On the same field

Palestinians, Israelis to compete in '96 Olympics

By Charles W. Holmes, Cox News Service

On the same field — The Macon Telegraph, 9 October 1993 — The Macon Telegraph · Macon, Georgia · 9 October 1993

Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM — Peace with the Palestinians presented Ankie Rekhess with a troubling and personal dilemma. The widow of one of 11 Israeli athletes shot dead at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Rekhess recalls with difficult emotion the day her husband died at the hands of Palestinian guerrillas.

Now, she faces the likelihood that Palestinian athletes will compete alongside Israelis at the 1996 summer games in Atlanta. The International Olympic Committee has formally recognized a Palestine national team, a byproduct of the peace agreements signed last month between Israel and the PLO.

Palestinian athletes from the Israeli-occupied territories will be able for the first time to compete under their flag at the Atlanta games. In Israel, the decision has stirred deep emotions, raising prospects that some Israelis will urge their country to boycott the '96 games and worrying the Jewish state's Olympic committee.

The surviving families of the Munich tragedy decided to reluctantly accept the IOC's decision, with the stipulation that they will oppose the move if PLO leaders fail to halt violence and terror. For Rekhess, it was a question of whether to accept the Israeli-Palestinian peace and its place in the Olympics ideal, or decry the IOC decision in the memory of her late husband.

Andrei Spitzer, a fencing coach, died at 27, leaving Rekhess alone with a one-month-old daughter. “The head says one thing and the heart says another. You can't put away your emotions, but you've got to be realistic. Our government has made peace with the Palestinians and we have to accept that,” Rekhess said. Other Israelis are more determined to object.

“I don't recognize a Palestinian Olympic team because there is no Palestinian state,” said Shifra Hoffman, founder and director of Victims of Arab Terror, a group not affiliated with the athletes' families. “I'm sure that Jews will protest.”

The Israeli Olympic Committee has not taken a formal position on Palestinian participation in the Atlanta games, but its leaders are clearly concerned. The Israeli committee sent a letter last week to IOC director general Francois Carrard seeking clarification of the decision.

“We need to know exactly what this means before we respond publicly to it,” said Israeli Olympic Committee director general Uri Afek. “Officially we cannot mix politics with sports, but we have to be realistic.”

Olympic recognition is a powerful symbol of international acceptance for the Palestinians, 2 million of whom live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, occupied by Israeli since the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinian sports officials say they want to compete in as many as 19 events, including wrestling, boxing, judo, volleyball, basketball and gymnastics.

“We should all forget the past and start a new era. We know there was bloodshed, hatred and aggression against each other. They can point to their examples of it and we have our examples, too,” said Majid Asad, a school administrator in the West Bank town of Ramallah and chairman of the Palestinian Sports Commission.

Rekhess says her group, Families of the Munich Victims, will demand that the Palestinian team participate in a memorial ceremony for the Munich victims being planned for the Atlanta games. Palestine had an Olympic committee with Jewish and Arab members from 1934 until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

However, because of World War II and turmoil in the Middle East, the Palestinian team never competed in an Olympic games. As a first step in international competition, a Palestinian soccer team played an exhibition match in the West Bank town of Jericho against the French national team Friday. “We accepted this game to show the world we exist,” Asad said.

“We know that our standards in sports are so low compared to the rest of the world. But we know we will have important symbolic participation in the next Olympics.”

Context added by this archive

Carries the fact that Palestine had an Olympic committee with Jewish and Arab members from 1934 until 1948, which is the same period in which this archive's 1947 tennis clipping uses the word Palestinian for three Jewish players.

Cite this item

"On the same field," The Macon Telegraph, 9 October 1993. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1993-019. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1993-019