By Susan Crabtree - RCP Staff
January 19, 2024
It was billed as a way to protect the security of Israeli hockey players amid fallout over the Israeli-Hamas war until a backlash condemned the action.
The International Ice Hockey Federation, or IIHF, first banned Israeli athletes from international competitions, then abruptly reversed that decision on Wednesday.
The Federation this week determined that it did indeed have the “safety and security support needed” to allow Israel, which won the silver medal last year in its division, to take place in a tournament being held in Bulgaria. Previously, the IIHF had decided to exclude the Israeli team from all of its competitions “for the time being” out of concern for athletes’ safety.
Exacerbating the tensions was a prior decision by the IIHF, after Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, to move a portion of the competition originally to be held in Israel to Bulgaria.
The move to ban the Israeli hockey players from all international competition did not sit well with the Israel team or the National Hockey League, which expressed “significant concerns” about the decision and stated that it had been assured that the IIHF was not intentionally sanctioning the Israeli Federation.
But the controversy is far from over. While the IIHF reversed course about the upcoming tournament in Bulgaria, it said decisions about future tournaments, including the 2024 men’s and women’s world championships, would be made on a case-by-case basis.
“A one-week tournament with the participation of the Israeli national team without any guarantee about safety and security of all people involved is irresponsible,” the IIHF said in a statement.
On Sunday, the actions against Israeli athletes took a far darker turn. An Israeli soccer player for a Turkish club was detained by Turkish authorities and interrogated, then suspended and sent to Israel after he displayed a message of support during Sunday’s game for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Sargiv Jehezkel scored the game-tying goal on Sunday against another team in the Turkish league, and afterward, jogged to the center of the field, brought his hands to the cameras positioned there, and formed the shape of a heart. He then displayed a wristband with the words “100 days. Oct. 7” spelled out alongside a Star of David.
After the action went viral on social media, the president of Jehezkel’s soccer club called the action “propaganda” in a series of posts on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
Just days later, Eden Kartsev, a second Israeli professional soccer player in Turkey, was detained by Turkish authorities for a public display of sympathy for hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. He, too, was booted off the team and booked on a flight back to Israel.
Sports has officially become a new battlefield in the Israeli-Hamas war. Now, international sporting organizations, including the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, and groups linked to it, are facing intense pressure to protect Jewish athletes from discrimination or harm in the ongoing political fallout of the Oct. 7 attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Like the NHL, the IOC used its platform to take a stand on the issue, discussing the matter with both the National Olympic Committee of Israel and the IIHF over the past few weeks.
An IOC spokesperson told RealClearPolitics that it had made its position “very clear.”
“Non-discrimination of any kind is part of the fundamental principles of the Olympic charter, and the IOC will always uphold these principles,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The IOC also expressed “full confidence” in the ability of its organizing committee and the French authorities to deliver “safe and successful games” this summer in Paris.
“Since Paris was selected, security has been their No. 1 priority, and they have been anticipating a wide range of scenarios to maintain safe and secure games,” the IOC press team continued.
History demands that the International Olympic Committee and other overseas athletic organizations take Jewish athletes’ security seriously. More than a half-century ago, attackers affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization infiltrated Munich’s Olympic Village and carried out an attack that would eventually leave 11 Israeli athletes dead, along with a West German policeman and five of the eight assailants.
The Munich massacre that took place in the early hours of Sept. 5-6, 1972, was a wake-up call for Western governments to the threat of terrorism at international sporting events and the dire need for tight security and greater scrutiny when selecting venues.
After the death of his Olympic teammates, legendary swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals and set seven world records at the 1972 Munich games, was forced to flee Germany in haste, hidden under a blanket and fearing for his life.
Despite this history and the IOC’s willingness to wade into the IIHF backlash, the committee has repeatedly side-stepped another front in the international sports battle stemming from the Israel-Hamas war.
In February, the World Aquatic Federation is scheduled to host an international swimming competition in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The event normally determines who qualifies for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. But the IOC and World Aquatics for months has faced pressure to either move the event or change the qualifying regulations so that Jewish athletes will not be forced to attend or be penalized for skipping.
