Swimming – 14th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) – Mixed 4x50m Freestyle Relay Finals – Hangzhou, China – December 12, 2018. Caeleb Dressel, Member of the U.S. Team competes. REUTERS/Aly Song Malaysia is preventing Israeli swimmers from participating in the world championship that the country is hosting.
Israel and Malaysia have zero diplomatic relations at this point in time; Malaysians are barred from traveling to Israel. The lack of diplomatic relations has resulted in Israel’s Paralympics swim team being unable to obtain the visas necessary to travel to Malaysia.
Nisim Sasportas, chairman of the Israeli Olympic Committee, told Ynet News, “For some time now we have been trying to guarantee our participation in the world championships. In principle, everyone says that it will work out, but we have still not received an invitation or visas.”
“We are continuing to apply pressure,” Sasportas said. “We have letters of support from the International Paralympics Committee, the European Paralympics Committee and the Olympic Athletes Committee, and hope that they allow the athletes and their security entourage to participate.”
The world championship is scheduled to be held in Kuching in July; the competition will play a role in determining who will be able to participate in the Tokyo Paralympics in 2020.
Israeli athletes have previously had trouble getting into Malaysia, including Israeli tennis players in 2016 and Israeli windsurfers in 2015. The exception was in 2010, when Ilya Grad, an Israeli boxer, was given a special visa to participate in a reality show.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.