Islam Times - Israel, Olympic Games, Protests Stirred

Islam Times - That the world yearns to admire human values is a fact that is in sheer contrast with the participation of the Israeli regime in the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The Olympic games are considered an arena to promote human values. Olympics Charter says Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will, and mind; Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

Once, the Western human rights advocates and international communities in the West hyped the value and cried worldwide that sports should not be politicized.

Ok! The Ukraine-Russia war was triggered in … and the very West banned the Russian and Belarusian athletes from taking part in international games on the pretext that Russia attacked Ukraine. The ban now comes as the Israeli regime has launched an all-out war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2024, having killed more than 39,000 people and wounded over 90,000 others.

And there again the Israeli regime has sent its athletes to the Paris 2024 Olympics with France opening the door and giving them the red-carpet treatment.

Although France, like other members of NATO and EU members, has firmly stood by the Israel regime, there are intellectuals in the country who consider the participation of Israel in the Olympics arena. The French hard-left MP Aymric Caron said that it was rational to do the same thing for the Israeli regime's athletes as it was done for the Russian and Belarussian athletes.

MP Thomas Portes deemed the Israeli regime's presence in the 2024 Olympics shameful: “France’s diplomats should pressure the International Olympic Committee to bar the Israeli flag and anthem, as is done for Russia”.
Yet, Portes was slammed for his comment which was followed by reactions; slamming Thomas Portes is "intolerable," lawmaker Jerome Legavre noted.

Manuel Bompard, for his part, said there is "nothing anti-semitic in asking that, due to violations of international law, Israeli athletes compete in the Olympic Games under a neutral banner, as is the case for Russian athletes."

The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.

Nevertheless, despite the repetitive protests from the side of the French intellectual figures, the French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné embraced the genocide regime in a message: "The Israeli delegation is welcome in France for the Olympic Games."

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, calling for preventing the Israeli regime from participating in the 2024 Olympic Games amid the regime's genocide in Gaza.

The West's double standards about the Israeli regime's war crimes go on to support the regime as the number of people killed due to the Israeli strikes approaches 40,000. Yet, the protests against the participation of the genocide regime are growing including in the social networks with the hashtag #BanIsraelFromParisOlympics.

Again, the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza has left over 90,000 wounded, and 39,000 people killed besides 11,000 whose fate is unclear and if the two figures join the toll may reach 50,000 at least two-thirds of whom are children and women, along with 2 million people displaced from across Gaza.

To whitewash the crime and change the general public's view, the Israeli regime has stepped into the sports field, the 2024 Olympic games, to pretend that it likes to compete in the usual style of the people of the world.

As the regime is under trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the charge of massacring the people of Palestine, the question of the people, including the X campaigners, is how it is possible to allow Israeli athletes to the Olympics; a question to which the French authorities must answer.