The 17th Mediterranean Games in Turkey’s southern province of Mersin ended with a dazzling ceremony after the men’s and women’s singles badminton, rhythmic gymnastics, bocce, men’s and women’s handball final and women’s volleyball competitions.
If you look at the list of countries participating in the games, though, you see that one country which has a coast on the Mediterranean is not listed.
I reported in 2011 that after years of opposing it, the International Olympic Committee supported both Israel and the Palestinian Arab teams be allowed to participate in the 2013 games.
A final decision on the matter is expected to be made by an extraordinary session of the General Assembly of the Committee which will take place before June 30, 2012.Somehow, between October 2011 and June 2012, the extraordinary session's focus changed from voting on allowing the teams to play in 2013 to the question of whether they can play in Spain in 2017. From what I can tell, the issue of 2013 was never discussed.
It looks like there was some backroom politics going on to avoid making the decision for the games scheduled in Turkey.
The president of the CIJM is named Amar Addadi. I'm sure that's not relevant at all. Nor the fact that the games were held in, um, Turkey. Pure coincidence, I'm sure.
Note that whatever happened to disallow Israel also stopped the Palestinian team from participating. Which just goes to show that the people who make decision like these hate Israel far more than they love "Palesitne."