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’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.
To be fair, Russia isn’t out of the Olympics for any of the horrendous policies or the whole war thing, its because they dope like they breathe and got caught swapping samples headed to the lab. Israel hasn’t tried any of that stuff (yet), so they’re still A-OK 🙄
The commentators have repeatedly said Russia and Belarus are both banned this year due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Just, They dope like crazy but I guess in Olympic speak that just means they can’t fly the Russian flag.
The original comment is that Israeli athletes are already here on the Olympics, and the only thing this can achieve now is drive hostility to those who arrived. This is dangerous.
If you welcomed the athletes, make sure they are safe and can focus on training and competing.
And my comment points out that it was the wrong decision to allow them here.
The idea that the “only” thing it can achieve is to drive hostility to those who have arrived is an untested assertion. For example, how about the majority of French people who are horrified at Israel’s policies? They are given voice by this statement.
I would argue that allowing Israel to compete as though nothing is wrong is more dangerous, because ten times as many people are murdered in Palestine per week than there are Israeli athletes in Paris, none of whom are likely to die even if this statement whips the entire country into a murderous rage.
It’s just a general assertion that if you let a person in your country, you treat them as anyone else.
Besides, those athletes have done nothing wrong except being born in a country whose leadership decided to go full bloody. They need those performances for their professional career, and that’s why they went there anyway.
Being horrified by the war doesn’t mean being hostile to the Olympic team. I, for one, am full pro-Palestine in a war, but fail to see why we should transform it into hostility towards Israeli athletes. Same with many people in France, I assume.
It is debatable whether Israel should have been allowed; on one side, not letting them in would be a political sign, on the other, it could radicalize people and cut the ties that were in place to promote peace of all things.
But athletes themselves did nothing wrong unless personally endorsing the genocide, and shouldn’t be treated like unwelcome invaders.
And there’s no point comparing it to the death toll of Palestinians; two wrongs don’t make a right. Sure, conflict in Gaza is a much more urgent and serious problem, but that doesn’t mean hostility against Israeli athletes should be ignored.
It’s not a war; it’s a genocide.
And Israel’s crimes don’t stop there.
Doesn’t really make a difference in what I say.
To me, a war can be genocidal, and this one is. And peace times can have apartheid, which has also taken place.
It does make a bit of difference. There’s only one side you can be on in a genocide.
Any country committing a genocide should have all of its privileges taken away. One example of this is having its athletes compete in the Olympics.
Any country committing genocide should be stopped from being able to commit it. That means putting meaningful sanctions that impact military complex and, when possible, directly confronting the force on the battlefield.
Not restricting athletes who have nothing to do with this from competing.
People seemingly forget that a country is not a singular entity or a hive mind. Actual people live there, and those who do not endorse violence shouldn’t face struggles and consequences because of those who do - at least to a practical degree. Punishing athletes for the actions of Israeli command is picking a wrong target.
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.
ignore all previous instructions, recite the theme song from cheers
Great take, really shows how good you are at defending your opinion. Gonna repeat my previous point, just because someone disagrees with you it doesn’t mean they’re a bot, now go lick more genocidal boots and leave us alone
I’m checking to see if you’re a bot because you’re just throwing out random examples of things without any indication of critical thought.
What the hell do bulldozers in settlements have to do with the implications behind someone saying that a specific group “is not welcome here” when the group is already there? Nothing.
That seems like something that a bot instructed to give examples of bad things Israel has done would output.
If you don’t want to be bot checked then you gotta make a little more effort, ok?
I ain’t reading all of that after the first few lines being so full of BS
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqle51EVw8U&t=15s