Wednesday November 8, 2017

I've Been Thinking:

Morocco is supposed to host The World Judo Championships on November 9-10, 2017.

Yesterday the Moroccans retracted the visas that were granted to the Israeli team. As a result, Israel was unable to depart from Tel Aviv. When the International Judo Federation discovered what was happening they demanded that Morocco grant the visas or, they said, they will cancel the entire championship.

This debacle follows on the heels of the Abu Dhabi judo championship when Israeli athletes were not permitted to wear their state emblem or play their national anthem.

This isn't a first time move against Israel by Morocco. In 2015 something similar happened when the Israeli judo team was arrested at the Rabat airport. They were released, finally, after being detained at the airport for 8 hours.

At that point the International Judo Federation intervened and reminded Morocco that a condition for hosting the event was that they host Israel. But here we go again.

We will continue to monitor these events.

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