Qatar in recent years has served as an asylum for Hamas’ political leadership, and it has long provided the terrorist organization with financial assistance estimated at roughly $1.8 billion in 2021.
While Qatar has recently tried to burnish its image, hosting the World Cup in 2022 despite an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups, the country has drawn intense condemnation for the statement by its minister of foreign affairs blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 Hamas assault, which left 1,200 people dead, including women and children, and 239 people held hostage.
In the past few months, Qatar has interceded between Hamas and Israel, as well as the United States, in negotiating the release of more than 100 hostages. But those efforts stalled in December when Hamas rebuffed two hostage release offers in exchange for a pause in the fighting.
The IOC has repeatedly referred any questions to World Aquatics regarding the decision to keep the championship in Doha without providing alternative qualifying options for Jewish athletes and the Israeli swim team. It did so again Wednesday when RCP reached out for comment, arguing that the Doha swimming championship is “outside the remit of the Olympic Games” and “not held under the authority of the IOC.”
That lack of jurisdiction, however, didn’t stop the IOC from taking a public stand on the IIHL’s ban on Jewish athletes competing in European countries.
“A country that can’t guarantee the security of its participants shouldn’t be hosting these matches,” said David May, research manager for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “There’s always a danger of being killed or kidnapped or arrested in a hostile country, as we’ve now seen with the soccer players in Turkey.”
“Qatar remains problematic from a security standpoint because they host Hamas,” added May, who has written extensively about Qatar’s ties to terrorism and several Arab countries’ mistreatment of Israeli and Jewish athletes.
But even beyond security, the allegation of corruption and fraud by Qatari officials should give the World Aquatics Federation great pause before moving forward with Doha as a host, May asserted, before taking a shot at the money and influence game Qatar engages in to host these types of international events.
“I guess you could say, big swimming pools of cash [were likely involved],” May remarked.
After Turkish authorities arrested then expelled Israeli soccer players from the country, Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar told the Jewish Insider that the incidents may be tied to the “involvement of a lot of Qatari money.”
In December, when security concerns first arose among Jewish athletes being forced to attend the Doha championship or risk their Paris qualifications, World Aquatics stood by its decision to hold the event in Qatar and expressed confidence in the country’s ability to protect Jewish swimmers. Yet, it said it had opened “a dialogue” with the Israeli Federation, but “no separate or unique qualification pathways have been discussed at this time.”
“The safety of all aquatic athletes remains a priority, and the World Aquatics Championships Doha 2024 event will be no different in that respect,” the organization told RCP in a statement. “The Qatari organizers and authorities have put in place extensive plans and preparations to make sure all necessary security measures will be applied to protect all those participating and attending.”
Asked earlier this week about the recent developments involving arrests of Israeli soccer players in Turkey, World Aquatics said only that the “discussions are ongoing.”
IOC and World Aquatics intransigence comes in the face of growing pressure. Several international officials have appealed to the organization to move the swimming venue or change Olympic qualifying regulations to allow Israeli and other Jewish athletes to skip the event. Officials from the United Kingdom, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, and several Scandinavian countries have pressed the Federation to relocate the swimming event.
Advocates for moving the event say they are perplexed by the IOC’s unwillingness to take a stand against the Doha event after IOC President Thomas Bach demonstrated a keen awareness of the security concerns facing Jewish athletes. During a 2022 event in Tel Aviv, Bach apologized for waiting 50 years to commemorate the Israel victims of the Munich Massacre “in a dignified way” and called the event one of the “darkest days in Olympic history.”
More recently, after the Oct. 7 attack against Israel and the subsequent Israeli counteroffensive, Bach underscored the need for unity in the sporting world amid increasing global tensions.
“The current geopolitical tensions are extremely complex. In such times, the unifying power of sport is more important than ever before,” he told an audience in an opening address at the 2023 International Federation Forum in Switzerland in mid-November.
“Today, millions of people around the globe are longing for such a unifying force that brings us all together in our so confrontational world,” he continued. “Our role is clear: to unite – and not to deepen divisions. Therefore, we carry an important responsibility – to stand together for the power of sport and to live up to our shared mission to make the world a better place through sport.”
