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Palestinian Olympic Committee Head Says Israel Should Be Banned From 2024 Paris Games
Palestinian Olympic Committee President Jibril Rajoub, who also heads the Palestinian Football Association, holds a news conference to update the media about challenges facing Palestinian sports ahead of the Olympics in Paris, in Ramallah, in the West Bank, June 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Palestinian Olympic Committee President Jibril Rajoub is calling for Israel to be banned from the 2024 Olympic Games because of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war just over a month before the competition begins in Paris.
“I’m sure that Israel’s participation will be a political burden, a security burden, and a moral burden on the Olympic Games,” Rajoub said in a newly published interview with Germany’s state-funded broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).
Rajoub also claimed that Israel’s military actions during the ongoing war in Gaza violate aspects of the Olympic Charter, the set of rules for the Olympic Games to which participants must adhere. In one allegation, he claimed that the Israeli military has destroyed most sporting facilities in the Gaza Strip, and has used the remaining venues as “centers for arrest and investigation and for the humiliation of people in a shameful way.”
“All of these incidents put Israel in a position where it should be prevented from participating,” Rajoub told DW. “This is our position here. We hope that the Olympic movement shuts out Israel. As long as the Israeli side is not willing to confront the government about its transgressions, they are part of the system.”
Rajoub also criticized Israeli athletes who are supportive of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including judoka Peter Paltchik, who will compete in the Olympics this year for the second time. Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, Paltchik shared on social media a photo of several missiles that were signed with messages — including one that compared Hamas to the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization and also said “Ippon,” which is the highest score achievable in judo and immediately ends a match. Paltchik wrote in the caption of the photo, “From me to you with pleasure #HamasisISIS #IsraelAtWar.”
Commenting on Patchik’s social media post, Rajoub told DW, “He is signing missiles and sending them as a gift to the children of Gaza.”
However Israel’s Judo Federation defended Patchik.
“Peter didn’t sign anything himself. Hamas is the one who targets civilians and uses them as human shelters [sic], not Israel’s army,” the federation told DW. “In the picture, the words are: ‘Hamas is ISIS,’ nothing about children and civilians.”
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said in March there is no doubt that Israel will participate in the Paris Olympics.
Rajoub is also head of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), which recently tried to have Israel banned from all international matches due to Israel-Hamas war.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will take place from July 26-Aug. 11.
The post Palestinian Olympic Committee Head Says Israel Should Be Banned From 2024 Paris Games first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
The post Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.