The new Olympic (IOC) President is Chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was set up in the 1970s by Arab countries to boycott trade with Israel and even issued certificates indicating that no parts of products were made in Israel until German trade regulation forbade the process, according to the Jewish Journal.
Thomas Bach also supported the refusal of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), led by Jacques Rogge, to hold a moment of silence during the 2012 Summer Olympics for the 40th anniversary of the murder of nine Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Games, according to the Jewish Journal. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is calling on Bach to quit the group.
According to AJC, they are calling for Bach to leave Ghorfa because it helps German companies ensure that products meet the import requirements of Arab governments, some of which ban products and services from Israel, and continues to issue certificates of German origin for trade with Arab countries.
Bach won the position with support from Charlotte Knobloch, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who came to his aid prior to the vote by saying he “stands for central values such as tolerance, fairness — sportsmanship in the best sense of the word — and cosmopolitanism.”