Posted on 08/02/24
Jerusalem, Israel - Aug. 2, 2024 - On Thursday, August 1, 2024, Israeli Inbar Lanir won a Silver Medal with yellow ribbons in her hair. Peter Paltichik a Bronze Medal in Judo at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. In an emotional interview after the win, standing next to Peter was his coach Oren Smadja, whose son had tragically fallen in Gaza a month ago.
From July 24 to August 11, 2024, the Olympic games will be in France, after an opening ceremony in Paris on a wet Friday night at the end of July.
On Thursday, August 1, the Equestrian team of Daniel Bluman, Ashlee Bond, and Robin Muhr advanced and qualified for the final.
Israelis are participating in 17 of the summer sporting events. Israeli athletes in swimming, sailing, track and field, gymnastics, and Judo are popular.
With the security situation, athletes have had an additional burden on their shoulders to add to their intense training and necessary concentration.
The French authorities opened an investigation into death threats against three Israeli athletes. However, thus far at the games, no serious incidents have been reported, other than verbal harassment at a few events.
Iran has ignited a “ring of fire around Israel” stated Former National Security Advisor, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidor in an online media conference after following the IDF announcement Hezbollah's most senior military commander, Fuad Shukr had been killed in southern Beirut.
Israel is under attack in multiple arenas.
On July 31, the US Embassy in Israel updated the Travel Advisory for Israel, West Bank, and Gaza to reflect U.S. government travel restrictions to northern Israel within 2.5 miles of the Lebanese and Syrian borders to Level 4: Do Not Travel. On August 1, Israel issued a warning to Israelis to be extra careful traveling.
Besides the 81 Israelis competing in Paris and their coaches and crews, Israeli fans have traveled to France.
Follow Team Israel, a Facebook group with over 107,000 followers asked for stories and photos from Olympic events and this has revealed that Israelis are in Paris supporting Israeli athletes. Photos submitted of Israeli flags and fans have come in from badminton, judo, football, triathlon, and more.
Launched before the London Olympics in 2012, Follow Team Israel has become an important source for Israeli/Jewish athletes in English. Since October 7, its never-ending source of positive news about Israel has attracted the attention of the anti-Israel trolls.
The trolls have moved some of their focus onto the actual athletes. The Olympic Committee of Israel (OCI) responded to death threats against the athletes participating in the Paris Games, saying that it would focus on sports and not hate.
“There is a rotating set of anti-Zionist images and this is all they post along with comments featuring the usual buzzwords such as genocide, apartheid, colonizers, and baby-killers.”
"I doubt the veracity of 99% of these profiles. But even if they are all fake, the sad thing is that they haven’t been programmed to support their athletes - rather they come to a pro-Israel page to troll," commented David Wiseman the co-founder who runs the Facebook page.
The administrators of the Facebook group do their best to stay on top of the situation, but there are many, and they expect more as Israeli athletes perform in the Olympics.
"The best way to beat them at their own game? Keep supporting our wonderful athletes as love will always beat hate and light will always beat darkness," adds Shari Wright Pilo cofounder of Follow Team Israel.