Let’s see if we can discern, with our Sherlock Holmesian powers of deduction, where the International Olympics Committee’s heart lies. And let’s include the BBC, while we’re at it.
Using some elementary, simple, easily verifiable facts, first, we see that in 1996, when Israel objected to Palestinian Arab athletes walking under a banner that read “Palestine,” arguing there was (and still isn’t) a recognized state of Palestine, the committee elected to dismiss the complaint.
Notice, Israel didn’t object to the participation of the Palestinian Arabs or refuse to compete against them, though the opposite has occurred among various Muslim countries and when it has, the IOC responded by doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.
This year, Israel and a whole slew of other countries and individuals worldwide, have lobbied heavily for a minute of silence at the London Games to commemorate the murder by Palestinian Arab terrorists of 11 members of the Israeli delegation to the 1972 Munich Olympics.
But the committee refuses, suggesting this would politicize the Olympics.
Invading one country’s athletes’ dorms, taking them hostage and shooting and killing them doesn’t politicize the games, I guess, but 60 seconds of silence will.
Got it.
Meanwhile, even as the Jews struggle with the IOC to get one minute of long overdue recognition for the victims of the worst tragedy ever to befall the modern Olympic Games, JTA reports the BBC has decided to omit Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, from the information on countries participating in the London Games.
Israeli government officials have reportedly “sent several sharply-worded letters to the BBC demanding that it list Israel’s capital as it does for virtually every other country,” the report notes.
“It also launched a popular campaign on Facebook called Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel, inviting the public to join the effort,” according to the report.
More than 16,000 already have.
This follows the increasingly obviously anti-Semitic BBC initially omitting “any reference to an Israeli capital while simultaneously listing ‘East Jerusalem’ as the capital of ‘Palestine,’” the story says.
So, to clarify, the BBC singlehandedly created a new country and assigned it a capital which, coincidently, is already taken by an actual, existing country it seemingly refuses to acknowledge.
Nice.
So much for neutrality in journalism.
Called on this incredible chutzpah by the public and a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, the BBC grudgingly amended the listings, but replaced the word “capital” with “Seat of Government” in Jerusalem for Israel, while adding that most foreign embassies “are in Tel Aviv.” For “Palestine,” it listed “East Jerusalem” as the “Intended seat of government,” according to reports.
No agenda at that publication, no, sir.
This half-assed fix didn’t cut it for the Israeli spokesman, who reportedly fired off another letter demanding the BBC “end the discrimination against Israel.”
The Mayor of Jerusalem also reportedly issued a press release “stating firmly that ‘irrespective of the BBC’s political agenda, Jerusalem always was, is, and will be the capital of Israel and the spiritual, political, and physical center of the Jewish people.’”
The BBC continues to treat Israel differently than every other country competing in the London Olympics even as the IOC refuses a simple request I have no doubt at all would have been automatic decades ago had the victims been anyone other than Israeli Jews.
So, to recap, can we deduce anything about where these two formerly venerated institutions are coming from?
I think we can.
Can we look at anything coming from either of them ever again with any certainty that it’s not emanating from an entrenched, institutionalized bias?
I don’t think so.
Rocket science?
Nope.
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