Politics- Should the Giro have not gone to Israel after yesterday?

jerry3571

Talking to a Mate and we think the Giro was used politically to make Israel look good. After their history over the last few decades Israel can't be said to be a thriving democracy. Should cycling be kept out of countries with difficult situations and questionable pasts?
An example of a Country using sport as a political tool is Russia and the Winter Olympics, in Russia.
Before Olympics, Putin had a 60% approval rating; after Olympics his rating goes up to 90% as Russia cleans up on the medals. After Olympics Putin invades Crimea and starts on Ukraine. :?

The_Boy

jerry3571 wrote:

Should cycling be kept out of countries with difficult situations and questionable pasts?

That's one way to get rid of the grand tours...

davidof

jerry3571 wrote:

Talking to a Mate

AFAIKS the Israel defense forces repulsed a violent invasion by 50,000 Palestinians.

blazing_saddles

davidof wrote:

jerry3571 wrote:

Talking to a Mate

AFAIKS the Israel defense forces repulsed a violent invasion by 50,000 Palestinians.

Good practice for hosting the world cup, if they fancy it.

Should the Giro have not gone to Israel after yesterday?
It would be a valid point, had events occurred the other way around.
However, in general, maybe.
In terms of the racing, certainly.

mididoctors

I was uncomfortable with the Israel start.

topper_harley

should we allows teams from countries with shocking human rights records ? where you're not free to express yourself, no free press, countries where women are treated as prisoners?

topper_harley

And if we are getting all political, I look forward to the day Israel decides to unleash hell on the hell hole countries in that area, and make no mistake they will push Israel and the patience will snap...its only a matter of time

jerry3571

Seems the Trump Embassy thing soon followed soon as the Giro left. These Politicians are buggers for timing things so they look good. Just when this kind of thing happens a few miles from the race.

Think most people are thinking that live rounds is not the first line in deterring demonstrators. Maybe our Sport should keep out of this kind of stuff, whoever is in the right (so many wrongs have been done that there is no score) :evil:

ddraver

My biggest shock is still that Jewish girls show their boobies so freely...

I had assumed ( showing my own ignorance and wrong of me I know) they were much more conservative than that.

rick_chasey

Out of interest, why wasn’t there a thread like this about, say, tour of Beijing, tour of Dubai, tour of Qatar, the Tour coming to London in 07, after the Iraq war, etc etc?

jerry3571

Think yesterday's news put me on to it. Also, the timings of the opening of the US Embassy. Seems the Giro was made up to be a pre PR thing to make Israel look like a decent place.
It is true though, cycling does go to a few tricky spots. I always say that you can tell a dodgy country (when watching the cycling) by the size of their national flags in the Capitals. If huge then it's some kind of nutjob place :shock:

RichN95.

Both sides are as bad as each other. I know not to equate a country's people with their government. This has been going on for fifty years and in a broader sense for a millennium. A cycling race isn't going change anything one way or another. And neither will self important boycotts. Especially with the backdrop of Trump's current sh1t-stirring.

In summary: Meh

tailwindhome

Hosting a major sporting event as a PR exercise is entirely the point of hosting a major sporting event and is as old as major sporting events.

Lanterne_Rogue

I quite appreciated the start in Israel, as I could pretend that my annual indifference to the start of the Giro was a political statement rather than a lamentable inability to concentrate...

(more seriously, part of me was seriously considering calculating corrected times starting from the first Italian stage, but another part of me suspects I don't know enough about it to be able to defend my position if I'd done so. I'm certainly not comfortable with anything that validates the status quo)

slowmart

Topper harley wrote:

And if we are getting all political, I look forward to the day Israel decides to unleash hell on the hell hole countries in that area, and make no mistake they will push Israel and the patience will snap...its only a matter of time

I wonder if any members of the Israeli armed forces who have committed war crimes will face arrest if they travel abroad?

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premiu ... -1.5883568

Certainly the Israelis aren't constrained by the rules of engagement applied by the UK or the US armed forces.

Mind you the deaths of Palestinians are a welcome distraction for the current PM of Israel who is under investigation for corruption.

slowmart

Slowmart wrote:

Topper harley wrote:

And if we are getting all political, I look forward to the day Israel decides to unleash hell on the hell hole countries in that area, and make no mistake they will push Israel and the patience will snap...its only a matter of time

Unleashing hell, looking forward to it? You have to be a keyboard warrior of the saddest sort to use language like that.

rick_chasey

So why the complaints about this particular event and not the rest of the instances where the race has gone to nations who don’t have an unblemished record?

