The Security Blanket Goes Global

At the Sydney Olympic Games two years ago, the Israeli team had a special fence around the compound where the athletes, including sprinter Gideon Yablonka, stayed. “We were the only team with a fence around our compound,” he recalls.

Anything that moved inside or outside the Israeli compound got noticed. “We had video cameras all over triggered by sensors,” Yablonka says. “If somebody moved, the cameras would go on with a beep.”

There was muscle too, highly trained security guards at the ready, with guns.

Yablonka, 24, sighed. He said, “Not too many people like us. It’s problematic. But we really don’t think about it. It’s their job,” that of security officials, “they’ll think about it. My job is the track meet. That’s what I focus on, not whether someone is going to come and blast me away, which--knock on wood--I hope is never going to happen.”

Since the 1972 Munich Games, in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists and, ultimately, killed, it has always been a special burden to be on the world stage with the word “Israel” stitched into one’s team jersey.

Until the last year, that predicament was dismissed by many as unique to Israeli sports teams.

The terrorist attacks last Sept. 11 in the United States, however, have forced Olympic and security officials worldwide to focus a renewed intensity on potential threats.

“Now it’s the entire world,” says one U.S. official, acknowledging that American athletes and delegations are at increased risk: “Obviously, ‘USA’ has taken on a whole new [meaning]. We realize that terrorists have found where the United States is.”

Since Sept. 11, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “We have to take a look at what we do on a day-to-day basis, just as the Israelis have been doing. The way things have changed is we realize it’s no more that we’re safe in our country and maybe not safe in other countries.”

Security costs at the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games topped more than $300 million. The security tab at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics is currently estimated by Greek officials at about $600 million; some security experts, however, say that bill may ultimately reach, perhaps even top, $1 billion.

Recent months, and escalating tensions around the world, have made plain just how sensitive a task security can be. In Israel, the issues have long been magnified.

For instance, an athlete identified with any Israeli team competing abroad goes through extensive security briefings before a trip, is told not to wear identifying gear in free time, is sometimes driven to practice and meets in armed convoys, is always on alert.

“We wear [team gear] only at practice and games,” said Shimon Mizrahi, the longtime owner of the professional basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv. “If the players go walking in the streets, they don’t wear their colors.”

In May, FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, was asked by various Arab countries to ban Israel from the sport because of policies toward Palestinians. Eight Arab soccer federations had requested suspension of Israel, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said in announcing that the requests had been denied. “We’re not a political organization,” he said.

That same month, a delegation from the Israeli Olympic Committee traveled to Kuala Lumpur, and was issued a visa by the government there--a moderate Muslim nation--only after intense pressure from a senior International Olympic Committee official. Upon arrival, the Israelis found that their flag was the only one of 199 from Olympic committees around the globe not hanging from the ceiling of the hotel ballroom where the meeting took place; the Palestinian flag was among those displayed.

A few weeks before the meeting in Malaysia, the head of Iran’s Olympic Committee, Mostafa Hashemi Taba, had urged International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge to expel Israel from the IOC. Rogge promptly rejected Hashemi Taba’s call.

Though Israeli delegations perhaps have more extensive experience in dealing with the pressures of politics and sport, others--including U.S. teams--have quickly learned over the last year that they are not immune.

Just days ago, the U.S. wrestling team pulled out of the world freestyle championships in Iran after being warned by the U.S. State Department of a threat; the nature and scope of the threat have not been made public. The tournament began Thursday in Tehran.

The U.S. women’s field hockey team arrived May 22 in New Delhi for a World Cup qualifying tournament but left about a week later, after the U.S. State Department advised the team to go home because of mounting tension between India and Pakistan. The U.S.-India series was finally played in June--at a neutral site, in Staffordshire, England.

Much of all of this can be traced back to Munich ‘72, where the notion of sport as a respite from international politics and the Games as an idyllic festival of universal brotherhood was shattered. The rifts that were exposed then in the so-called “Olympic family,” as Olympic officials like to refer to the enterprise, remain far from healed, as a recent episode--again in Munich--make plain.

A few weeks ago, the European track and field championships were held in Munich, the first time the Israelis were to compete in Olympic Stadium there since 1972. For the past several years, Israel has been a member of the European Olympic Committees; even though Israel is technically in Asia, it is not wanted in the Asian league, whose leadership is dominated by Arabs.

Several months before the meet in Munich, Israeli officials had asked meet organizers to consider including at the meet, inside the stadium, a formal commemoration of the 11 slain in 1972.

The request was denied.

