AS I SEE IT COLUMN: The stain on the Paris Olympics

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This article was published 27/07/2024 (193 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For all the idealist virtues of peace and harmony and human rights suffused into the Olympic movement, the Paris games that begin this week have a dark moral stain on them.

Allowing Israel to compete in the Olympics, given the atrocities and crimes against humanity Israel commits against the people of Palestine in Gaza on an hourly basis, is a sad and disturbing moral failing of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

At time of writing there have been nearly 40,000 deaths in Gaza – more than half are children and women – while there have been 1,200 deaths in Israel. In addition to this staggering, inhumane and grotesquely disproportional death toll, Israel’s blockage of humanitarian aid to the starving people of Gaza, their bombing of refugee camps where Palestinians were told to flee to by Israel, the continual bombing of civilian infrastructure (hospitals, schools, roads, homes, apartments, stores, power grids, etc.) are the very definitions of war crimes.

At the last Olympics the IOC banned Russian athletes from competing because of its immoral war against Ukraine. (In Paris, Russian athletes will be allowed to compete but they can’t wear official Russian uniforms and the Russian flag will not be flown if they win a medal. This loosening of the moral entry requirements is not a good look for the IOC.)

The logic of allowing Israel to compete in Paris doesn’t add up. If Russia was banned from the Olympics for the death and destruction it has wrought on Ukraine, shouldn’t Israel be banned for the death and destruction it has wrought on Gaza?

That’s like former president Trump saying he is defending democracy when in actual fact he led an attempt to violently overthrow democracy, where several people died and 141 police officers were seriously injured.

To put it another way, the IOC’s double standard regarding the admissibility of Russia and Israel just doesn’t make any sense.

There are eight Palestinian athletes competing in the Paris Olympics, under the banner of the Palestinian Territories. Paris will mark the eighth time since the 1996 Atlanta Games that Palestinians have participated in the Olympics.

Look for that Palestinian delegation to get a roaring applause during the opening ceremonies Friday night and in the events they are competing in.

At the other end of that emotional spectrum, it seems highly likely that when Israel’s athletes march into the opening ceremonies they will be booed mercilessly. Some French politicians have called for Israel to be banned and an enormous number of people in France signed a petition asking that Israel not be allowed to participate in the Paris Olympics. (Olympic rules forbid athletes from making political gestures but those rules do not apply to the French fans in the stands.)

The French hostility to Israel’s presence in the Paris games won’t be limited to the opening ceremonies. The French sentiment against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza is extremely high, and the French fans at the various Olympic venues will likely make these games extremely difficult for Israeli athletes.

The Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of the human spirit and a showcase of human potential. How fast can we run? How high can we jump? In previous eras the Olympics held such moral sway that countries stopped their wars to allow the games to go on.

It is not antisemitic to call for Israel’s ban from the Olympics. If Bangladesh or Sweden or Costa Rica were doing to a neighbouring country what Israel is doing to Gaza, the world would be equally aghast.

There is no moral universe where the killing of 20,000 innocent children and women can be justified as self-defense. The World Court has determined that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza. Sadly, over 400 Palestinian national athletes, volunteers and sports workers have been killed by Israel.

The IOC has never given a detailed explanation for their double standard of banning Russia for its war but not banning Israel for its war.

Israel should not be allowed to join the international sporting community in the Olympics. And because the IOC has allowed Israel to compete in Paris, these Olympic games will forever have a moral stain.