I’m assuming you’re not some momentum loving weirdo, in which case I know the answer already.

Vino'sGhost

Judging by the birds on the accompanying adverts id have thought the point was tourism.

The massive museum theyve built to house the dead sea scrolls looked worth a trip over there on its own.

jerry3571

Rick Chasey wrote:

So why the complaints about this particular event and not the rest of the instances where the race has gone to nations who don’t have an unblemished record?

I’m assuming you’re not some momentum loving weirdo, in which case I know the answer already.

Or some neocon, gun slinging, tea party hawk of a sociopath

I did say above that all parties have blood on their hands and still fresh too. Just I'm not keen on sticking riders in borderline war zones.

Vino'sGhost

jerry3571 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

So why the complaints about this particular event and not the rest of the instances where the race has gone to nations who don’t have an unblemished record?

I’m assuming you’re not some momentum loving weirdo, in which case I know the answer already.

Or some neocon, gun slinging, tea party hawk of a sociopath

I did say above that all parties have blood on their hands and still fresh too. Just I'm not keen on sticking riders in borderline war zones.

I didnt see you complaining about the human rights or war crime records of the middle east tours? or the tour of Calafornia in the good old spray the school with bullets usa. And its the USA that was the catalyst for the unrest.

The_Boy

Rick Chasey wrote:

Out of interest, why wasn’t there a thread like this about, say, tour of Beijing, tour of Dubai, tour of Qatar, the Tour coming to London in 07, after the Iraq war, etc etc?

Apart from London, all of those have, if not generating a thread, raised questions/comments in various places.

Pross

ddraver wrote:

My biggest shock is still that Jewish girls show their boobies so freely...

I had assumed ( showing my own ignorance and wrong of me I know) they were much more conservative than that.

I suspect most modern Israelis are less devout or not religious at all plus living in an area like that where you could get blown up in the street or on a bus there is probably an element of 'live for the day'. Tel Aviv and Eilat are pretty big on partying. I stayed in a Hasidic Jewish area of Brooklyn for a few days and I suspect that was much more what you were expecting - women in their early thirties with a lot of kids, dressed like old women with headscarves, flat shoes and knee length skirts.

mididoctors

Rick Chasey wrote:

So why the complaints about this particular event and not the rest of the instances where the race has gone to nations who don’t have an unblemished record?

I’m assuming you’re not some momentum loving weirdo, in which case I know the answer already.

well, there are questions about other venues so the question is a false narrative.... moreover don't ask don't discuss is a common attitude on this bike race forum until the politics of it all gets dragged in when anything newsworthy is happening at the time.

I doubt anyone would have been in favour of a grand depart of the tour starting in China in 1995 1 year after Tiananmen sq.

and people aren't too happy about anything happening in Russia these days.

news cycle I guess.

the PR effect of the "big start" looks pretty hollow contrasted against 60 people shot dead and 100's wounded in a ffff'd up apartheid-like situation. It is hard to imagine the Giro prologue in Jerusalem was not timed to support the embassy opening along with the 70year celebration day of 1948 14th May( creation of Israel ) which by the way Palestinians mourn as Nabka day (the catastrophe) the next day on the 15th.

The giro starts conveniently around this time along with Eurovision which together make good candidates for events intended to make the Israeli state normalised in international perceptions especially when timed with the Israeli anniversary.

It does make the giro organisation and us as spectators somewhat "dupes" for Israeli propaganda irrespective of where one sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I guess its part of the terrain or cost of doing business but I think such events need to consider carefully what they are doing for the money.

sometimes normalising a fff'd up regime may be beneficial as opposed to boycotting eg Olympics in Korea[ymmv] ..it really depends a lot on the dynamics and context of the situation which is why questions like yours can be so bloody annoying because of naive simplicity of lumping a host of different situations into one basket without scratching the surface of understanding any of them.

"Why Israel and not China". "Why x and not y" ...if one finds themselves asking that question it's probably a good moment to invest some time trying to learn more about the situations in honest detail and GOOD FAITH

personally here I tend not to raise these issues out of good manners or summit...but it kinda was being asked

I live in Stamford hill hackney which has a large Jewish orthodox population and they are not of a uniform opinion on Israeli/Zionist positions.



I thought cycling podcasts position of attending the big start but distancing themselves by not accepting the official free hospitality was a reasonably sceptical yet measured approach.

bompington

jerry3571 wrote:

Think most people are thinking that live rounds is not the first line in deterring demonstrators.

