The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) announced on Wednesday that Israel had been expelled from all competitions.
Israeli media reported on Friday that the Ice Hockey Federation of Israel (IHFI), along with the Israeli Olympic Committee, will file a claim with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over Israel’s ousting from the ice hockey world championship.
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) announced on Wednesday that Israel had been expelled from all competitions due to “safety and security” concerns.
“In accordance with IIHF’s duty of care to protect all participants at IIHF Competitions (…) the IIHF Council (…) has decided to restrict the Israeli National Team from participating in IIHF Championships,” the Federation’s statement read.
The same procedure was used to ban Russia and Belarus from competition two years ago.
The Jerusalem Post quoted Yael Arad, chairwoman of the Israeli Olympic Committee, as saying that this is a “dangerous decision that stinks of antisemitism under the guise of safety for the athletes.”
According to further clarifications offered by the IIHF, the decision “currently affects the Israeli National Team’s participation in the 2024 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Division III Group B scheduled to start on 22 January 2024”.
That’s incredibly disappointing. Like I said, either ban the athletes because their flag country is committing war crimes, or just let the people play hockey. Saying you’re concerned that having Israelis exist in public is a safety hazard and you can’t allow yourself or people you care about to be near them, but you fully support Israel and of course you love Israelis, is just going to piss everyone off. FWIW, here’s their actual announcement about the ban, the text of which is weird.
The OP article points out, correctly, that they said exactly the same type of bullshit when they banned Russia and Belarus from play 2 years ago. Here’s what they said about it back then:
Hmm, so are you saying that sporting events should hold a trial to find Israel guilty of war crimes? Because unless I’ve missed something this is what they’d have to do to formally make this claim.
I don’t think a sport organisation can start making war crime claims, and rightfully so.
Personally I think they’ve done the best they can. We’re all very confident Israel are committing war crimes. We’re all very confident this is the real reason they’ve been banned. It’s good that sport organisations have an avenue to exclude these countries without causing major diplomatic issues.
I think they should have the guts to actually say it out loud, rather than play this coy game that avoids the elephant in the room.
Compare it, on a personal level, with not inviting a child molester to your dinner parties anymore. You don’t need to hold a trial in order to do that or explain yourself, if you saw it happen and their explanation of “what’s really going on” is clearly bullshit. And, I don’t think you should come up with a diplomatic explanation of why. There’s so much disinformation in this particular space already; adding more lies, because you’re afraid of causing “issues,” is not something I’m in favor of.
(The case is a little different from my example; I understand that the athletes didn’t necessarily kill any Palestinians. But, in a democracy, you are partly responsible for the behavior of your country.)
Only it isn’t anywhere near as simple as the scenario you’ve put across. But sure I guess if you want to just say ‘calling them out is the most correct thing’. I can agree with that.
The problem comes in when the child molesterer is your bosses best bud and there are no other jobs around. Your boss doesn’t want grief with his friend (this is wrong but out of your control) and you need to feed your own family.
Calling this guy out then risks your family starving to death.
If you can however say that this guy’s shoes are going to rip up your carpet so you don’t want him over then hey presto! Everyone knows the real reason you didn’t invite him and you get to feed your family.
It’s great to compare things to another situation to try and find the 'ideal", but in a world where there are many different parties at play it’s difficult to find a scenario which actually compares.
I get that. It is, sadly, why a lot of people and countries look the other way on criminal things the United States does, or China.
The thing I don’t get is why they’d do that for Israel. It doesn’t seem to me like the IIHF is going to suffer any particular consequence for calling Israel or Russia out, other than a certain contingent of people getting real upset with them. Maybe I am wrong and they’ll lose a bunch of sponsorships; I honestly have no idea, but it seems from my (uninformed) perspective like they’re just being cowards about it.
Maybe specific people would be let go?