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Pro-Palestinian Groups Reportedly Launch Campaign Against French Riders on Israeli Tour de France Cycling Team

The campaign has reportedly resulted in comments calling for violence against the riders.
[additional-authors]
August 21, 2020
PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 27: Riders from the InternationElles and Donnons des Elles au Vélo Jour -1 teams ride the final stage of the Tour de France route, from Rombouillet to Paris on July 27, 2019 in Paris, France.The two teams, incorporating 23 female cyclists have ridden the entire route one day ahead of the professional Men’s stage race to highlight inequality in the sport. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images for Skoda)

A couple of pro-Palestinian groups reportedly have been engaging in a campaign targeting the Israeli cycling team participating in the upcoming Tour de France.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the group Palestine Will Win, an organization that supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, singled out three French cyclists by name on the Israel Startup Nation (ISN) team and urged people to leave comments on the riders’ personal Facebook pages shaming them for supporting “Israeli apartheid through sports.”

“Do not hesitate to write a comment on each of their private pages in order to ask them not to participate in this scandalous activity,” the campaign stated.

Another group called AFPS-BDSF wrote on its Facebook page that pro-Palestinian groups will be distributing “flyers on and around the track, and will promote a number of actions in order to condemn the Israeli crime laundering enterprise, and the cooperation of the Tour de France in this matter,” the Post reported.

French National Assemblymember Meyer Habib, a French Israeli, denounced the “campaign of hatred and threats” against the French riders on the Israeli team.

“Hate ranging from calling for sabotage to physical aggression and even murder on the backdrop of Islamic-leftist antisemitism,” Meyer wrote on his Facebook page. “Some examples out of hundreds of responses: ‘Sniper on the track,’ ‘wildlife to be slaughtered,’ ‘They want to be everywhere like sewer rats,’ ‘throwing nails on the road,’ and more.”

He said that he was in talks with the Interior Ministry about addressing BDS as well as the safety and security of the Israeli cycling team.

“BDS feeds an atmosphere of antisemitic hatred,” Habib wrote. “It actually influences and encourages the transition. That same hatred is directed against Israel, against the Jews of France, the police, the republic, the state and its symbols.”

StandWithUs CEO and co-founder Roz Rothstein tweeted that the campaign was “vic[i]ous.”

The Honest Reporting Canada watchdog tweeted, “Leave it to the @BDSmovement to politicize @LeTour. #Sports are supposed to be about putting differences and politics aside and bringing the world together.”

The ISN will be the first Israeli cycling team to ever participate in the Tour de France. The Tour de France will begin on Aug. 29 and end on Sept. 20.

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