A French hard-left MP sparked a political row Sunday by saying Israeli athletes were not welcome at the Paris Olympics because of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which one senior minister said had "hints of anti-Semitism".In a post on X, Arfi branded Portes's comments "irresponsible" and accused him of "legitimising Hamas", the Palestinian militant group whose October 7 attacks on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
There are quite large protests going on in Israel at the moment because a bunch of Israelis don’t want Netanyahu and his cronies. What percentage of the population that is, I dunno, but IMO it’s not negligible. Banning Israel from the games would be quite symbolic though, so I’m not sure where exactly I stand on the issue.
Israeli athletes could be made to compete under a neutral designation similar to Russian athletes.
Yeah, I guess that’s a good solution. Then they aren’t barred from participation after all their training and Israel doesn’t get recognition. It gets my vote, even if it’s useless.
Think about it this way, would you be cool with apartheid South Africa? Or Nazi Germany? I don’t know if they played in the games. But with hindsight I’m pretty sure, or at least hope, that most of us would answer with an emphatic NO. History will not look kindly on Israel. People say this issue is ‘complicated’. The only reason it’s complicated is because there are people trying to find common middle ground with genocide advocates, and of course it’s going to be complicated, because finding common ground with a genocidal ideology when you are a moral person is fucking impossible.
Nazi Germany hosted the games. But apartheid south Africa was not invited
This made me laugh. Reality satirises itself
Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics in 1936. They were still a vile regime but the war and the slaughter of jews hadn’t started yet.
The protests are not against the war though. They are against the government not bringing back the hostages and against the inconveniences of not being able to return to home. If the government can manage to commit genocide on Palestinians without any inconveniences to the Jewish Israeli citizens then most of them would be fine with that.
Why should we be worried about the feelings of representatives of countries that are actively engaged in atrocities?