Hannan Ashrawi takes gold in Athens

The year is 2005, the city is Kiev and the event is "The Eurovision Song Contest". Between the Danish and Albanian participants a Palestinian quartet from Jenin belts out a foot stomping number "Bind, Bond, Band this ain't your land".

They didn’t even have to qualify.

The year is 2006, the city is Berlin and the event is "The 2006 World Cup". On day 3 the Palestinian team, aptly named after one of their many "Freedom Fighters" (homicide bombers) emerge from the gloom of the tunnel into the bright sunlight. They are all set to play Chile in their opening match.

They didn’t even have to qualify.

Sound inconceivable.

Not really if you consider that on the 13th August 2004 as the flag bearing ceremony in Athens unfolded, an event almost as bizarre took place. Following Pakistan and just before Palau out marched Sanna Abubkheet representing and bearing the flag of the totally non-existent nation of "Palestine".

In fact they didn’t even have to qualify like every one else to compete in the events.

Of course the Palestinians are no strangers to the Olympics. Who will ever forget their proud performance in Munich 1972. Their cold blooded attack on 11 Israeli team members, who were taken hostage and brutally murdered stunned the world. Sadly the Israeli team refused outright to take part in this event in Athens and the International Olympic Committee was forced to come up with a few new events specially suited to the Palestinian team.

Hannan Ashrawi set the Palestinians on fire, taking gold on the very first day as she took part in "The spew out as many lies and distortions as you can a minute" event. Her turbo powered and very practiced mouth, well trained for years and without the aid of anabolic steroids for this exacting sport is rumoured to be insured for 10 million dollars of UN aid money. It was a new world record, setting a largely one sided and biased crowd of spectators alight as she defended 4 years of savage Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

This year saw the opening of the stone throwing competition. Much to everyone's surprise some of the competitors were as young as 6 years old. Only the intervention of older brothers and a sprinkling of fathers dodging behind the youngsters allowed the Palestinians to take the Gold, Silver and Bronze in this fast and frenzied event.

Another outstanding performance took place in the shooting arena with the Palestinians taking another trio of medals in "The Shoot at a Passing Car" event, made all the more exciting by being staged from behind a quickly erected house.

This was quickly following by another glorious performance in "The Get past that Checkpoint" event with the Palestinians bringing on their top women's team, many of them claiming to be pregnant or to have metal pins in their legs. Despite the setbacks it was another clean sweep of medals for the team.

The Palestinians are expecting another clean sweep of medals in "The Tunnel Digging" event which will take place later this week and who isn’t waiting with bated breath for "The Blow up that Bus" event.

The Olympic Charter is a whopping 108 pages long.

You can surely guess the gist of it. For those that don’t it basically follows the same lines as the barely plausible and defunct 26 page UN charter, with some modifications made for sport. Both charters call for tolerance, preservation of human rights and for the fundamental freedoms of all, without distinction of race sex, language or religion.

What a joke!

The very presence of a so-called Palestinian team makes a complete mockery of these charters especially if you consider that their own charter clearly calls for the "Destruction of the State of Israel".

Maybe the IOC has been watching too many romanticized BBC media reports or listening to grave UN official's talk grimly of the poor plighted Palestinian people as if such a down trodden entity, let alone such a nation exists

The Palestinians outstanding performance in such events as shooting is in no small part due to massive amounts of aid money provided by the UN and the Norwegian Government, who have for years turned blind eyes and deaf ears on terrorism. This is backed by the sanctimonious EU who have for years insisted that they have no evidence that funds are used to finance terrorism, despite no improvement in the daily lives of the people. Funds abound for weapons and the Palestinians take no small amount of pride in showing pretty pictures of their demonized children attending summer camps, dressed up in combat uniforms with top of the range machine guns slung over small shoulders.

There is no such nation as Palestine and I am appalled that with the Palestinians "Track Record" for barbarism – over 100 homicide bombings to date and thousands more shootings, lynchings etc, deliberately and systematically aimed at Israel's innocent civilians that such savagery should be rewarded.

The Palestinians have in fact achieved a feat both on and off the sports field that even a recognized nation has never surpassed and that is to defy every charter that calls for respecting the dignity of human life.

Does that really deserve a gold medal?

Angela Bertz - Israel

Ms. Bertz is right. We need to stand up to the real bigots and racists and stop trying to appease nations like Iran while they continue to uphold hatred and extremism.