Eric Spitz, a Jewish tech and sports businessman whose daughter is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States and an Israeli women’s swim team member, is spearheading a coalition demanding a change of venue or alternative qualifying rules. The coalition launched a website, www.notodoha.com, and Spitz, (no relation to Mark Spitz), sent a letter in December to the IOC, pressing for a solution that would not force Israeli and Jewish swimmers to jeopardize their safety in Doha.
Eric Spitz is now imploring Bach to live up to that promise and ensure that Israeli and Jewish swimmers can continue pursuing their sport without risking their safety or antisemitic harassment by requiring their travel to Doha to qualify for the Olympics.
“For many, athletics serve as a sanctuary from the chaos and turmoil of life,” Spitz wrote in his letter to the IOC. “The Olympic movement, which represents the pinnacle of non-violent competition, fosters a global fellowship bound by an unwavering passion for the sport. At this moment, Jewish and Israeli athletes are navigating some of the most arduous trials of their lives … inaction on the part of the IOC would unfairly remove a source of joy these athletes cling to.”
Qatar and Iran have a long history of discrimination and antisemitic demonstrations against Israeli athletes. In 2013, organizers of a Swimming World Cup in Doha failed to show the Israeli flag in their computer graphics, substituting a white flag, and failing to display the name Israel, instead using “IRS” in several of the cup’s races. The international snubbing earned Qatar a formal warning from World Aquatics, then known as Federation Internationale de Natation.
During the World Cup, international pressure forced Qatar to allow Israeli visitors and athletes, and in recent years, international bodies have tried to crack down on Doha and Tehran’s discrimination against Israeli athletes.
Even after the World Cup, Qatar has a long way to go when it comes to becoming a trusted, secure place for Israeli and Jewish athletes. May argued that the foreign minister’s statement supporting Hamas and Qatar’s long history of discrimination against Jewish athletes should have been a dealbreaker in hosting any international sporting championships.
“Unfortunately, Israel is a prime target for attacks going back to the Munich Olympic massacre,” he stressed. “So, what to some institutions or countries might seem an unnecessary caution, unfortunately, is born out of experience.”
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.
COMMENTARY
By Eric Spitz
December 29, 2023
Last week, CNN aired a segment on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” about the abdication of leadership at yet another major global institution. The International Olympic Committee won’t even acknowledge the safety and security concerns of Israeli and Jewish athletes who are declining to travel to Doha, Qatar, for the 2024 World Aquatics Championships – the primary qualifier for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
When the award-winning investigative series “Real Sports on HBO” aired its final episode last week, its longtime host Bryant Gumbel ruefully admitted, “Despite all we’ve done on this show, we leave with many of the issues that we thought were important still unresolved: fair pay for college athletes, a reckoning for the IOC, an end to public funding of private stadiums, the list goes on and on.”
Over the past three decades, Gumbel’s show exposed corrupt and inept leadership at sports institutions on every continent. His beef with the Olympic Committee comes from personal experience and dates from a Season 2 interview with then-IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who boasted, “We [the Olympic movement] are more important than the Catholic religion.”
In repeated attempts at doublespeak, Samaranch claimed he was misquoted. “I never said this one. I said maybe the Olympic movement has more followers than any religion in the world. I did not mention the Catholic religion.”
The current president, Thomas Bach, updated the Olympic Charter in 2020. The section describing the mission and role of the IOC begins, “To encourage and support the promotion of ethics and good governance in sport as well as education of youth through sport as well as to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play prevails, and violence is banned.”
Channeling Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, I want to ask Bach, “According to the tenets of Olympism, does forcing an Israeli swimmer to compete in Doha, Qatar, in order to qualify for the Paris Olympics, constitute a violation of the spirit of fair play and the promotion of ethics in sports?”
The answer is yes. The athletes’ dignity is violated. The extra credit question is whether Bach can live with himself after giving a seemingly heartfelt speech at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics.
A half-century ago, the Palestinian group Black September attacked the Israeli Olympic delegation while the athletes and their coaches were inside the purported security of the athletes’ village, killing 11 Israelis and a police officer.
