Israel finds a way to make it work, but only for some

Next week Israel is supposed to host some international judo tournament in Tel Aviv, with 800 athletes from 90 countries.

I was surprised to discover that this is still taking place. Despite CoronaVirus, despite the cancelation of almost everything else in the country and the fighting over opening businesses and schools, despite the airport being shuttered except for extreme humanitarian cases that have to be excepted via a special committee....

Despite the fact that Ynet says the authorities putting the event together say the stricter guidelines are being followed with regular CoronaVirus testing of all participants, not being allowed to leave the complex, etc. 

And I get it. Israel has signed on to all sorts of international agreements. If Israel wants to participate in such events, and host such events, it can't just back out and change things.

But there is a freaking pandemic.

If Israel can find a way to make things work for international athletes coming for a tournament, Israel should be able to find a way to make things work for shuls, schools, shopping malls, local sports, restaurants, businesses and everything else. Israelis are no less important than international athletes.

And if Israel cannot find a way to make it work for local businesses and shuls and everything else, we should not be hosting international tournaments right now.

All over the world marathons have been canceled, the Olympics have been canceled, all sorts of other conferences and tournaments have been canceled. I think it would be totally understandable for this event to also have been canceled or rescheduled. When it comes to this event suddenly we are smart enough to find a way to make it work? Again, if we know how to put such an event on, we should be able to open up most other things as well.

האיגוד העולמי קבע כללים נוקשים ודורש בדיקות קורונה לפני ההגעה ליעד, עם הנחיתה ובמהלך התחרות, וכן איסור על יציאה מהמלון והגעה לאולם התחרות בלבד, כאשר בכל האירועים האחרונים לא נרשמו הדבקות בנגיף.

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------