Israeli athletes’ safety must be priority after sick antisemitic displays

PARIS – Apparently, booing and whistling during the Israeli national anthem at the Olympic Games wasn’t enough for the antisemites who would prefer that the only democracy in the Middle East with a free press, freedom of religion, LGBTQ rights and other Western values was wiped from the face of the earth.

Now they’ve moved directly to invoking the Holocaust when the Israeli soccer team takes the pitch.

According to multiple news reports, some protestors chanted “Heil Hitler” and unfurled a banner that read “Genocide Olympics,” prompting a local police investigation. There were also, according to the French publication Le Parisien, gestures to Israeli supporters referencing Jewish stereotypes like hooked noses that have been part of antisemitic propaganda going back centuries.

It’s a predictable mess.

France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe, has been an epicenter of antisemitism in recent years. Since Hamas’ surprise attack and subsequent killing spree last Oct. 7, the war in Gaza has inflamed the worst elements of Jewish hatred around the world under the pretext of protesting Israel’s military campaign.

Even in the U.S., out-of-control protests have paralyzed college presidents and impacted American politics. There was no chance the Olympics were going to be held in France without death threats and antisemitic rhetoric following the Israeli delegation wherever they go.

The first priority here, of course, must the safety of Israeli athletes. The 1972 Munich Olympics, where Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic Village – a massive security failure that resulted in 11 dead – can never be repeated.

“Saturday’s grotesque displays of crowds chanting ‘Heil Hitler’ while making the Nazi salute during Saturday’s Israel-Paraguay soccer game – the second act of intimidation aimed at Israeli’s soccer players in as many games during the Paris Olympics – betrays the sad truth that anti-Jewish hatred has thrived and grown in the months since October 7,” Dr. Robert J. Williams, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation and UNESCO Chair on Antisemitism and Holocaust Research, said in a statement. “Few can imagine the extraordinary amount of hatred felt by Israeli and non-Israel Jewish athletes, their supporters, and Jewish communities across the world.”

Every Jewish person with an understanding of history knew that these Games would be the most antisemitic Olympics since 1936, when Adolf Hitler tried to clean up Berlin from the antisemitic rhetoric that was rampant across the city and present a more tolerant face to his regime as the world came for the Olympics.

That tacit acknowledgement of Hitler as a legitimate international leader instead of the murderous dictator he was – including the United States sending its delegation – contributed in some ways to the West falling asleep at the wheel while he began a campaign to exterminate 6 million Jews.

Germany didn’t allow its Jewish athletes to compete at those Olympics, but those from other countries were met with constant but socially acceptable antisemitism.

It’s chilling to think about the ways in which history repeats itself.

Israelis are tough. They can take the insults and the jeers. But without the highest level of protection for them as they move through Paris, there is no more point to holding any more Olympics. Despite some far-left yahoos in the French government egging on these protests, it seems the French security services are taking security very seriously and working with their counterparts in Israel to deal with threats and potential attacks.

Still, it’s an ugly scene. Having fans chant “Heil Hitler” at an Olympic event should enrage anyone associated with the Olympic Movement, especially given how complicit 1936 was in legitimizing Hitler. There should be a zero-tolerance policy for any fans who cross that line.

People around the world have every right to protest a war.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated and nuanced, and each side has its own version of what happened in 1947 and 1948, when the Palestinians refused a negotiated partition of the land that had been under British control into a Jewish and an Arab state.

But the end result is that Israel gained its statehood, kept it by fighting off attacks from its neighbors and built a prosperous, democratic and free society that endures to this day.

Yes, there are legitimate criticisms to be made of how the current Israeli government has approached its relationship with the West Bank and Gaza, its refusal to meaningfully make progress on a two-state solution and the unacceptably high civilian toll of this war.

But for too many people – including the protestors at these Games – these offenses are being used as a thin veil for a brand of antisemitic speech we haven’t seen at an Olympics in nearly 90 years.  

It’s sad. It’s sick. And for the next two weeks, stamping it out needs to be a priority for the IOC and Paris Games organizers, along with French police.