Why is Russia banned from Worlds yet Israel isn't?

One had a state sponsored doping program the other does not end of thread simple as that...

It's always impressive how consistently the morons and this website can be so confidently incorrect.

The doping ban was lifted in 2023. Agree with it or not, the current ban is entirely political.

Russia is banned for their state sponsored doping program not whos in a what war we support or not.

Unfortunately this topic is one that people never understood, and now are louder and more passionate about but still don't understand.

I don't think, personally, that Russia should be banned from sport. But that's my personal view. Let's talk about the differences and similarities between the conflicts.

Neither is a genocide. I really am fully indifferent to what some liberal arts majors at some "commission" or "institution" or "council" try to say in order to make their institutions relevant. Genocide is a specific intent crime, that is, with the intent to eradicate a population. Capacity then is a relevant consideration. You can kill 10 people, with the intent to eradicate a national/religious/ethnic group, and it be genocide. You can kill millions, as in WW2, and it not be a genocide. Genocide requires intent, and both these wars have thoroughly shown the intent NOT to eradicate a population. Again, capacity matters. Your intent is evaluated against what you have the capacity to accomplish. The Gazans are in a small condensed area, with no easy method of escape, and Israel has WMDs. If Israel wanted to eradicate the Gazan population, it would take pressing a few buttons. A million could easily be killed in a few days. The fact that there has been a costly land invasion that has taken almost 2 years with, at most, 65k dead, whether you like it or not, shows restraint.

A more accurate statement of the facts would be that it's a brutal war, with numerous innocents killed, some would argue disproportionately or recklessly. But that's not genocide. People, "scholars" especially, love to borrow the negative connotations of the word to try to assign it to things they don't like. You can dislike the war, you can think it's brutal, disproportionate, recklessly violent, but it's not a genocide.

There are some references to historical considerations. Israel didn't get their land legitimately enough, evidently. All land is "stolen", in fact, land is never stolen. The land was never yours. The land existed before your ancestors were born, it will be here long after your descendants are dead. All nations, and their nations before the nations, were stolen from someone else, who stole it from someone else. What matters is not how the land was acquired, what matters is control. The US does not own its land, Russia does not own its land, but it controls its land, and you'd have a hell of a time taking control of that land away. So with regards to the "historical" considerations, for geopolitical purposes they are irrelevant.

The question of "Palestinian statehood" is way more complex than people think. What does it mean to be a state? Is South Ossetia a state? Is Taiwan a state? Many states recognize a "Palestinian state". What does that mean? Well practically, not much, because Palestine actually has very tenuous control of their land. And they don't do much in economic activity. Does it mean a seat at the UN? What would that help? A seat at the UN is one of the more useless prizes you can be awarded these days. In fact, way more countries recognize Palestine as a state than either South Ossetia or Taiwan...but you wouldn't feel it. Because "statehood" is meaningless if you can't actually back up your state with violence.

Which goes to the last point that is state sponsored violence. Militaries now, proportionally, are weaker than they've ever been. I understand this is a confusing claim because technologies are advancing, obviously, to new heights. Countries have smaller militaries, that are less able to project power than at almost any point in contemporary history. The only country that can effectively wage war across large land or maritime borders is your United State of America. And the USA has no intent to get involved in any foreign wars in the near future in that large capacity. Even relatively sophisticated militaries like France with Operation Barkhane saw their logistics substantially stretched thin, and that was a minor anti-terrorist operation. Russia is struggling with an operation in their backyard where they have an immense land border.

So. If you start a war in 2025. You best not lose. Which brings us to October 7. October 7 was arguably an attempted genocide, it met the specific intent, it's merely that the effort itself was pretty ineffectual. But Hamas undoubtedly started the war. You could argue that previously it was in a sort of latent phase, which means that like every year or every other year there'd be some rocket launch followed by some missile launches the other way, and usually about ~200 Palestinians and ~10 Israelis died. I don't consider that a war, your chances of dying as an Israeli in the dormant phase to the "war" were lower than say to being struck by lightning.

You can argue Israel's response is disproportionate. Guess what? If you can't respond with violence against it, you unfortunately can't set any parameters around what is or isn't proportionate. What we learned with the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that sanctioning a motivated party to end a war is actually pretty ineffective. On the economic front, there may be a contraction of GDP, and the largest possible contraction for Israel would be like 10-20%. Which would hurt, but they could certainly live through that if they were motivated enough. Then there's the material side, sanctioning their ability to get resources to wage the war. And simply put, this is very hard to do because there only need to be a few dissident countries, when you have a willing buyer usually someone is going to become a willing seller.

France, the UK, Germany, Ireland, whatever have you country with an opinion, do not have strong enough militaries to be able to interfere against the military power that is Israel, in the middle east. And I think this is one of the negative side effects of Hamas propaganda in Gaza. Gazans think Israel is weak. Israel, fully independent of the US, is regional hegemon. There are not the military/logistic capacities in other countries to be able to invade Israel. Hamas' entire strategy is provocation with the belief that if they lost hard enough, other countries would be able to intervene. But the reality on the ground is that no countries are strong enough to intervene, except the US.

We, the US, are friends with Israel. Not because of a moral agreement, although that may exist for some. And not because of a financial obligation, although that may exist in some legislation. But because you want to be friends with the top dogs. Israel is a top dog, it has been for decades. Not in some conspiratorial "Israel has bought everyone off", the typical geopolitically ignorant perspective trying to explain everything they don't understand with some sort of a conspiracy. Israel has very plainly and openly been a global leader in technology, weapons innovation, military tactical innovation, and has a world class military. It has been for decades. You want your friends to look like that. Friendships between countries don't look like friendships between persons. I care about my friends. I as a country care about what I can get from my country friends. We don't pay Israel because they are weak. We pay Israel because we reserve the right to be their best friend. And actually, in the past, when Israel/US ties have cooled, Russia has tried to lean into a friendship with Israel. Everyone wants to be friends with the top dog in the middle east.

So, when it comes to Hamas' provocation of Israel in the middle east. No one disputes that October 7 came before the invasion of Gaza. This is clearly different from Russia/Ukraine. You may think the response has been disproportionate. But in a world where countries can't intervene militarily on behalf of each other, if you fight a war, you best not lose. Because you will have no ability to drew red lines on what you feel is a proportionate response. And if governing political bodies are doing nothing to draw red lines, largely because they can't, why should it then be the province of sporting bodies to do it for them?