Outrage after French MP says Israelis 'not welcome' at Olympics
Outrage after French MP says Israelis 'not welcome' at Olympics
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 o...
Anti-semitism used to mean “hatred of Jews”. Now it means “daring to question Israel’s murderous leaders”.
Also being anti-Zionist or anti-Israel doesn't mean being anti-Jews. Those are two distinct things. One, being Jew doesn't being being Zionish, second, being Israeli doesn't mean being Jewish.
It's amazing that people question being an anti-zionist. It's a straight-up fascist ideal. That should be the default setting of human beings.
It's basically a giant Venn diagram. You can be one of these things, you can be a combination of them, you can be all three of them, and you can be none of them.
It used to mean negativity toward people/nations of Semetic languages. The morpheme 'semite' is outdated and no longer used for that group of languages either. All in all, it's weird the word is still used and the context it's used in is even weirder.
When antisemitism takes root, it is common for many to be in denial of antisemitism.
Also common to create a subset of Jews that it's acceptable to hate to so that those that wouldn't normally engage in it to be more tolerant of it. In the past it was made acceptable (by you know who!) to hate "Cosmopolitan Jews" so people would tend to look the other way on antisemitism.
Today it has been made to be acceptable to hate "Zionist Jews." And now people that hate "Zionist Jews" are denying that antisemitism exists.
We've seen a marked increase in attacks on synagogues and Jewish owned businesses.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme.
It never hurts to take some time to do some introspection on the feelings you have towards another ethnic and/or religious group.
Even if you don't care for Jews at all and only care about Palestinians, consider how unlikely a movement will be if it's considered to be antisemitic. Denying antisemitism instead of denouncing it isn't really helping anyone.
They're violating the Olympic truce.
They banned Russia for it. Why not Israel?
Obviously, because being the target of a genocide 80 years ago gives you a free pass to do whatever you want forever. Russia's problem is that they've never been hit with a genocide themselves, so they don't get a free pass. /S
You know, all things aside, it's kinda sad people don't even remember anymore that the Nazis weren't just after Jews.
It's funny that, if it was a numeric question, more Russians died in WW2 than Jews.
Because there are still a lot of genocidal apologists that influence political opinion. Especially in the US.
Russia is banned because of doping
No, the current ban is because they invaded Ukraine during the Olympic truce. The doping ban was on specific athletes I believe.
If it's okay to exclude Russians from sport then it's okay to exclude Israelis.
If it's wrong to exclude Israelis then it's wrong to exclude Russians.
Yup, unfortunately global politics are such bullshit that Zelensky has to support Israel
Sure it's not the propaganda you're reading that's not bullshit?
There's a lot of people on the internet that say Zelenskyy is a Nazi. There's a lot of people that say Netanyahu is a Nazi. What determines what is true and what is false for you? Is it determined solely by what you have the most exposure to on social media?
To be fair I don't think Russians are excluded because of their "special military operation". I'm pretty sure it's because they always cheated with performance enhancing drugs.
Poorly hidden ones for sure
Russians are excluded because of doping smartass....
They are not. Currently Russian and Belarusian athlete are invited as Individual Neutral Athletes because of the Ukrainian war.
Wrong
Sure they could do that. But to say "they aren't welcome here" after it's been decided they should be there given what happened in the 1972 Olympic games? Is he trying to make that happen again?
Also the 50th anniversary of what happened in the 1972 Olympics happened between the last games and this one. It's the Olympics and they do all kinds of ceremonial type shit. Kinda awkward when they can't do ceremonial type shit about remembering the athletes that died when Palestinian terrorists took them hostage and killed them... because of an ongoing war which was started when Palestinian terrorists took Israelis hostages and killed many more.
Or is it that any mention of the 11 Isrealis killed in the Munich Olympics are also not welcome at the Olympics today? Is hatred of Israelis retroactive now?
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.
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?
That's because France and Germany have the largest Muslim populations in Europe. Turns out, they don't like their fellow man being murdered indiscriminately.
Or simply because genocide bad ? I'm not Muslim but would clearly welcome some sanctions
Didn't you know? Your "fellow man" is the same religion &/or ethnicity as you (not your exact gender. That would be crazy talk). It's impossible to view yourself as a global citizen, the entire human species as your fellow man, all life on Earth as your relatives, or all matter in the universe "same same, but different" forms of energy.
Tbh we have a large Muslim population in Germany but we don’t miss out on any opportunity to shit on them in any European country with large Muslim migrant population. We don’t really treat them as equals in a sense that their voices are usually ignored and they are being patronized as you could see with issues like female athletes from France not being allowed to use their right of religious freedom (hijab ban).
I’m surprised that there come such clear words from France and I hope they stick to this.
'* fellow muslim
Can we as a species fucking please stop being outraged when somebody says something that's absolutely crystal clear obvious from their point of view and not a surprise in the least?
There's a distinction between someone arguing whether or not Isrealis should be allowed to attend the games as part of a decision making process and this kind of statement after the decision has been made.
Israelis are competing in the Olympics, that decision was made.
So what does it accomplish when this guy says "Israelis aren't welcome here"? It's not influencing government policy, the decision has been made. So who is he trying to influence then? What is he trying to influence them to do?
For those that don't know history (or read articles) 11 Israeli athletes were killed in the 1972 Munich Olympics. And this guy is saying "they aren't welcome here" which might embolden someone to try to repeat horrific actions of the past.
Israel is an apartheid state, currently committing genocide. Why do they get to go to the Eurovision and the Olympics when Russia, another state engaging in genocide, don't? Israel doesn't deserve to go to the Olympics. It's really as simple as that.
Sometimes decisions are incorrect.
Bulldozing settlements for 20 years may do that too, but Israel didn't care enough about repercussions to stop taking Palestinians land.
I get your point about the decision being made already, but to say no.criticism.is allowed because of something that happened 50 years ago is simply absurd.
Him being French we can never rule out that his English is simply not good enough and he meant something very different?
Why do you think he said it in English? He said it in French and the news translated it.
Non, la délégation israélienne n’est pas la bienvenue à Paris. Les sportifs israéliens ne sont pas les bienvenus aux Jeux olympiques à Paris.
Outrage is to support Lab Rat experiments on a human scale. -_-
I'm downvoting every Israel/Palestine story. I'm just sick of it, from all sides. The posters, the graffiti, speeches in congress, everything. Keep that holy war shit in the holy-war-designated-area please.
I'd like to request my tax dollars stay the fsck out of religious conflict as well. This has been going on for thousands of years. I don't believe in unicorns and leprechauns but I do believe there are many serious issues to solve that have nothing to do with imaginary deities.
If you agree with Israel, then they're being unjustly accused of genocide while they defend themselves. That is something that needs to be talked about.
If you don't, then Israel is committing genocide, and that needs to be screamed from the roof tops.
I mean, fuck SpaceCowboy, cause they're defending a genocide, but they absolutely should be talking about it, based upon their professed beliefs.
What if I agree with neither of them? What if I can't avoid the thought that if either of them wanted peace, this conflict would've ended a long time ago? My criticism of both sides is the same. If either of them truly cared about the innocent on the other side to even 10% of the degree they care about their own, their actions would be completely different.