I am probably not the only person who was up quite late on Friday-night, depending on the time zone. And no, I am not referring to going out drinking and celebrating the start of the weekend. Instead, I was watching the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics. For those of you who aren’t really in to winter sports, Italy is hosting the enormous sporting event this year.
Interesting facts about the ceremony
First of all, it is worth mentioning that the 2026 Winter Olympics will go to the history books. That is because it is the first Olympic opening ceremony ever to take place simultaneously in four different locations. These are Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno and Predazzo.
The 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Milan was the main one. It was also by far the biggest in terms of both attendance and focus given by the broadcaster. It was held at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza football stadium, more commonly known as San Siro. The stadium is home to local rivals and Italian football-giants AC Milan and Inter Milan.
Furthermore, the 2026 Winter Olympics is also the first edition of the Olympics where two separate cauldrons is used. One of them is located in Milan, and the other one in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Something else from the 2026 Winter Olympics ceremony that I found interesting was to see many unexpected nations being represented. I write “unexepcted”, since I usually don’t associate the countries with winter sports. I’m referring to countries from warmer parts of the world climate-wise, including Benin, Haiti, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Benin is actually one of three countries participating for their first time, just like Guinea-Bissau and the United Arab Emirates.
The inseparable ties between sports and politics
The participation of certain countries in the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony surprised me in a positive way. Unfortunately, I felt the complete opposite when it comes to one country in particular, namely Israel.
A state commiting genocide should not be to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics. In most cases I would assume that it actually IS the case. But just like most other rules and ethics on the global arena, this does not apply to Israel.
I found it very provocative to see the Israeli flag on full display. Some of the Israeli athletes were also acting really upbeat and excited. It seemed as if they were not aware of the ongoing genocide. It would have been suitable for them to wear black armbands or similar. The purpose should have been to show their sympathy for all the victims of the genocide. A genoicde where people have been killed by the very same country they represent.
The theme of the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony was “armonia”, Italian for “harmony”. That almost started to seem like a bad joke the same second the Israelis entered San Siro. Seeing the Israeli flag at an event promoting harmony, peace, love and kindness felt like a mockery.
Seeing the Israeli flag during such an otherwise beautiful art-performance felt wrong. Unfortunately, it ruined the opening ceremony for me to a high degree.
The difference in the treatment of Israel and Russia says it all
Seeing Israel’s flag at the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony once again reminded me of the extreme level of hypocrisy that the international community is displaying. I am not sayting that I think that the IOC should allow Russia to partake in the 2026 Olympics. However, I am not sure whether I think that it is a good idea or not to ban athletes for the action of their country unless they are strong supporters of, let’s say someone like Adolf Hitler, and voice their opinions about it. But that’s a debate for another post.
Competing under neutral flags
Let’s get back on topic. Russian and Belarusian athletes can partake in the 2026 Winter Olympics if they compete under neutral flags. This means that they are only representing themselves. They are not representing Russia or Belarus.
On the official website of the Olympics it says that Russian and Belarusian athletes have to meet the same conditions as they had during the Summer Olympics 2024 in Paris if they want to compete. That means the following:
- Russians and Belarusians have to agree to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes, commonly referred to as AIN: s.
- They can only compete as individuals.
- Everyone who have and/or still is supporting the war cannot compete.
- Any Russian and Belarusian athletes and individuals in various types of supporting positions who have contracts with the military or security agencies of either country are not welcome to take part of the Olympics.
- AIN-athletes have to follow all anti-doping requirements in place, both leading up to and during the Olympics.
Apart from the aforementioned requirements, the athletes also need permission from various committees and other instances. As you can see, athletes who want to partake in the Olympics as an AIN have a steep uphill ahead of them before they can even begin competing.
All these facts are perfect examples of the extreme level of hypocrisy that the IOC are showing when dealing with Israel. They should have banned Israel from the Olympics. Are they afraid of getting the “anti-semitic” label?
What makes Israel different?
