Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

While US officials plan to boycott Beijing Olympics, Israeli officials expected to attend

(JTA) — Israeli officials are expected to attend the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing next year, unlike their American counterparts who will boycott the game to protest China’s human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority.

Haaretz reported the news, citing an unnamed senior Israeli official who called the Americans’ decision to boycott “bizarre.”

Earlier this week, the United States announced that no American officials would attend the games. The boycott only applies to diplomatic officials and does not impact the American athletes who will compete in the games. Australia has also said it would boycott the games due to China’s human rights abuses.

Even with its close ties to the United States, Israel has grown closer to China in recent years due to trade ties between the countries.

In October, Israel chose not to sign a United Nations statement expressing concern about welfare of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group in China that has been forced into “re-education camps,” which some have likened to concentration camps.

The statement was signed by 43 countries, including the United States and several allies, among them the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. At the time, an Israeli diplomatic official told The Times of Israel that the Israeli government had “other interests that it has to balance” in its relationship with China.

Concern over China’s treatment of the Uighur minority — and comparisons of its “re-education camps” to concentration camps during the Holocaust — have been growing within the global Jewish community for years. Activists in the United States have tried to mobilize the Jewish community behind the Uighurs’ cause as in the case of the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, while British Jews have led the fight against the abuses of the Uighurs in the United Kingdom.


The post While US officials plan to boycott Beijing Olympics, Israeli officials expected to attend appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.