Last year, Bach noted that the attack in Munich was one of “the darkest days in Olympic history” and “an assault on the Olympic Games and its values. Everything that the Olympic Games stand for was shattered 50 years ago with the horrific attack on the Israeli Olympic team.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog hosted the commemoration in Tel Aviv, lamenting the athletes who were “brutally murdered in cold blood by a Palestinian terrorist organization just for being Jews, just because they were Israelis.”
To his credit, Thomas Bach apologized for the too many years it took the IOC to recognize the Israeli victims “in a dignified way. For this pain, and for this anguish, that we caused, I am truly sorry,” the IOC’s president offered to the assembled dignitaries.
Now is the time for Bach and the rest of the IOC’s executive committee to back up those words with action. Surely, the connection between Hamas and Black September cannot be lost on them. It would be ethical and display good governance for the IOC to address the unbearable “Sophie’s choice” facing the Israeli and Jewish athletes, as the clock ticks down to February’s World Championships in Doha.
Jake Tapper began his segment, “In a letter to the IOC, the ‘No to Doha’ campaign writes, ‘Today the leaders of the terrorist death cult, Hamas, live in Doha, Qatar, where they enjoy protection and support from the local government … no Jew could justifiably feel safe in Doha.’”
My daughter became an Israeli citizen this past summer, and now she competes as a member of the Israeli national swim team. Thus, Tapper asked me whether her safety is the primary driver of the #Notodoha campaign.
“How would you like it if you were a world-class athlete being asked to attend an event and perform at your peak, while having the Hamas leadership around the corner?” I wondered aloud.
“Yeah,” Tapper agreed. “She’s focused on competing. She’s focused on representing her country. Then also, this decision to possibly not compete because she doesn’t want to go to a country where Hamas is staying at the local Four Seasons? And, what’s the alternative for your daughter if she ultimately feels like she wouldn’t feel safe in Doha?”
That’s exactly what I was wondering when I wrote the letter to the IOC in November.
Then Tapper asked, “You’ve had no response from the IOC at all?”
When I confirmed and noted that several reporters I’ve spoken to have also been ignored, he stated for the record, “We should note that we [CNN] also reached out to the IOC, and they did not respond to our request for comment.”
Nelson Mandela foresaw the IOC’s dilemma with his profound insight: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than government in breaking down racial barriers.”
The situation today transcends logistics or politics; it's about upholding the unifying spirit of sport, a spirit grievously undermined in the tragic 1972 Munich Olympics. The IOC must now rise to the occasion, honoring its commitment to athletes’ safety and the sanctity of fair play. In doing so, they have a golden opportunity to write a chapter in Olympic history that future generations will remember not for its controversy, but for its courage and integrity.
Eric Spitz is a serial entrepreneur who entered the cannabis industry in 2016. He previously owned Freedom Communications, including the Orange Country Register. He now serves on the board of Rootz.ai, a technology company that provides insights about consumer retail shopping behavior.
Israeli athletes say they have been forced to choose between qualifying for the Olympics and competing in Doha, which has provided safe haven for Hamas
By SCOTT M. REID | sreid@scng.com | December 7, 2023 article in the Orange County Register
Swimming’s global governing body has begun conversations with Israeli swimming officials to address concerns over Jewish athletes competing at the World Aquatic Championships in Doha in February. But they have not discussed alternative qualifying options for the Olympic Games for Israeli athletes, a World Aquatics official confirmed Wednesday.
Under the current Olympic swimming qualifying process for relays approved by the International Olympic Committee and World Aquatics, relay teams would have to place among the top 13 teams in Doha to advance to the Paris Olympics.
Israeli swimmers, officials and their supporters maintain that by not providing an alternative qualification process, the IOC and World Aquatics are forcing Israeli and other Jewish athletes to choose between chasing their Olympic dream or competing in a city and nation that has provided safe haven for Hamas leadership for years.
LA 28 chairman Casey Wasserman said he did not support removing the World Championships from Doha.
