All Those Bad Things Mitt Romney Said About the Olympics in England Are True

I’ll tell you what’s “disconcerting” David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and all the Fleet Street twits who came down on Mitt Romney for using that word to describe preparations for the Olympics.

“Disconcerting” is giving into blatant hate and bigotry.

Times of Israel:

The Lebanese judo team at the 2012 London Olympics refused to practice next to the Israeli one on Friday afternoon, and a makeshift barrier was erected to split their gym into two halves.

According to several Hebrew sports sites, the two teams were scheduled to use the same gym and mats at London’s new ExCeL center for their final preparations. However, the delegation from Lebanon would not train in view of the Israeli team, and insisted some sort of barrier be placed between them.

Organizers accepted the Lebanese coach’s demand to separate the teams, erecting a barrier so that the Lebanese team wouldn’t see the Israeli one.

The incident was the first political one between Israel and other countries during the 2012 Games, which don’t formally get under way until Friday evening’s opening ceremony. It happened only days after the Iranian delegation head stated his nation’s athletes would compete with Israelis, a statement which was quickly rejected by Tehran, which tried to suggest that his true sentiment was lost in translation.

If the Lebanese don’t want to practice next to the Israelis send them home. Why enable their hate by giving in to their demands? Talk about a gaffe: the IOC and London Olympic organizers have managed to spit in the face of the Olympic ideal, give in to haters, and insult the Israelis — all in one afternoon. Makes Mitt Romney look like the soul of discretion.

Ah, if only solving the problems of the world were so simple — erect a barrier between the Israelis and Hamas, or Hezbollah, or any number of Arab anti-Semitic bigots who want to destroy the state of Israel.

Shame is an emotion that appears to be beyond the London Olympic organizers and the IOC, who apparently acceded to the Lebanese demands. They refuse to offer a moment of silence during the opening or closing ceremonies in memory of those dead Israeli athletes, murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1972. Now, they give in to the blatant bigotry of the Lebanese and put a barrier up between the two judo teams.

That’s what I call the real Olympic spirit.