Just watched the coverage on JLTV-very impressive opening. Very proud of the atheltes and wish them all good luck. The only glitch was that they had a really stupid girl on the track interviewing people....well- she was really stupid and uninformed. Embarassed for her.

It's clear that the Maccabiah games, while being very nice, are much more to do with cultural and nationalist issues and much less about sport. If the government were in any way serious about promoting the achievements of young sportspersons in Israel they would invest much more in training them for the Olympics instead of pouring millions into the Maccabiah games. Obviously the real Olympic competition and Israel's pathetic performance in it last year in London, are not really of much concern to these display-case politicians because they don't get to make ridiculous speeches there like they do here.

If israel wanted to impress the jewish community then maybe it should develop its own athletes.Having a properganda show and trying to make everybody fell guilty is not the way