What makes you think that live rounds were the first line?
Whatever you think of Israel in general, and this incident in particular, isn't it a bit obvious that Hamas stirred this protest up and made sure that it happened in a way that guaranteed that Palestinians would get killed? That deaths were precisely what they wanted? And then you get the global reaction, as evidenced in this thread. Job done.

mididoctors

bompington wrote:

jerry3571 wrote:

Think most people are thinking that live rounds is not the first line in deterring demonstrators.

What makes you think that live rounds were the first line?
Whatever you think of Israel in general, and this incident in particular, isn't it a bit obvious that Hamas stirred this protest up and made sure that it happened in a way that guaranteed that Palestinians would get killed? That deaths were precisely what they wanted? And then you get the global reaction, as evidenced in this thread. Job done.

what makes you think they weren't? apart from 3 sentences of regurgitated speculation? I mean you may be right but it's not obvious. not remotely or even a bit obvious. just a flat assumption.

would you be in favour of a UN investigation to find out?

its a horribly toxic situation... violence infects the discourse far from where it happens... I feel this bike racing forum shouldn't be filled with this cr4p.

Vino'sGhost

mididoctors wrote:

bompington wrote:

jerry3571 wrote:

Think most people are thinking that live rounds is not the first line in deterring demonstrators.

What makes you think that live rounds were the first line?
Whatever you think of Israel in general, and this incident in particular, isn't it a bit obvious that Hamas stirred this protest up and made sure that it happened in a way that guaranteed that Palestinians would get killed? That deaths were precisely what they wanted? And then you get the global reaction, as evidenced in this thread. Job done.

what makes you think they weren't? apart from 3 sentences of regurgitated speculation? I mean you may be right but it's not obvious. not remotely or even a bit obvious. just a flat assumption.

would you be in favour of a UN investigation to find out?

its a horribly toxic situation... violence infects the discourse far from where it happens... I feel this bike racing forum shouldn't be filled with this cr4p.

I agree. keep it to the socialist worker or Labour party pro palestine movement.

bompington

mididoctors wrote:

bompington wrote:

jerry3571 wrote:

Think most people are thinking that live rounds is not the first line in deterring demonstrators.

What makes you think that live rounds were the first line?
Whatever you think of Israel in general, and this incident in particular, isn't it a bit obvious that Hamas stirred this protest up and made sure that it happened in a way that guaranteed that Palestinians would get killed? That deaths were precisely what they wanted? And then you get the global reaction, as evidenced in this thread. Job done.

what makes you think they weren't? apart from 3 sentences of regurgitated speculation?

This report from an eyewitness, for a start:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... all-games/
Not unbiased, obviously, but until I see a more reliable counter-report:

An eyewitness wrote:

When crowds still assembled and threatened the fence, non-lethal weapons including tear-gas and evil-smelling “Skunk” liquid were used. Despite the IDF’s deployment of drones to disperse these weapons more precisely, they are relatively ineffective in this situation.
Next the IDF fired over-head warning shots and then disabling shots aimed at ankles and legs. Only as a last resort, in the face of immediate threat by terrorists with weapons and explosives, have soldiers shot to kill.

thegreatdivide

Topper harley wrote:

And if we are getting all political, I look forward to the day Israel decides to unleash hell on the hell hole countries in that area, and make no mistake they will push Israel and the patience will snap...its only a matter of time

Do us a favour pal. Next time you're walking down the street and one of those big Tesco lorries is coming down the road - step out in front of it would you. Cheers.

Vino'sGhost

thegreatdivide wrote:

Topper harley wrote:

And if we are getting all political, I look forward to the day Israel decides to unleash hell on the hell hole countries in that area, and make no mistake they will push Israel and the patience will snap...its only a matter of time

Do us a favour pal. Next time you're walking down the street and one of those big Tesco lorries is coming down the road - step out in front of it would you. Cheers.

I think Marks and Spencer would be more fitting.

jerry3571

I think Oman and the Dubai tours etc are stable situations. It's the proximity of the conflict. Google Gaza and see its like the whole place has been nuked.
Think maybe keep clear of conflict areas?
I think the events in the US are terrible but it's random acts which can happen anywhere in the world, maybe more likely in America but alas they're still random acts.

dabber

My personal preference is that none of the GTs start outside of their own borders. Not for any particular political reason but purely for the fact that they were originally created to be tours of France, Italy and Spain.
I'm guessing that many here won't agree with that view just my two penneth.

Not a big deal for me btw.