The International Olympic Committee (the IOC) use a very weak excuse for differentiating Israel from Russia and Belarus. For me this seems like pure nonsense, but the IOC claim that the two wars are “not comparable”.
If I didn’t know more about what they mean by this, then I might have agreed with them, assuming that they mean that Israel are committing a genocide rather than being at war, and that their actions therefore are even more brutal than the Russians. I don’t say this in a way that means that I support Russia, only that this is hypocrisy at its worst.
To be more precise, the IOC refer to the fact that Russia has taken over various sporting authorities in the Ukrainian regions that they have managed to conquer. According to the IOC, this “violates the territorial integrity of the NOC (National Olympic Committee)” of Ukraine”.
Furthermore, the Israeli National Olympic Committee has not extended their area of jurisdiction by taking over Palestine’s Olympic Committee. Therefore the OIC say that they cannot do anything. This is their explanation: “It is beyond our remit to react to any conflict or war situation between countries. This is the pure realm of politics”.
This has got to be the lamest, most pathetic attempt at a getaway excuse that I have ever come across. It truly makes me want to boycott all Olympic events from now until/if the IOC change their stance and decide to boycott Israel. So in other words, according to the IOC, it is fine to invade another country and slaughter its citizens indiscriminately as long as you leave their Olympic Committee alone?
More stupid statements
I decided to look this up after yesterdays opening ceremony. After seeing this joke of an “excuse” by the IOC, I’ve immediately lost all respect for them, just like I did for FIFA a long time ago (which is a story for another day).
This pathetic statement is valid since the 2024 Summer Olympics. It understandably angered the Palestinian Committee. Just like I do, the Palestinians accused the IOC of using “double-standards”. Unfortunately, this seems like something which more or less all influential global organizations are guilty of.
Furthermore, the IOC made the following statement in September 2025: “The IOC deeply believes that differences between nations must be resolved through dialogue, not violence”.
It was a continuation of IOC: s pathetic excuses. They are just trying to hide the fact that Israel stand above international law.
The statement is really too stupid to try and come up with an answer to, but let me try anyway. The IOC claim that they don’t believe in violence. Okay, and what do you call Israels actions for the last 2+ years? It is violence of the most brutal kind, yet the IOC are still allowing Israel to participate in the Olympics. It’s like they aren’t even trying to come up with a viable excuse, or at least something that is at least somewhat similar to one.
Late came another pathetic attempt at saving face: “The IOC is concerned by the disruption of competitions across the world, the restriction of access to host countries for athletes, and the boycotting and cancellation of competitions due to political tensions. These actions deprive athletes of their right to compete peacefully and prevent the Olympic Movement from showing the power of sport.”
Strange prorities
Are people boycotting or cancelling sporting events bigger problems than a genocide? So we should feel more sorry for the athletes than the victims of a war? When I thought that the IOC couldn’t sink any lower in my eyes, they manage to do precisely so. Unbelievable!
Rather than retreating to all these lies, which only make the IOC look more and more stupid, they would be better off admitting that they are afraid of accusing Israel since the latter could then begin with the whole anti-Semitics accusation-strategy once again. Either that, or the Zionist lobby is so powerful that the IOC cannot afford ending up in a conflict with them. Or who knows, maybe they have some type of leverage on leading IOC representatives, similar to what I wrote about in my post about Jeffrey Epstein and the possible scenarios involving him.
Differentiating Israel’s actions from Russia’s in favor of the former
In my opinion, there are no viable excuses making Israel superior to Russia from a moral standpoint, and that justifies the genocide they are carrying out. However, unlike IOC, there are others who at least make attempts at doing this in a more successful way, even though they aren’t even close of convincing me and many, many others.
These are the most common arguments for supporting Israel:
Hamas attacked Israel first
The Hamas attack has resulted in close to 72 000 dead Palestinians and 171 343 injured. The people who use this as a justification for Israels actions “conveniently” forget matters such as the following:
The background of the conflict
- By the end of the 19th century Zionism had turned into a racist movement promoting the idea of a Jewish takeover of Palestine. Militant Jewish groups in Russia quickly adapted it.