Wasserman was in Doha on October 7, the day Hamas launched a surprise and unprecedented attack on Israel. More than 800 civilians and 300 military and police were killed in the initial attack.
“I was with Sheik Japan, who is a friend,” Wasserman said referring to Sheik Japan bin Hamad bi Khalifa Al Thani, the head of the Qatar Olympic Committee. “Two days later I told him, and I told the Emir, you should write a letter to the Israeli Olympic Committee saying not only that you’re welcome but we’ll ensure that every precaution is taken and make sure your team can compete with every other team without regard to the context we’re in. And frankly, what the IOC should do is require that and demand that of any host of qualifying events because that ought to be the standard without exception.”
World Aquatics and Israeli officials spoke Tuesday as part of what WA spokesman James Pearce described as an “ongoing dialogue.”
“The safety of all aquatics athletes always remains a priority, and the World Aquatics Championships Doha 2024 event is no different in that respect,” Pearce said. “The Qatari organizers and authorities have put in place extensive plans and preparations to make sure all the necessary security measures will be applied to protect all those participating and attending. World Aquatics is aware of the qualification complexities that may arise if Israel chose not to compete in Doha.
“For this reason, World Aquatics is maintaining an open dialogue with the federation concerning the ongoing conflict in their region, but no separate or unique qualification pathways have been discussed at this time.”
Israeli athletes, coaches, officials and supporters have suggested allowing relay teams to qualify for the Paris Games based on time or at another WA-sanctioned meet instead of having to compete in Doha.
The IOC and WA refusal to provide an alternative Olympic qualifying process has created “a horrible place to put athletes in where they’re forced between having to decide on trying to reach the Olympics and protecting their life and their safety,” said Orange County businessman, Eric Spitz, the former president of the Orange County Register’s now-defunct parent company. His daughter Ayla Spitz swims for the Israeli national team. “It’s a horrible, terrible position to put athletes, any person in.”
Ayla Spitz was part of Israel’s 4×200 meter freestyle relay that had the 10th fastest time at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. The Israeli men’s 4×100 freestyle relay was seventh at last year’s Worlds.
Israeli Olympic Committee and Swimming Israel officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Qatar has long come under international criticism for allowing Hamas to use the country as a political and strategic base.
A leading Hamas military figure fled to Doha from Turkey after kidnapping three Israeli teenagers in 2014. Qatar has also financed Hamas for more than a decade. Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former Emir of Qatar, pledged $400 million to the Hamas government during a 2012 trip to Gaza. Qatar pledged $1 billion to create a reconstruction fund for Gaza after the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. Hamas has used some of those funds to rebuild a network of tunnels in Gaza, according to published reports.
Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ senior political official, said Qatar Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani paid $100 million to Hamas-controlled Gaza.
When a New York Times reporter reached out to Hamas for an interview with the group’s leadership, he was instructed to meet an aide to Haniyeh at Doha’s Sheraton Waterfront hotel. From there the aide drove the reporter to meet Haniyeh at a villa on the outskirts of Doha.
It was the same hotel that Hamas, after being rejected by two other Doha hotels out of concerns about violating U.S. terrorism financing laws, unveiled a major political agenda in 2017. World Aquatics, then known as FINA, also chose the Sheraton to host its General Congress, the organization’s most important non-competitive event, in June 2021.
All 11 of the hotels selected by World Aquatics for teams to stay at during the World Championships are within a mile of the Sheraton, eight within a half-mile.
Pearce did not respond when asked if WA officials would be staying at the Sheraton during the World Championships.
By Susan Crabtree - RCP Staff
November 15, 2023
More than a half-century ago, the world awakened to the threat of terrorism at major sporting events when eight men in jumpsuits hopped the fence at Munich’s Olympic Village and carried out an attack that would ultimately leave 11 of Israel’s athletes dead, along with a West German policeman and five of the eight assailants.
The attackers were members of the group Black September – an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization. They had wanted to hold Israeli athletes hostage and force the release of 236 prisoners held in Israel and two leaders of the West German Baader-Meinhof terrorist group. But their mission failed, and 20 hours after it began, a botched rescue attempt by German law enforcement led to the shocking carnage, with some of the night’s events playing out on live television.
