Because this is a contest for computer geeks, banning Israeli students is particularly onerous, as they’d done excellently in the past. As the article below notes, “In the 2024 competition, held in Alexandria, Egypt, four Israeli students participated remotely due to security concerns and won three gold medals and a bronze. The Israeli team placed second overall out of 94 participating countries and more than 350 student competitors.”
But now there’s no chance for Israeli medals because of the ban. And that ban serves no purpose I can see save to further demonize Israel by hurting its young people, and to demonstrate some kind of twisted “virtue” on the part of the organizers.
Now that the American Association of University Professors has dropped its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts (undoubtedly to give the okay to boycotts of Israel, though they won’t say it), others are following suit. A new article in Tablet gives examples of how Jews are being “frozen out” of not just academia, but publishing—and this is largely in America! A wave of anti-semitism is sweeping the world, and it’s not good.
The Times of Israel reports on the latest instance of Jew-banning, and also shows the resilience of those banned young Jews. Click to read.
Excerpts:
Israel won’t be allowed to participate as a competing nation in the 2025 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), a prestigious international competition for high school students, in the first such decision by a global tournament organizer.
The IOI General Assembly voted by a two-thirds majority to “sanction Israel for its role” in the ongoing “humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the ongoing conflict,” according to a Tuesday announcement by the IOI.
“Beginning in 2025, Israel will not be recognized as a participating delegation at IOI, but four contestants from Israel may still participate under the IOI flag,” the statement said.
Well isn’t that alternative special? Happily, the Israelis aren’t having it:
Today, the Education Ministry says that Israeli students competing in the olympiad under the IOI flag is “not going to happen.”
“The Israeli team will carry the Israeli flag proudly on the way to many more victories and international achievements… The ministry is examining, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, decisive measures on the issue,” the statement says.
The punishment is levied because of the conflict in Gaza. The IOI website says this:
Dear Colleagues and members of the IOI community,
This message is being sent to provide an update on a significant decision of the General Assembly of the IOI.
Members of the community requested that the IOI respond to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the ongoing conflict. During IOI 2024, the General Assembly debated many options at length. The question about what action to take, if any, was not taken lightly. The result was a vote to sanction Israel for its role in the crisis. Over two thirds of the delegations voted in favour of this action. Specifically, the action means that beginning in 2025, Israel will not be recognized as a participating delegation at IOI, but four contestants from Israel may still participate under the IOI flag.
There will continue to be reflection and debate about the mission of the IOI and its connection to war and other international disputes.Assoc/Prof Sun Teck Tan
President of IOI
Perhaps the IOI should be ideologically neutral instead of taking sides. But if they must take sides, they’re taking the wrong one.
Note that the IOI is sanctioning Israel for its “role in the crisis”, which means for defending itself (Israel isn’t allowed to win a war). If the IOI is doing this because “too many Gazan civilians were killed”, they should realize that “civilians” as reported by the Hamas-controlled Gazan Health Ministry include Hamas terrorists; that Hamas elevated civilian deaths as part of its strategy because dead Gazans mean more world opprobrium towards Israel; and that civilian deaths were elevated because Hamas deliberately embedded itself in civilian areas, schools, and hospitals. Further, the ratio of civilians killed to Hamas fighters killed is among the lowest in the history of modern warfare (it’s getting tiresome to repeat this). And I haven’t even mentioned the hostages. . . . This isn’t computer science, after all, but simple facts.
If anybody is banned from this competition, it should be Palestine, home of terrorists, genocidal towards Jews, and the territory that started the war. Remember, they’re punishing young Jews that had nothing to do with the war, so, under that philosophy, if anybody should be punished, it should Palestinians. But perhaps they shouldn’t mix politics with computers at all.
The next IOI competition, sans Israelis, is scheduled to be held in Bolivia next year.
I find it both wrong and short-sighted to ban Israeli youth from this (and other) competition. I found it similarly so when we did the same to Russian youth. That said, I can’t shake the feeling that there is more than politics involved with the Israeli bans.
+1. I’d add racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-intellectual but that might just be me.
It’s a shame. A great reaction here https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8356.
Best
Jean
Dreadful. I’m not surprised though.
Nazis making the rules again.