https://cyclingtips.com/...on-israel-start/amp/

Silly

---

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I'll be super interested to see what Tom Dumoulin does. My guess is no Giro for him so he and Sunweb can take down the Sky Train in France.

On topic, I cycled a bit through Israel with a coworker who was born there. Eilat did have some good challenging bits, but damn the drivers are assholes to cyclists in Israel.

A few copy and pastes from the article:

It said other signatories include human rights organizations, trade unions, ethical tourism associations, plus sports and faith-based groups from over 20 countries. These include the Jewish groups Jewish Voice for Peace in the US, Union of Progressive Jews in Belgium, Italian Network Jews Against the Occupation, Jews for Justice for Palestinians UK.

and

“Listen, this is a Giro in Israel. It’s not a Giro of Palestine. So, if they want to do a joint project with us in the future, we’ll talk to them. But this is the Giro in Israel. It’s like asking, you know, when they did the Giro start in Holland, well why didn’t Belgium get involved? Because it’s a different country. That’s why.”

I am not going to weigh into the politics of Palestine here (generally I am going to be fairly pro Israel on several matters, although I have sympathy for the people of Palestine), but I see no reason to not have a sporting event in Israel. I hope it all rolls off as planned and politics does not get in the way of sport. If you are going to do that, why not ban any international business with Israel....after all a major sporting event is just another form of business. It is just more visible than say a software business. Or ask Apple and Intel where they are doing some of their leading edge chips and often it is not in between Palo Alto and Los Gatos somewhere, it is in between Herzliya and Haifa.

Given the multitude of UN Security Council resolutions that Israel continues to ignore coupled with the de facto apartheid system, it's a conversation that is worth having. Whether it's a Lavender Room conversation or not, is another question.

Actually, given it popped up in my cycling news feed I thought it was worthy of conversation and interested in this communities thoughts.

Participation in that conversation isn't mandatory.

Agreed. It's hard to disagree with their human rights issues. But it's also hard to agree with a lot of what's going on in the United States as well regarding human rights. There are races in Abu Dhabi as well. Religion and politics causes all of these countries to do some horrid things but I'm certainly not opposed to using sport in these places to improve things and give people something they can all come together for.

"...but damn the drivers are assholes to cyclists in Israel."

To be fair, the drivers in Israel are assholes to other drivers too.

Sure the conversation is worth having and it is probably endless given that we should be careful about calling out other societies. Here in North American we have had a pretty close to apartheid system for our indigenous people and the major diff between what happened in South Africa and here is that the settlers did not outnumber the native people. Let's focus on the sport part. Every society has their bad guy behavior towards its own population and they get to have sporting events. I am being consistent here as I am not asking for Bahrain to not have a 70.3 too in another thread. What would be really interesting about a Giro start in Jerusalem is a team Bahrain Merida on the start list....not that there are any athletes from the gulf state on the team, but the title sponsor is....I say "play on people....we can have friendship through sport where we are all more alike when we put on sporting kit than we are different".

...but we can go on and on, so let's take it to the lavendar (where I won't end up be going anyway since I come to ST for a fantasy get away to the sporting world and to link with like minded people about sport....I have the rest of my life for the other stuff).

Shit happening elsewhere does not explain, justify or lessen the shit happening in Israel. That's a fallacious attempt at an argument.


Froome will not risk it for Giro + Tour glory.
Not sure if this is the year Dumoulin goes full on for the Tour, but I'd like to see that. He has the toolbox to beat Froome, but not sure if he has the team. He would have to have at least on faithful domestique with him when the going gets tough.
Too bad Movistar's management sucks, or else we could have a proper Froome x Landa battle. Last year Landa had Froome's ticket, but had to drop back no less than three times. He stopped pedalling twice.