The Munich massacre that took place in the wee hours of Sept. 5-6, 1972, was a wake-up call for Western governments to the threat of terrorism and the dire need for tight security at international athletic events and greater scrutiny when selecting venues.
After the death of his Olympic teammates, legendary swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals and set seven world records at the 1972 Munich games, was forced to flee Germany in haste, hidden under a blanket and fearing for his life.
For Israeli and Jewish athletes, the ever-present threat is once again blinking red in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas that left 1,200 people dead, including women and children, and 239 people held hostage. In February, the World Aquatic Federation is set to host an international swimming competition in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The event would normally determine qualifiers for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. But the International Olympic Committee is now facing pressure to either move the event or change the qualifying regulations so Israeli and Jewish athletes will not be forced to attend or be penalized for skipping.
For the last decade, Qatar has served as an asylum for Hamas’ political leadership, and it has long provided the terrorist organization with financial assistance estimated at roughly $1.8 billion in 2021. Though Qatar is a tiny nation – about twice the size of Delaware – its influence is outsized. It’s home to the state-owned Al Jazeera news network, which often airs anti-Israeli and American angles, as well as a large U.S. airbase that played a crucial role in evacuating U.S. citizens and Afghanistan refugees after the fall of Kabul in 2022.
While Qatar has tried to burnish its image in recent years, hosting the World Cup in 2022 despite an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups, the country has drawn intense criticism in the wake of the attacks on Israel. The outrage stemmed from the Qatari minister of foreign affairs’ statement blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 Hamas assault. That position put Qatar on the same side of the war as Iran and contrasted with the reaction from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar’s rival and Israel’s closest partner in the Arab world. The UAE declared the Hamas attack “a serious and grave escalation” and said it was appalled by reports that “Israeli civilians have been abducted as hostages in their homes.”
Several international officials are now appealing to the World Aquatic Federation to move its world swimming championships from Qatar to a safer venue or change Olympic qualifying regulations to allow Israeli and Jewish athletes to skip the event. Officials from the United Kingdom, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, and several Scandinavian countries have pressed the World Aquatic Federation to relocate the swimming event.
Eric Spitz, a Jewish tech and sports businessman whose daughter is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States and a member of the Israeli women’s swim team, is spearheading a coalition demanding a change of venue. The coalition launched a website, www.notodoha.com, and Spitz, who is not related to Mark Spitz, sent a letter, dated Wednesday, to the International Olympics Committee, pressing for a solution that would not force Israeli and Jewish swimmers to jeopardize their safety in Doha.
The letter notes that IOC President Thomas Bach, during an event in Tel Aviv last year, apologized for waiting 50 years to commemorate the Israel victims of the Munich Massacre “in a dignified way” and called the event one of “the darkest days in Olympic history.”
“Since no Jews could justifiably feel safe while competing in Doha, we implore you to uphold your core tenant and heed your own words of regret,” the unsigned letter states. “This is your chance to bend the arc of history toward justice. The Olympic movement must be a force for peace, unity, and goodwill, as it was intended to be.”
The “No to Doha” letter notes that the IOC this week, from Nov. 15-17, is scheduled to hold commissions meetings. The commissions, a set of working groups on different topics impacting the games, include an IOC Advisory Committee on Human Rights. The commissions advise the IOC president and executive board on pressing matters on their topic of expertise.
Earlier this week, Bach underscored the need for unity in the sporting world amid increasing global tensions. “The current geopolitical tensions are extremely complex. In such times, the unifying power of sport is more important than ever before,” he told an audience in an opening address at the 2023 International Federation Forum in Switzerland.
“Today, millions of people around the globe are longing for such a unifying force that brings us all together in our so confrontational world,” he continued. “Our role is clear: to unite – and not to deepen divisions. Therefore, we carry an important responsibility – to stand together for the power of sport and to live up to our shared mission to make the world a better place through sport.”
Eric Spitz is now imploring Bach to live up to that promise and ensure that Israeli and Jewish swimmers can continue pursuing their sport without risking their safety or antisemitic harassment by requiring their travel to Doha to qualify for the Olympics.
