Whilst the BBC News website’s Sport section (along with BBC television news and BBC World Service radio) has recently invested energies in the context-free promotion of Jibril Rajoub’s latest exploitation of sport for the political delegitimisation of Israel, no coverage of another recent Israel-related sports story has been seen on its pages.
The Israeli delegation to the World Masters Judo competition held in Rabat on May 23rd and 24th was unnecessarily detained upon arrival in Morocco.
“The members of the Israeli delegation were held up at the airport for more than eight hours, in a large room with no chairs, food or water. […]
Only after the International Judo Federation chairman threatened to call off the entire competition, the Israeli delegation members were allowed into the country, and were escorted to their hotel by the king’s security unit.
On the first day of the competition, the Israeli judokas experienced hostility again, and the Israeli flag was nowhere to be seen. In response, a representative of the International Judo Federation demanded that all the flags of the participating countries be removed.”
“The Israeli team was also not mentioned on the tournament’s website. The spectators waved Palestinian flags, shouted “We’re going to kill you,” and booed each time a member of the Israeli team appeared.”
No report on those events appears on the BBC’s dedicated Judo page or elsewhere in the sports section of the BBC News website and neither was it covered on the website’s Africa or Middle East pages.
