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An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.
Citing Israel’s war in Gaza, Thomas Portes told a pro-Palestinian gathering in Paris on Saturday: “We are just a few days away from an international event to be held in Paris, the Olympic Games. And I’m here to say that no, the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Olympic Games in Paris. We have to use this deadline and all the levers we have to mobilise.”
Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.
Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.
This really is the right answer, as much as I despise what Israel is doing.
The Olympics should be about increasing non-hostile relations between people of the world and I don’t think anyone should be excluded.
Complicating this stance though is the compulsory military service that means that the attending athletes are associated with the military and the ongoing atrocities.
If your neighbor is under investigation for murdering their spouse and children, do you invite them to the pub on Fridays in the name of improving non-hostile neighborly relations?
It’s not the right answer though. Israel is waging war against their own people in essence, not against a foreign nation.
They should be held to the same standards as Russia or worse.