“For many, athletics serve as a sanctuary from the chaos and turmoil of life,” Spitz wrote in his letter to the IOC. “The Olympic movement, which represents the pinnacle of non-violent competition, fosters a global fellowship bound by an unwavering passion for the sport. At this moment, Jewish and Israeli athletes are navigating some of the most arduous trials of their lives … inaction on the part of the IOC would unfairly remove a source of joy these athletes cling to.”
The IOC did not immediately return RCP’s request for comment.
Qatar and Iran have a long history of discrimination and antisemitic demonstrations against Israeli athletes. In 2013, organizers of a Swimming World Cup in Doha failed to show the Israeli flag in their computer graphics, substituting a white flag and failing to display the name Israel, instead using “IRS” in several of the cup’s races. The international snubbing earned Qatar a formal warning from Federation Internationale de Natation, the world’s governing body for swimming.
David May, research manager for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has written extensively about Qatar’s ties to terrorism, as well as its, Iran’s, and other Arab countries’ mistreatment of Israeli and Jewish athletes.
“The Qataris pride themselves on being the middlemen for a lot of these engagements [with the U.S.], but one common threat is that they are very often in close contact with terrorist groups – not just Hamas or the Taliban,” he told RCP. “They host a variety of terrorist groups, many of whom the Qatari government doesn’t recognize as terrorists, so they’re more than happy to work with them.”
In the 1950s, Israel was a competitive force in the Asian soccer league, but several Asian and Middle Eastern teams refused to play against Israel. Rather than punishing those countries for violating the international sports code of ethics, the league kicked Israel out, May recalled.
During the World Cup, international pressure forced Qatar to allow Israeli visitors and athletes, and in recent years, international bodies have tried to crack down on Doha’s and Tehran’s discrimination against Israeli athletes, May said.
The International Judo Federation in 2021 suspended Iran for forcing athletes to forfeit or lose intentionally to avoid facing Israeli opponents. In February 2018, the United World Wrestling Disciplinary Chamber banned an Iranian wrestler for six months and two years, respectively, for intentionally throwing a match to avoid facing an Israeli opponent. Tunisia’s tennis team was banned from the 2014 David Cup for ordering its players not to compete against an Israeli athlete.
Tunisia has no official diplomatic relations with Israel, and its government is currently debating a bill that would criminalize any normalization of ties with Israel. In 2018, the International Olympic Committee banned Tunisia from hosting the 2022 Youth Olympics after the country banned Israelis from a taekwondo event.
“There’s been several instances of Arab or Muslim athletes who have refused to play against Israeli athletes or refuse to uphold sportsmanship, such as shaking the hands of their opponents or bowing before their opponents depending on the sport,” May said. “To varying degrees, international sporting bodies have punished those athletes violating those codes, but it definitely hasn’t been uniform.”
“There’s been times where Qatar has been a little more forward-leaning regarding Israel,” he added. “But all that is kind of null and void now when you consider the fact that Qatar is funding one of Israel’s biggest enemies and supplying the funds that allow for Israelis to be massacred.”
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' White House/national political correspondent.
Commentary
By Eric Spitz October 29, 2023
Due to their long history of funding and abetting Islamic fundamentalist militias, Qatar became the Mecca for Arab terrorism in the 21st century. The estimate of Qatari funding for Hamas topped $1.8 billion in 2021, and they’ve lent their political support to branches of Al Qaeda, to the Taliban, as well as to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks.
In light of the tight security partnership between the two countries, the United States must now require the Qatari government to hand over the terrorists on its soil, or at least expel them. It also needs to step up efforts to definitively halt the funding and support of Islamic terror networks, even those that are "deeply ideologically tied" to the “pure Islam” of the Wahhabi movement that most Qataris practice.
Then, as punishment for Qatar’s affiliation with Hamas, the international community should ensure that all global sporting events, including the 2024 World Aquatics Championships and the 2024 F1 Qatar Grand Prix, be removed from Qatar, to be held elsewhere.