- “Lovers of Zion” and other similar groups began organizing the first wave of Jewish mass emigration to Palestine fueled by the ongoing mass-persecution of Russian Jews.
- As time went on, there were more and more waves of this kind. To sum it up, the Zionists more or less did the same thing as the Boers did in South Africa.
- Claiming to have history on their side in giving the Jews the rights to Palestine, Zionism quickly managed to achieve many of its main goals. One of the first was to get the United Nations to come up with a plan to split Palestine into two states, with the Jews getting the majority of land despite being smaller in numbers.
- Soon, a war between the Israelis and the Palestinians supported by volunteers from other Arab-countries broke out as a result of the unfair partitioning plan. Israel then conquered even more land than previously suggested.
- The war culminated with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, an event made easier by the support of the international community which the Zionists managed to get as a result of the horrors that the Jews went through during World War II.
- The international community at the same time ignored that almost half of the Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their own land by the Zionists.
- The founding of Israel immediately resulted in another war, this time between the Zionist state and its Arab neighbors. It ended 10 months later with Israeli victory. The remaining Palestinians were made into a minority seen as second class citizens in their own country.
A history violence
Above is a brief overview of the conflict. Several wars and uprisings have followed, but the Israelis have always won. Imagine if this happened to your country, and the extreme feelings of anger and betrayal that it would create. In my opinion, that is bound to create monsters such as Hamas.
With that being said, I am not claiming to support Hamas or their means. I can still see how it is Israel who have aided in creating them. They have done so by applying a system of apartheid over the years. It is fully and justifiably comparable to the situation in South Africa before the ANC managed to topple the apartheid-regime.
One major difference is that the ANC and their leader Nelson Mandela are seen was heroes. That is despite the fact that they also resorted to “terrorist” attacks. The Palestinians are instead being labeled terrorists and other stigmatizing terms.
I believe that there is especially one major difference between the two conflicts. It explains the difference in the public portrayal of the plights of the South Africans and the Palestinians. I am referring to their different opponents.
The black South Africans were up against white people of Dutch origin, who political correctness allows you to criticize. The Palestinians were and are instead up against Jews. It is a group of people who the Zionists have managed to portray as victims. This is due to their history of being persecuted, culminating with the Holocaust.
Of course the Holocaust was a horrible event. However, it does not give Israel the right to commit the same type of atrocities. They seem to forger that they were once themselves the victims of them.
In my opinion, all these facts mean that the Hamas-attack doesn’t justify the ongoing genocide.
A disproportionate response
Even the people claiming that Hamas are guilty of the current situation, and that Israel are just “defending themselves”, should be able to see how disproportionate the Israeli response has been. The Hamas attack was indeed brutal and barbaric, but the number of victims dwarfs when compared to that of the victims of Israels “response”. Let’s compare the two:
- Israeli victims of the Hamas-attack: 1 219 dead, 251 taken hostage
- Palestinian victims of the Israeli genocide: Around 72 000 people dead, more than 71 000 injured
The statistics says it all
As is obvious from the above figures, Israel has responded in a way that under no circumstances can be justified as them “defending” themselves. It is the same type of logic as if someone would slap me on the chin, and I would respond by shooting the person 60 times, dismember the body and put it on fire.
To me, these statistics says it all, and they are even more horrific considering the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians victims are civilians. While I can’t understand how someone can justify this, I would still like to hear an explanation that at least makes a bit of sense. Considering the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along with the extreme difference in the number of victims, the Hamas attack is nowhere near enough to justify the Israeli genocide if you ask me.
Lastly, as previously mentioned several times, I do in no way, shape or form support or justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, due to the things mentioned in this post, I see the fact that Israel is allowed to partake in major sporting events like the ongoing Winter Olympics, when Russia and Belarus aren’t, as extreme hypocrisy. It suggests that Israel is somewhat a less brutal invader than Russia, with a justifiable cause, which I view as utter nonsense.
All three of these countries should be banned, and the fact that one of them isn’t really makes me sick! Shame on the IOC!