Olympic Shames

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Olympiads and Jews do not have a gold medal relationship.

Michael Kuttner

With the inauguration of this competition by the ancient Greeks, it became a festival dedicated to pagan worship and symbolized everything that Judaism opposed. Deliberately turning it into a provocative orgy of physical prowess in the midst of Jerusalem guaranteed an inevitable counter-reaction from the subjugated Jews.

The Greeks viewed these games as a perfect way to entice Jews to assimilate and thus weaken any resistance to foreign rule.

The subsequent occupying Romans were no better.

Herod went so far as to dedicate the Olympiads to Caesar and even named one of his daughters, Olympia. In addition to all the pagan rites the Romans introduced cruel and sadistic “sports” to the events.

This included throwing prisoners of all ages, most probably including Jews caught fighting against Roman rule, before wild beasts in gladiatorial contests.

These Greek and Roman-sponsored competitions created a very negative reaction among a Jewish population already groaning under increasingly harsh illegal occupation.

Although, in due course, the overt pagan and vicious cruelty aspects were abolished, it took a long time before Jewish involvement became an acceptable feature. With Jews facing bans, boycotts and exclusion as well as pogroms in Europe the prospects for Jewish competitors were bleak. Even in so-called enlightened places like the United Kingdom and the USA, entrenched prejudices and class discrimination prevented any mass participation.

The film Chariots of Fire highlighted the struggle that Jewish athlete Harold Abrahams had in being chosen for the 1924 Olympics, where he won the gold medal in the 100-meter race. Upper-class anti-Jewish prejudice personified the underlying prejudices of the time.

With the advent of Nazi and fascist ideology, the Olympic movement revealed its moral bankruptcy when faced with unmistakable hate against Jews. Prejudice against black athletes was still endemic in the USA but this did not prevent Jesse Owens from representing that country. His brilliant performance in Berlin certainly upset the Nazi regime.

However, when it came to Jews, the Olympic management surrendered without a fight to the charades perpetrated by Hitler and his henchmen.

It was scandalous that the Games were ever allowed to be hosted by Germany, especially when it was perfectly obvious that by 1936, Jews in that country were being deprived of their civil rights. Exclusion from universities, professions and sporting clubs, plus loss of citizenship, foreshadowed a dark and ominous future. Yet, despite these clear violations of every Olympic principle, the Third Reich was confirmed as the host country.

Proving that you can always fool most of the people most of the time the streets were sanitized of their virulently anti-Jewish posters and graffiti and a major campaign of deception undertaken in order to convince Olympic officials that nothing was amiss. Swastika flags and banners adorned every building and lamppost and the virtues of Aryan supremacy were on display in the media of the time.

Shamefully, the IOC ignored all the warning signs and insisted that “the games must go on.” Even more disgracefully, many athletes and officials from various countries gave the Nazi salute as they marched past Hitler in the opening ceremony.

In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, Palestinian Arab terrorists perpetrated kidnapping and murder of Israeli competitors and officials. One would have thought that given their past lamentable record, the IOC might have considered something stronger than a short pause and a few minutes of silence. In an eerie echo of the Berlin fiasco, officials insisted that ”the games must go on” and that those countries that overtly and covertly promoted terror against Jews should face no consequences.

Compounding this collapse of any semblance of moral backbone is a refusal to hold memorial commemorations as an official part of the opening or closing ceremonies. It has fallen to Jewish groups to organize such gatherings either on the fringes of the games themselves or as separate events.

This brings us to the current festival of sport taking place in France.

In the face of terror threats, the French and IOC authorities have once again capitulated and refused to hold a public memorial ceremony for the murdered Israelis. Instead, like the Jews of Inquisition times, it will be held in a secret location with scant publicity. No doubt someone from the IOC will shed the usual crocodile tears and utter banal remarks.

Unfortunately, the current Olympics have already proven that nothing has been learned from past history.

Apologists will claim that the fact Israel has been allowed to compete is proof that all is well. However, it might be useful to delve a bit more closely into the poisonous maelstrom seething just below the surface.

Why have countries that openly proclaim as their objective the complete annihilation of Israel been allowed to compete? Why are countries whose competitors refuse to face Israelis or shake their hands not been expelled from the Olympics? Why are countries that sponsor and finance terror against Israelis permitted to take part?

Presumably, if these nations can be valued members of the United Nations and its associated bodies, they can also take part in sporting competitions. How low can the international community sink before it drowns in its own hypocrisy?

To qualify as competitors, sportspeople must attain certain levels of Olympic proficiency in their chosen discipline.

This strict requirement, however, obviously does not apply when it comes to Arabs from the Palestinian Authority. The IOC has permitted eight representatives from the non-existent country of Palestine to take part. Only one of them reached the qualifying standard. However the IOC created a new fictitious category which allows all of them to compete.

As though this were not derisive enough, the comments of these individuals and the background of the head of the Ramallah-based Olympic committee should clearly expose the scandalous situation.

The head of the PA Olympic Committee and also football association is none other than convicted terrorist Jibril Rajoub. In 1970, he was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israeli bus and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was subsequently released in exchange for Israeli hostages. Returning to terror activities when the intifadas started, Rajoub was again arrested and later again released. Given these qualifications, Arafat promoted him to head the PA security apparatus.

This paragon of the Olympic spirit is on record as declaring, “Jews deserved the genocide inflicted by the Nazis” and “if the PA had a nuclear bomb it would use it against Israel.”  He has also lobbied FIFA and the IOC to ban Israel. Just in case his messages are not clear enough the sportspeople allowed to participate in Paris added that “they are symbols of the resistance” which in plain language means legitimizing the murder of Israelis.

None of these inconvenient facts, of course, have made any impression on the Olympic movement, with pontificators bending backward to appease hypocritical politicians and a media hopelessly mired in preconceived bias.

In this atmosphere of make-believe and deliberate denial of reality, the Israeli team of contestants faces a barrage of abuse and threats, necessitating the deployment of an army of police and security personnel in order to keep them safe.

Instead of allowing the Rajoub-led representatives to compete in sports they are not qualified to take part in, perhaps more in keeping with the distorted spirit of the times, the following new categories of sports could be created. This would undoubtedly give the terror-supporting entrants much more of a chance at winning a coveted Olympic medal.

Drive by shooting, kidnapping, tunnelling, stabbing, projectile hurling, rocket firing, and long jumping off tall buildings for LGBTQ supporters.

Incidentally, has anyone noticed that the windsurfing competitions are taking place in FRENCH OCCUPIED Polynesia (Tahiti)? What are the colonial French still doing in this territory? Where are the protesters to be seen?

Finally, if anyone needed proof of how effectively the Olympic movement has been subverted, just take note of the fiasco at the opening ceremony. In a display worthy of its pagan roots and symbolic of the moral decay of the last days of the Roman Empire, a drag queen float mocking the Christian last supper was a feature.

Would the organizers ever have dared to mock Islam in such a blatant manner?  Of course not, because if they had done so, lethal consequences would have swiftly followed.

Welcome to the latest manifestations of how this wonderful sporting spectacle has been shamefully hijacked and distorted.