Palestine carries flag at Olympics along with other Arab nations
The Olympics offers a moment of pride for oppressed citizens of Palestine. The Tokyo Olympics will begin with a Flag Ceremony expected to last about 3 hours with each country represented by a male and a female athlete carrying their nation’s flags. The Arab World is represented. But the focus is on Palestine where Israel has launched a racist hate campaign last year to destroy Palestinian Flags that are displayed in Israel and the occupied territories. The waving of the Palestine Flag at the Olympics is a snub in the face of Israel’s Apartheid racism.
By Ray Hanania
Dania Nour, an Olympic competitor in Swimming, and Mohammad K.H. Hamada, a weightlifting competitor are the two Olympic contenders who will be representing the State of Palestine in the opening Flag Ceremony for the International Olympics in Japan.
They will be in position 142.
Olympic contenders from every recognized nation and competitor will be carrying the flags of their nation. The inclusion again this year of the Palestinian Olympians is significant because their people, the Palestinians are facing increased oppression from the Israeli military occupiers.
In Israel and Palestine, Israeli Defense Force armed militants and extremist racist armed Israeli settlers have been assaulting Palestinians who have tried to display Palestinian Flags.
The Israeli campaign to confiscate and destroy Palestinian flags was stepped up last year under extremists anti-peace former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is being continued by his extremists successor Naftali Bennett.
The carrying of the Flags in the opening ceremony is a moment of pride for every nation. The order is selected by the name of each country in alphabetical order in Japanese. A total of 206 Olympic Teams are recognized and participate. Here are the Arab countries and their positions in the important Olympic Opening Games Ceremony:
The United Arab Emirates will be in position 7, followed by Algeria in 8, Yemen in 16, Iraq in 19, Egypt in 30, Oman in 38, Qatar in 44, Kuwait in 59, Saudi Arabia in 72, Syria in 82, Sudan in 87, Tunisia in 111, Palestine in 142, Morocco in 189, Jordan in 192, Libya in 196, and Lebanon in 203.
The Tokyo Olympics will open with the Flag Carrying Ceremony at 7 AM EST on Friday July 23 and it is expected to last 3 hours. The ceremony will be rebroadcast on NBC TV at 7:30 PM EST.
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The Palestine Olympians also include three others including Hannah Barakat for women’s 100m, Wesam Abu Rmilah for men’s Judo, Yazan Al Bawwab for men’s 100m freestyle swimming. The total number of Palestinians at the Olympics is five including in four Olympic events this year: Athletics, Judo, Swimming & Weightlifting.
To emphasize its embrace of apartheid racism, Israel’s Olympic Team again has no Arab members.
Here is the link for the scheduled Olympic competitions. CLICK HERE.
You can watch the Olympic live online through NBC by clicking this link. CLICK HERE.
The Olympics will close on August 8.
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Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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