www.sail-world.com/Australia/Youth-Worlds---Israeli-exclusion-attracts-mainstream-media-attention/141190

It would be good to hear Malaysian version on this before judgement is cast but very sad

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/General-Discussion/Chat/Thoughts-about-ISAF-Sailing-World-on-this-one/

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Old Salty said...
www.sail-world.com/Australia/Youth-Worlds---Israeli-exclusion-attracts-mainstream-media-attention/141190

It would be good to hear Malaysian version on this before judgement is cast but very sad

The Malaysian 'version' can be summed up in the Koran. It's not rascism, just regular old Islamic antisemitism.

Having lived in Singapore the past 2 years and meeting a number Israeli citizens living there I am not surprised to hear this. Israeli's are pretty restricted when it comes to movements around South East Asia. Even flying back to Israel is a major pain as flights landing in Israel are bared from flying over a number of Muslim countries.

The way I understand it, it has little to do with the Koran or antisemitic governments but is a reaction to Israels stance on Palestine / West Bank.

I think the problems is that neither side can see that their behavior will see no resolution of the problem.

When I saw the subject line, thought it was about the kiters...


Joke aside, the sports are always used for political purposes.
Old people making decisions. A missed opportunity to build bridges through younger generations...

I see this as the sailors getting caught up in a long going political sanctions deal.
The Malaysians offered Conditional Visas (as is their right) based on their current entry rules. Those visas coming from their government not the event organisers .

The Israelis could have competed by simply following the rules of that Government whose country they were visiting.
I might add that not following Visa requirements in Israel might not go well for the violator, as in a lot of countries.

But they refused to go and it became a media issue in Israel.

I wonder if the Malaysian diplomat issuing the Visas really cares.

On a more positive note...

www.facebook.com/ISAFYouthWorlds/videos/1096391860379279/

The Malaysian position looks crap - but if countries that refused entry to the athletes of some nations were not allowed to hold world titles, then Australia, New Zealand and all the other Commonwealth countries would not have been able to hold any world titles from 1977 to 1991. So we can't complain about the concept of athletes from certain countries being excluded.

Of course we probably think that it was a good thing that we excluded South African athletes as a protest against apartheid (and it was, IMHO) but it does show that we can't get too narked with ISAF in a lot of ways.

Actually, ISAF was heavily criticised back in the '70s when it moved to exclude South African sailors. While ISAF nark me in a lot of ways, it's unfair if they get abused no matter what they do.