Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke at the opening ceremony imploring the world's top Jewish athletes to move to Israel, and the very next day the police storm a field to break up a softball game over some bureaucratic bull***t," exclaimed Israel team member Michael Hochman.

"How does that play well for anybody?"

Even more painful to hear, from an enraged foreign softball player who was one of hundreds to shell out thousands of dollars for the opportunity to represent their countries at the Maccabiah in the Jewish homeland:

"I will NOT be making aliya. After four years of training, this nonsense has made my decision very easy. It was easy for the Maccabiah to take our money, and now they have housed us an hour away, and much worse, they did not make sure to be well organized. What a shame. We are totally disgusted and many people1s plans have been ruined...This really hurts," said the player who did not want to give her name.

Indeed, the timing of the legal enforcement by the municipality - in the middle of an Israel-Mexico game during an event that is widely-viewed as the perfect opportunity to extol Israel's virtues to visitors from abroad rather than expose them to its murky administrative underbelly - seems peculiar at best, even suspicious.

However, those in charge of the decision maintained that there is no evil agenda at play and there was ample warning given that games would be halted if a business license wasn't1t secured.

"The Maccabiah and the Baptist Village were well aware of what had to be completed," explained Petah Tikva spokesperson Hezi Hakak.

"They just chose not take care of things in a timely matter."

Asked why this licensing issue never became an issue before at the Baptist Village, which has hosted a pair of previous Maccabiahs as well as 2007's professional Israel Baseball League, Hakak stated, "you cannot ask why we didn't enforce things properly in the past. There are very good and well-established reasons for requiring venues with a certain amount of people in attendance to have a business license to operate. This is not a new law and the blame for the games being canceled cannot be shifted to the municipality of Petah Tikva."

Regardless of what happened and who is to blame, fortunately the snafu has been corrected in time to accommodate the entire softball schedule.

On Tuesday morning, just as the second inning of an Israel-Mexico contest was about to begin, members of the Petah Tikva Police suddenly turned up and put an immediate stop to the game, as well as canceling the remainder of the Maccabiah softball schedule until further notice.

Evidently, the police were enforcing a stoppage order issued by the Petah Tikva Municipality following a decision late Monday to deny the application for a business license for the Baptist Village.

While the tournament organizers were aware that the venue lacked the license, they were under the impression that it was just a matter of formality in processing the application and that the license, or at least a temporary respite to allow the games to go on as scheduled, would be issued.

"This is not a case where we did not prepare properly," Maccabiah public relations director Yaron Michaeli told The Jerusalem Post.

[...]

Ami Baran, executive director of the Israel Softball Association - and manager of the Israeli men's Maccabiah squad - said the situation could turn into a real debacle if the entire softball event is scrapped, especially with 10 teams from abroad having traveled to Israel specifically for the tournament, and the average foreign player paying in excess of $5,000 to participate.

"The real shame is that we've had four years to prepare for this, and it could all be ruined by a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. It is doubly strange because the Baptist Village has hosted two previous Maccabiahs, plus [it] was one of the main venues for the Israel Baseball League in 2007 - all without requiring any sort of business license," he said. "I really hope this can get fixed before it is too late."