Barbarism in the name of liberating Palestine reared its ugly head during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, where eight Palestinian militants infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic wrestling team, and took nine other Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. After a gun battle, German police killed most of the terrorists, but the rescue attempt failed, and all of the hostages died that day.
American Mark Spitz was the star of the 1972 Olympics, where he won seven gold medals and set seven world records in swimming. Never before had one athlete been so dominant on the global stage.
Mark Spitz was the most recognized athlete in the world at the time. He also left Germany fearing for his life because he is Jewish.
"My coach and I were put in the back seat of a car and they told me to crouch down and they put this blanket over me," Spitz recalled to a journalist recently.
“It was like an out-of-body experience,” said Spitz, who was 22 at the time. “The feeling was, wow, it’s hard to believe that happened to the Israelis. Why would somebody do that to an innocent group of people who had only good intentions?”
My daughter is a newly minted, dual citizen of Israel and the United States, and a member of the Israeli women’s 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay team that placed 10th at this year’s World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. She and her team of 18 athletes spent this past summer flying to and from Israel for international events in Italy, Hong Kong, Ireland, and Japan.
Like all Israeli athletes, they traveled incognito, for fear that revealing the country they compete for would make them a terrorist target. No passport stamps and no team gear or logos on bags.
If the 2024 World Swimming Championships are not moved from Qatar, she and her teammates would miss the meet that determines their eligibility to compete in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. These athletes’ Olympic dreams would end prematurely, and for a reason they don’t deserve.
There’s precedent for boycotts on behalf of lesser crises. In the past few years, both the NBA and MLB moved their all-star game showcases away from North Carolina and Georgia respectively, due to political decisions made by the state’s lawmakers. Olympic boycotts have become fairly common.
Qatar leaders deny any assertions that they knowingly support terrorism, instead projecting themselves as the Middle East’s Switzerland, a neutral actor that can serve as a negotiating conduit between warring parties. But their claims of neutrality require more commitment to peace than they’ve shown to date.
On October 7, 2023 – a day that changed the security landscape in the region – the indiscriminate rape, torture, and slaughter of Israeli women, children, and babies played out in front of the world’s eyes. In its official statement, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said it held Israel "solely responsible" for the bloodshed due in part to its "incursions into the Al Aqsa Mosque."
In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt all cut off relations with Qatar and executed a blockade, due to the latter's close ties with Iran and its funding for Islamist militias. The protesting countries particularly feared Qatar’s powerful state-owned news network, Al Jazeera, which regularly spreads vile, propaganda-filled messages that often incite popular uprisings.
On his recent visit to the crisis region, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stopped in Qatar, in hopes of de-escalating the Gaza situation.
The U.S. has 8,000 troops stationed at the Al-Udeid Air Base, 20 miles southwest of Doha, Qatar. Following the Gulf War, the emirate spent lavishly to lure the U.S. to set up shop in their country. Since then, the Qataris have poured more than $8 billion fixing up Al-Udeid, now equipped with a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a FOX Sports Bar, and a gym.
Importantly, Al-Udeid has become the forward headquarters of the U.S. military's Central Command, where they oversee combat missions, surveillance flights, and drones across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.
Qatar’s image rinse comes in increasingly sophisticated and effective ways. In addition to hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022, the Qatari government operates the soccer “super team,” Paris St. Germain, where both of the tournament’s top stars, Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi, played together. The Qatar Investment Authority has an estimated $450 billion of assets spread lavishly around the world, including stakes in Volkswagen, Credit Suisse, and the remains of Miramax.
And their help with Hamas is appreciated. Last Friday night, when Hamas released its first two hostages, Judith and Natalie Raanan, American officials quickly thanked the Qataris for their help.
But Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ leader, has a clandestine lair in Qatar, near his organization’s shadow headquarters. He reportedly met with Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Doha during the week following the massacre in Israel.
As Qataris well know, the story that is told to the world matters.
During the opening ceremony for 2021 Tokyo Olympics, nearly fifty years after the Munich killings, the International Olympic Committee finally held a moment of silence to commemorate the Israeli athletes and coaches.
Let’s hope it doesn’t take the world so long to embrace the victims this time.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
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