Israel is sending 88 athletes to Paris this month, the second-largest Olympic team in the country’s history. And they’re going to France against the backdrop of a bloody war at home that is entering its 10th month with no end in sight.
Yet that’s a topic few Israeli athletes seem willing — or able — to talk about.
“I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to go inside this thing,” Misha Zilberman, a four-time Olympian in badminton, said when asked about the war in Gaza.
A communications officer for a first-division Israeli soccer team, which placed numerous players on the Olympic team, was more blunt.
“We will not approve any questions regarding political/security situation/current affairs,” he warned. “I don’t think it’s fair on them to face such questions.”
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But the large and sustained global protests against Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories can’t be ignored and the questions, fair or not, remain unavoidable, even if they go unanswered.
In response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage, Israel attacked Gaza seeking, it said, to destroy Hamas by razing cities and killing more than 37,000 people, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, leaving much of the Gaza Strip uninhabitable.
And while Israeli athletes have had little, if anything, to do with the conflict, they have become a target of the international outrage over the war. In the last four months alone, large crowds of pro-Palestinian activists protested the presence of an Israeli team at a softball tournament in Canada, a women’s soccer team in Scotland, a men’s U-19 soccer team in Norway and an Australian cyclist pedaling for an Israel team outside Melbourne.
Even Israeli singer Eden Golan was targeted, with thousands of people turning out in Malmo, Sweden, two months ago to protest her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Now the focus shifts to France ahead of next week’s opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics, which are being held in the country with the largest Muslim population in Europe. More than two dozen French politicians asked the International Olympic Committee to ban Israeli athletes from competing under their flag and anthem while the Palestinian Olympic committee, which will have at least six athletes in Paris, and many Arab countries have called for Israel to be prohibited from competing at all. On Thursday, FIFA postponed a decision on a Palestinian proposal to suspend Israel clearing the way for its men’s national team to play in Paris.
Palestinian sports have suffered significant damage as a result of the war with Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian Olympic committee, saying last month that more than 300 athletes, referees, administrators and support staff have been killed and all sports facilities in Gaza destroyed in the attacks. One of those who died was Majed Abu Maraheel, a retired distance runner who became the first Palestinian to compete in the Olympics when he ran the 10,000 meters in Atlanta in 1996.
Maraheel, 61, reportedly died of kidney failure in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza.
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1. A boy stands in front of a building destroyed by an Israeli assault near a refugee camp in the Occupied West Bank in October. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2. Women walk down a street in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in December amid operations by Israeli forces in the area. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3. People holding a banner reading “Palestine will live” protest Israel being allowed to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games during a protest in Paris on May 1. (Remon Haazen / Getty Images)
But while a ban on Israeli athletes competing in France won’t happen, protests against the country’s participation in the Games are likely to continue, and that worries Israeli officials.
“The best way to deal with such things is to win, to succeed,” Miki Zohar, Israeli’s minister for culture and sports, said at a news conference in Tel Aviv last month. Zohar also urged his colleagues — and Israel’s Olympic athletes — to avoid discussing the provocations.
However, the danger that the protests present to the Israeli delegation can’t be dismissed. Therefore, the Israeli government has doubled the security budget for the Olympic team and working with Shin Bet, the country’s security agency, and French officials to keep Israelis safe.
“Every place where there are athletes, every single person representing Israel will have security,” Eytan Ben David, a former senior official with Shin Bet, told Jewish Insider, a Brooklyn-based weekly newspaper and website.
The Israeli team was the target of the deadliest terror attack in Olympic history in 1972, when eight Palestinian militants infiltrated the Olympic Village in Munich, resulting in the deaths of six coaches and five athletes. But Israeli Olympian Liel Abada, who plays in the MLS with Charlotte FC, said he’s more concerned about family members coming to Paris to watch the Games than he is about his own safety.
“I’m not scared,” Abada said. “We will get big security and we will be safe.”
Despite the security concerns, this Israeli Olympic team has a chance to be the best in its country’s history, with Olympic Committee president Yael Arad, a former judoka and Israel’s first Olympic medalist in 1992, predicting the country will win four or five medals in France. Three years ago Israel sent 90 athletes to Tokyo and came back with a record four medals, including two golds in gymnastics.
“We want our athletes to come and work, to compete,” said Arad, speaking at the same Tel Aviv news conference at which Zohar appeared. “To go and represent Israel and to show the best face of Israel.”
One of those gold medalists in Tokyo, Ukrainian-born gymnast Artem Dolgopyat, a world, European and Olympic champion in the floor exercise, is returning to defend his title. Linoy Ashram, an 18-year-old rhythmic gymnast, is also considered a medal contender.
In judo Inbar Lanir, the reigning world champion in the U-78 kg weight class, is among the favorites while taekwondo’s Avishag Semberg, who became the youngest Israeli to win an Olympic medal when she struck bronze in Tokyo at age 19, will be back on the mat in Paris.
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Zilberman, the badminton player and the sixth Israeli to compete in four Summer Games, believes the global spotlight now shining on Israel will be a source of motivation for many of the country’s Olympians.
“Of course what’s happened, gives extra to go on court and to play our best. I’m really proud to represent Israel and I think [with] all the situation, I’m more proud,” said Zilberman, who was born in Moscow but moved to Israel with his parents — his father, Michael, competed for the Soviet gymnastics team and his mother, Svetlana, for the national badminton team — when he was 2.
“I know that everybody looks now [at] Israeli athletes. It’s not only me. It’s everybody now. They try to push themselves to show the best they can do.”
Soccer player Ido Shahar, a midfielder with Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Premier League, agreed.
“We are grateful in these moments to represent our country with all the flags and everything,” he said. “We don’t go every four years, you know? It’s a very special moment for our national team, for our country.”
Shahar and the rest of the soccer team will make history of a sort just by showing up. Israel last qualified for the Olympic soccer tournament in 1976, before it became a U-23 competition, and hasn’t won a game since reaching the quarterfinals in 1968.
But Osher Davida, Shahar’s club teammate at Maccabi Tel Aviv, wants more than a participation trophy. He wants a medal.
“We’re not coming to the Olympic Games to say, ‘OK, we are in the Olympics now,’” he said. “We’re coming to make history and win all the games. Our target is go higher and higher.”
Israel will face Mali, a majority Muslim nation, in its opener July 24 and could meet Egypt, Iraq or Morocco if it advances to the knockout stages.
“We know there is pressure. We want to succeed and show how good we are. And we have to deal with it,” said defender Stav Lemkin, who plays club soccer for Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine. “Israel’s the underdog in football.
“Of course our main goal is to win against Mali.”
However given the circumstances Zohar, the culture and sports minister, says Israel’s Olympians have won simply by competing in France.
“Every time we succeed in hearing the Israeli anthem play while our flag flies overhead is, in my eyes, worth everything,” he said. “The reason we’re doing this, despite the economic difficulties, despite the enormous costs of the war is because it has a value that in my eyes is directly related to national morale, which is in need of a boost.”
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