes together in “peace and unity.” And, he said, “We will always remember the triumph of Jesse Owens in 1936 in the face of unspeakable evil.”
“So,” he said, “as stewards of this movement, let us all be relentless and show what is possible when we understand each other and our differences and embrace those challenges at times with respect and dignity. The world has never needed the Olympic Games more to be a beacon of light and hope and let us all rise to the challenge together.”