Olympics spat as Lebanese stop Israelis joining them on bus
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Neta Rivkin carries the flag of Israel during the opening ceremony for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016.
RIO DE JANEIRO >> The Israeli and Lebanese Olympics teams became involved in a heated argument about access to a bus to the opening ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Games.
Both sides acknowledged Saturday that Israeli athletes were blocked from boarding a bus packed with the Lebanon team on Friday but they are at odds over the reasons for the actions of the head of the Lebanese delegation.
Israel portrayed it as a hostile act, with sailing coach Udi Gal saying they were prevented from getting on the coach for political reasons at the athletes’ village.
“The driver opened the door and we started to get on but then the head of the Lebanese delegation physically blocked the entrance and wouldn’t let us on,” Gal, a former Olympic sailor, told Israel’s Channel 2 television. “We wanted to stand up for ourselves but you can’t cause trouble.”
Gal told The Associated Press by e-mail that he had not lodged an official complaint. The Olympic Committee of Israel said it was preparing a statement.
Lebanon chef de mission Salim Haj Nicola insisted that he had the right to prevent another team’s athletes from joining them on the transport reserved for them.
“I asked the bus driver to close the door but the guide with the Israeli team prevented him from doing so,” Haj Nicola told Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar. “I then stood at the door of the bus to prevent the Israel team from entering and some of them tried to go in and pick up a fight.”
Haj Nicola told the AP that it was “only a small problem.”
“This problem is finished,” he said by telephone. “We are here only for sports.”
It is a decade since Israel was embroiled in a month-long war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. The 2006 conflict killed about 1,200 Lebanese, including hundreds of civilians, and about 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. The border between the two countries has been largely quiet since then.
11 responses to “Olympics spat as Lebanese stop Israelis joining them on bus”
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This is why sooner or later the Olympics will be no more. All these countries who don’t even like each other participating in these games is ridiculous. Soon they will kill each other during the competitions.
A few teams disliking each other, and a political controversy or two have been a tradition at every Olympics since forever. But possibly things might change, as we’re living in a different world with greater consequences plus more apathy. And the horrible setting in Rio certainly is a downer.
It seems like Israel is involved in conflicts with no end in sight. It might help if they got out of the occupied areas of Palestine that were taken in the 1967 war.
So you’re saying have the Olympic Spirit…unless is Israel???
If the US or Israel did this it would be cause for a major condemnation but since it is a muslim nation it is …….”Ho hum”…Where is the outrage….?
Regarding:
“It seems like Israel is involved in conflicts with no end in sight. It might help if they got out of the occupied areas of Palestine that were taken in the 1967 war.”
While we’re at it… let’s give England back her 13 colonies and of course give Texas back to Mexico.
When Pigs Fly !!!
now now people…play nice
All are jackasses. EVERYBODY in the Middle East is short-tempered and argumentative. Give both sides weapons of mass destruction and let them kill each other.
This conflict has been going on since biblical times so it is unlikely it will end anytime soon….
Some kids never grow up!
Still sore because Israel beat them after Lebanon attacked in 1967 ?