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.
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
Change “bulldozers in settlements” to “burning Jews in concentration camps” and read it again. Then think if that would be right.
Israel is MURDERING innocent people to grab their land. And if you think that “every Palestinian is Hamas, even toddlers” anybody can say, using the same ‘logic’ that “every Jew is an invader, even toddlers” and consider them military targets.
And it would be the exact same stupid thing.
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