Israeli judoka Tal Flicker scaled the top of the podium and received his gold medal on Thursday, but the Israel national anthem was not played and the blue-and-white flag was not raised in Abu Dhabi.
Another case of the racism and Islamic anti-Semitism that is ubiquitous; only this one is high profile, on the global stage in a sport. One cannot begin to imagine the outcry if such discrimination were aimed at a Muslim in the West, but it is tolerated against a Jew in a Muslim country.
For more cases of Islamic anti-Semitism, see here.
For those who may have forgotten, PA leader Mahmood Abbas once declared his vision for a Palestinian state: “’In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands.” But it’s Israel that gets labelled an apartheid state.
WATCH-DISGRACEFUL.
ISRAELI Tal Flicker presented with his gold medal at #JudoAbuDhabi2017 without Israeli anthem or flag. Nice to see Tal singing something and I’m guessing it’s the #Hatikvah@Ostrov_A pic.twitter.com/RzwGdn0Bh8— SussexFriendsIsrael (@SussexFriends) October 26, 2017
“Deprived of Flag and Anthem, Israeli Judoka Wins Gold in Abu Dhabi,” by Allon Sinai, Jerusalem Post, October 26, 2017:
Israeli judoka Tal Flicker scaled the top of the podium and received his gold medal on Thursday, but the Israel national anthem was not played and the blue-and-white flag was not raised in Abu Dhabi.
The 25-year-old won the under-66 kilogram category competition at the Abu Dhabi judo Grand Slam on Thursday, but he had to do so under the flag of the International Judo Federation (IJF), with the event organizers refusing to allow Israelis to compete under their country’s flag.
The organizers claimed that, due to security reasons, the Israelis can’t have their flag on their judo uniform and instead of having ISR (Israel) by their names on the scoreboard and on their backs, they would have to take part as representatives of the IJF. For the same reason, they explained that should an Israeli win a gold medal the national anthem, Hatikva, would not be played.
The delegation, numbering 12 athletes, arrived in Abu Dhabi via Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, a day later than scheduled. The judokas waited for seven hours at Ben-Gurion Airport on Monday, only to return home frustrated after being told that they can’t pick up their visas in Istanbul, Turkey, as they were initially told.
International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer sent a letter to the organizers on Monday demanding that “the Israeli delegation shall be treated absolutely equally in all aspects.”
Vizer wrote in his letter that the IJF Statutes “clearly provide that the IJF shall not discriminate on the ground of race, religion, gender or political opinion.”……