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.

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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Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News

Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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