People wonder why Israel is always on the defensive… Occurrences such as these explain it perfectly:
At a recent international fencing competition in Austria, two Israeli teens – Dana Stralinkov and Alona Komarov – won the gold and bronze medals respectively. At the ceremonies awarding them the medals, instead of playing the Israeli national anthem – Hatikva – as is the custom with every other winning athlete, there was only silence. After standing in shocked silence for a few seconds, the two teens along with the entire Israeli delegation of 22 people, burst into song and sang Hatikva, the teenagers’ coach Yaakov Friedman told Yediot Aharonot.
“It was a very moving moment,” Freidman said, adding that a similar incident occurred five months ago at a competition in Sweden. According to the report, the Austrian official in charge of playing the national anthems of countries of the winning participants, explained he was unable to find a recording of the Israeli anthem.
Yeah, sure. And we believe that Nidal Malik Hasan wasn’t an Islamic jihadist. These occurrences, which someone with paranoid tendencies might attribute to European snobbish digs at Israel’s legitimacy, is becoming a bit tiresome. Yossi Harari, chairman of the Israel Fencing Association said that he intends to submit a complaint to the European Union.