In a May 24 letter to Israeli officials on the subject, Munich organizers declared that “the momentary conflicts and the thereby produced high sensibility and irritation in the public [would be] a very high risk.” They added that it was “surely” in the Israelis’ interests that the meet, the athletes, and fans were “not exposed to a risk which cannot be justified.”

This much, organizers said, would have to do: “Our silent memory of all the victims and the condemnation of the attack will be permanently present during the European championships.”

The Israelis, finding this reasoning singularly unpersuasive and unmoving, organized a ceremony of their own. About two dozen relatives of those murdered, joined by the 17-member Israeli team, observed a moment of silence and listened to songs and speeches at a monument to the victims--a large stone placed at the bridge linking the stadium to the former Olympic village.

“You feel shivers when you close your eyes and think about the terrible things that happened,” distance runner Nili Abramski told reporters. “But we had to come and show that even the most terrible things won’t stop us.”

“I think Israeli athletes are just like any athletes,” sprinter Yablonka said. “When you travel abroad, even at the Olympics, you travel on the bus and, say, the Iranian athlete and coach are sitting next to you. It’s fine, nothing weird about it. It’s actually pretty nice. You feel weird at the beginning. But everyone’s there for the same reasons. No one’s there to fight.”

Perhaps. But Israeli security protocol starts with a basic assumption: never again.

“Israel has gone a very, very long way from the 1972 Munich massacre, and I can say it was a milestone in the way Israeli security doctrine was built,” said Jacob Perry, who headed the Israeli internal security service, known by its Hebrew initials, Shin Bet, from 1988-95.

Since Munich, the Shin Bet service--there is no comparable U.S. institution--has been responsible for securing Israeli athletes. Its duties now are recognized as the protection of Israeli interests, installations and delegations at home and abroad, everything from sports teams to ballet dancers to government officials.

In Israel, security now is also approached from another essential assumption, one that centers on the nature of the threat. It has changed considerably over the past 30 years.

“Back in the 1970s, Palestinian terrorism was a secular terrorism,” says Shabtai Shavit, who headed the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, from 1989-96. He explains: “It was a terrorism of organizations that were secular by nature, political by nature, that represented people who fought for their national freedom.

“In those days, Israelis were marked as targets because they were Israelis, not because they were Jews. Today it’s a different ballgame altogether. Today they are, and will be, marked because they are Israelis and Jews.”

At the Munich track meet, more than 1,000 armed police provided security for the event. Israeli athletes were escorted everywhere by guards.

During the Israeli-organized memorial ceremony, three police helicopters circled in the sky, police sharpshooters atop nearby bridge supports stood at the ready and the main local highway was closed in both directions for several kilometers.

“It was a bit scary at the beginning but the security is unbelievable,” Abramski told reporters. “The Germans are taking no chances.”

If a Shin Bet delegation travels with an Israeli team, the issue of whether the Shin Bet guards can carry guns on foreign soil can be sensitive. The State Department has the responsibility for ensuring “appropriate security,” including “additional security” if need be, for U.S. teams abroad.

In late July, the Maccabi Haifa soccer team arrived at the local airport for a flight to Cyprus, only to get stuck there for several hours, denied permission to take off, while Israeli and Cypriot officials worked out details allowing the arming of Shin Bet guards. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres reportedly was called in to help mediate.

“They’ll be wanting a little army traveling with them next,” a senior Cypriot official was quoted as saying in a Reuters dispatch from Nicosia.

The Maccabi Haifa team was to fly to Nicosia because UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, had announced earlier this year that Haifa and two other Israeli soccer teams would have to play “home” games elsewhere. UEFA cited security concerns in the Mideast.

Ultimately, Maccabi Haifa flew to Nicosia, to play Belshina Bobruisk of Belarus. Maccabi won, 4-0. In the 22,000-seat stadium, perhaps 50 fans saw the match; they were outnumbered, 10 to 1, by armed police.

That earned Maccabi Haifa another “home” match, on Aug. 13, in Sofia, Bulgaria, against an Austrian team, Sturm Graz. Another tiny crowd saw the Israelis win, 2-0.

In March, after UEFA’s no-games-in-Israel edict was issued, the captain of Hapoel Tel Aviv, Shimon Gershon, said, “It is a bizarre feeling to fly out of Israel for a match that you are supposed to host. I wonder what will happen if we score a goal--will it count as an away goal?”

In Munich, Israeli pole vaulter Alex Averbukh won gold--Israel’s first gold medal in a major track meet. In Olympic Stadium, Averbukh stood atop the podium and wiped away tears; in the stands, thousands of track fans stood respectfully as the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikvah,” which means “The Hope,” rang out.

Distance runner Abramski said later, “We wanted to show that we are even stronger--that we never give up. We know we are targets everywhere we go. But you can’t live in fear.”