And then, just like that, they disappeared – not from the wild but from the virtual world. One bull elephant broke away from the herd and was tranquilized and safely returned to his former home area. There was not much to be seen, news-wise, of the others. I’m not sure if it’s because news consumers have short attention spans and needed to move on to something else – climatic disasters and the Olympics, for example – or if the Chinese authorities have also stopped encouraging the coverage, particularly when it started raising questions about what changes in their original environment and habitat could have triggered such an exodus.
In a huge country where the government controls everything, it is not hard to make things disappear. What’s 15 elephants compared to the numbers of dissenters whose fate remains unknown? Asian elephants at least enjoy protected species status in China, although they lack the standing of cuddly looking pandas, which have come to symbolize the Middle Kingdom and serve Chinese diplomacy.
The Olympic season is definitely upon us and with it comes a mixture of cynicism and awe. On the one hand there is evidence of true sporting spirit and prowess, despite the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions. On the other, there has been more than one occasion when I wonder what’s the point.
It was heartwarming to see the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony paying tribute with a moment of silence to the 11 slain members of Israel’s delegation to Munich in 1972. But not everyone has learned the lesson. Fatah official Jibril Rajoub is the archetypal terrorist turned functionary – and a bad sport to boot. Rajoub serves as chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the head of the Palestinian Football Association and continues to use these positions to politicize sports and campaign against “normalization” of ties with Israel. In 2018, he was fined by FIFA and banned from the association for inciting hatred and violence against Argentina after it agreed to play a friendly match in Israel. Friendly and Israel are not in Rajoub’s lexicon.
This week, he praised Algerian Fethi Nourine after the judoka refused to compete against an Israeli. Perhaps Rajoub thinks he has a sporting chance of replacing aging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as long as he continues to publicly praise terrorists and attack Israel by whatever means.
Nourine was meant to face off against Sudan’s Mohamed Abdalrasool, but bowed out as it could have meant facing a possible second round against Israel’s Tohar Butbul. (The Sudanese, despite the recently renewed diplomatic relations between the two countries, also refused to compete against Butbul.) Fortunately, the International Judo Federation takes such incidents seriously and suspended the Olympic accreditation of both Nourine and his coach, Amar Benikhlef.
Iranian competitors continue their tradition of dropping out of competitions in which they might end up competing with (and losing to) the Israeli team. I feel sorry for the sportsmen and -women who, after years of training, are not able to take part in what should be the height of their careers simply because they might come up against an Israeli. The IJF placed a four-year ban on the Iranian team after Saeid Mollaei revealed he had been ordered to lose matches or withdraw from competitions to avoid facing Israelis.
But Mollaei didn’t take it lying down. He has since developed a heartwarming friendship with Israeli judoka Sagi Muki and earlier this year came to Israel to compete in the Judo Grand Slam competition held in Tel Aviv. Now competing as a member of the Mongolian team, having been forced to leave the Islamic Republic, Mollaei shows that opponents are not enemies. Just this week after winning a silver medal in Tokyo, Mollaei dedicated it to Muki – who disappointingly failed to get past the quarterfinals.
Avishag Semberg with her bronze medal in twaekondo made us proud, however the baseball team – regardless of how they fare in Friday’s game – should be ashamed of themselves for the TikTok video that went viral showing some members deliberately trying to see what it takes to break a bed made of reinforced cardboard in the Olympic village. They were not the only team to test the beds, and patience of their polite hosts, but it doesn’t make it any more acceptable.
There are other Olympic shenanigans. Following their ban for violating drug doping regulations, the Russians are competing under the auspices of the Olympic Committee rather than as a national team. Consequently, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 sounded out instead of the Russian national anthem when Russian shooter Vitalina Batsarashkin stood on the podium to accept her gold medal.
Under more jarring circumstances, there was no national anthem or flag to accompany Taiwanese weightlifter Kuo Hsing-Chun when she won her gold. Taiwan – a thriving, democratic country with a population of some 23.5 million people – is not recognized by the Olympics and most other international bodies because the People’s Republic of China refuses to accept its independence. The Taiwanese teams’ shirts sport the initials TPE, another frustrating sign of China’s insistence that the island be called Chinese Taipei at the international event.
This is made more galling, a Taiwanese friend noted, by the fact that “Palestine” is fully recognized at the Olympics. Although so far, the Palestinians left their greatest mark on the games through the Munich massacre rather than any sporting achievement.
Despite its ongoing threats to Taiwan and worsening human rights record in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang where the Uighur minority are mostly found (or are being made to disappear), China is still scheduled to host the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. And, of course, the world made its way to Beijing for the Summer Olympics in 2008 BC (Before Corona.)
China, like Iran, tightly controls its own social media network and has strict security control over its own population and what news can get out. None of these human rights abuses mean much to the herd instincts on display at the UN’s Human Rights Council. The UNHRC has mandated a permanent probe into Israel alone and has tapped former high commissioner Navi Pillay to lead it. Pillay’s idea of fair play when Hamas launched thousands of rockets on Israel in 2014 was criticizing the US for helping fund Israel’s protective Iron Dome anti-rocket system and not providing something similar to the Gazans. There was no word about what the Palestinians in Gaza do spend its donors’ funds on, but the labyrinthine terror tunnels and thousands of rockets and mortars launched on Israel – some 4,500 this May alone – make it clear.
Incidentally, as The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh noted, Palestinian human rights organizations last week called on Hamas and other terrorist groups to stop storing weapons in residential areas following another fatal explosion apparently caused by a fire. Hamas’s use of human shields is a doubly cynical abuse of human rights – the terrorist organization likes to store and launch rockets from within densely populated or sensitive sites such as schools and hospitals on the understanding that Israel will avoid targeting them. Its a win-win situation for Hamas – it can attack Israel more easily and if Israel hits back it will be the one vilified.
Hamas was back at one of its favorite sports this week – ecoterrorism. It launched bunches of balloons of the particularly non-festive type – attached to incendiary devices.
Like elephants, Israelis have long memories but lack the thick skin. If the Olympics had a blame game, Israel would win the gold medal. But then Rajoub would probably trumpet his own horn.
liat@jpost.com