generalspeaking

As The World Turns....

And so it was that on the 27th day of the 7th month of the year 2012 a spectacular was staged in the great, historic city of London, England, bringing once again to that world-famed stage the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Fireworks ignite over the Olympic Stadium during the Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics

The grandeur of tradition prevailed as opening ceremonies introduced the world audience of an estimated three billion people watching via satellite television, with 80,000 present on site, as, among other introductions to the event, William Blake's historic poem, "Jerusalem", transcribed to music by Hubert Penny was played to great acclaim. 

Jerusalem, the world's most famous religious crucible, is symbolic in so many ways at this 2012 Olympics.  The BBC, the official broadcaster for the London Olympics overlooked history, heritage and tradition, to gratuitously link it to the Palestinians as their capital, totally ignoring its reality as the capital of the State of Israel, later altering their fanciful alteration of fact and history, clumsily and shamefully.

IOC President Jacques Rogge on July 21, warned, ahead of the opening of this 30th of the Olympic Summer Games that athletes may face the prospect of punishment should they refuse to compete against a rival on the basis of nationality.  This warning was initiated in the wake of rumours that some Egyptians were giving consideration to the option of refusing to compete against Israelis.

Jordan's Prince Feisal Bin Al-Hussein, a member of the International Olympic Committee, has stated that any kind of boycott would be most unhelpful.  This is, after all, an international in-gathering of the cream of athletic prowess, represented by 203 nations of the world sending their elite athletes to compete in hopes of garnering the crown of achievement in their sport. 

This represents an event meant to bring nations together in a universal celebration of athletic excellence.  And the common humanity of mankind.

Paradoxically, while both Jordan and Egypt have historically signed peace treaties with Israel, Egypt now under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood is abrogating many aspects of their treaty with Israel, while Jordan which has threatened to do so in the past, continues to uphold at least the letter of the peace-treaty expectations.
"I appreciate for some people it will be (boycott as an instrument of rejection of Israel, as an option among Arab/Muslim countries) but I don't think boycotts do anything or any good for anybody", said Prince Feisal from his accommodation at London's Grosvenor House hotel.  Morally he is quite correct, but his reaction does not reflect reality.

Reality is represented by what happens on the ground.  And reality is that Olympics officials were placed in the awkward position of having to erect a screen between Lebanon's and Israel's judo fighters.  The Lebanese athletes, when they sighted their Jewish counterparts stated unequivocally that they would not train beside the Israelis.

It cannot have but helped Arab truculence and aversion to appearing publicly beside Israelis when the IOC and Jacques Rogge refused up to the very last moment and beyond, to acknowledge and defer to public demands from a huge variety of sources - not the least the State of Israel whose athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during 1972's Munich game, nor the wives of the murdered Israelis, nor the numerous international heads of state who sought to intervene, nor the hundred-thousand signatories.

The one minute of respectful silence during opening ceremonies to mark that horrendous event was not forthcoming. Fear of offending any of the 50 participating Arab or Muslim-majority nations proved more powerful an incentive not to accede, than the moral decency that might have inclined them to agree that a moment of silence was a requirement to expunge the stench of atrocity from Olympics tolerance.

Tolerance is not a word that can be usefully or truthfully applied to the world of Islam.  Which is intolerant, institutionally, of other religions, and most specifically of Judaism's existence within the Middle East.  The rage within the Islamic world at Israel's perch within a geography held to be consecrated to Islam is unappeasable. 

The slaughter of eleven Israeli athletes represented a symbolic action on a world stage to annihilate all of Israel.

In the end, Israel's Mossad hunted down and extinguished the lives of all those held to have been involved in the atrocity.  That, to the Arab world, represents the true tragedy, the dedication of Israel to look after its own in the full knowledge that no one else will.  That, to the Arab world, is the issue that should be memorialized, the elimination bu the State of Israel of her tormentors.

Labels: Anti-Semitism, Arab League, Conflict, Heritage, Human Relations, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Social-Cultural Deviations, Sport, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 28, 2012