World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder today expressed his dismay at Qatar’s removal of the Israeli flag from the premises of the FINA Swimming World Cup in Doha. The flag was removed from the Aspire Zone, a 2.5 square kilometer (1 square mile) sporting zone in the Qatari capital where Israeli swimmers were competing. The Star of David was also expunged from television reports about the Israeli swimmers.
The removal violates the FINA Code of Ethics, which requires that its tournament shall have "no discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, or political opinion.”
According to the English-language website 'Doha News', the hubbub began on the back of a single Twitter post, which showed an amateur photograph of the Israeli flag alongside several others. "At the pool in Qatar, #FINA, another picture of an Israeli flag demonstrating the team participating in the tournament, outside the Aspire Zone this time," the tweet read, ending with a hash tag on the Arabic word for "normalization," which commonly refers to Israel.
In addition to erasing any physical semblance of the Jewish state, the Israeli flag was also "whitewashed" by Qatari broadcasters, who replaced Israel's Star of David with a simple white box alongside Amit Ivri's name during her race.
This may have been in response to pressure from local groups, who expressed opposition to raising the Israeli flag publicly. Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 Soccer World Cup. The Gulf emirate will be the first Arab state to host the prestigious tournament.
“Qatar must immediately restore the Israeli flag to its venue at this sporting event and stop pandering to the worst sort of Arab rejectionism,” Lauder stated. “If Doha won’t guarantee the participation of athletes from all countries and respect the neutrality of international sportsmanship, it has forfeited its right to host the 2022 World Cup in soccer. That event should be moved from Qatar.”
