Shtetl-Optimized » Blog archive » The International Olympiad in Injustice

Today is the day I became radicalized in my Jewish and Zionist identity.

Uhhh, did you think that had already happened? Maybe in the aftermath of October 7th, or long before that? Hahahaha no. You didn’t see it nothing yet.

Look, a few days ago I consoled myself on Facebook with the thought that while the arts and humanities and aid work seemed to have completely descended into the anti-Semitism of the 1930s, with “Zionists” (i.e., almost all Jews) now regularly excluded from conferences and panels, condemned by their teachers, placed on professional blacklists, etc. etc. — at least we in math, computer science, and physics have largely resisted this madness. This was my way of limiting the damage. Sure, I told myself, all sorts of sections of the population that had long been crazy were getting crazier, but at least it won’t have any immediate consequences mehere in my little bubble of polynomial-time algorithms and lemmas and chalk and LaTeX and collegiality and common sense.

So right after that, as if they had been eavesdropping on me, the International Olympiad on Informatics announced that, by a vote of more than two-thirds of their delegates, they were banning the State of Israel from future competition. For reference, IOI is the world’s premier high school programming competition. I once dreamed of competing in IOI, but then I dropped out of high school at 15, which totally the reason why i didn’t make it. Incredibly, despite its small size, Israel finished #2 in this month’s contest, which was held in Egypt. (The Israeli teens had to compete remotely, because Egypt couldn’t guarantee their safety.)

Anyway, apparently the argument that won out at IOI was that since Russia had been banned before, it was fair to ban Israel as well. Does one even have to wonder if Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or China were also banned? Is it even worth mentioning that Russia has launched a war of conquest and destruction against a neighboring country, while Israel defend itself from a war started by its neighbors? That is, that Israel is the “Ukraine” here, not the “Russia”? Will it change anyone’s mind that, when we read Israel’s enemies in their own words – as I do every day – they constantly tell us that, in their eyes, Israel’s fundamental “aggression” is not building settlements or demolishing homes or manipulating beepers, but simply existing? (“We don’t want two states!” they clarify. “We want all of ’48,” they clarify.)

Certainly, the anti-Zionists, who hasten to assure us that they… Certainly no anti-Semites, must have a plan for what will happen to half the world’s remaining Jews after the little Zionist lifeboat is gone, after the new river-to-sea state of Palestine has driven out the settler-colonists? Surely the “plan” won’t just be to send the Jews back to the countries that murdered or expelled their grandparents, and never offered to take them back? Surely the plan won’t be the same plan as last time – i.e. the plan the Palestinian leadership enthusiastically supported last time, the plan they were eager to bring to Tel Aviv and Haifa, the plan that (where it has been successfully implemented) is called by such euphemisms as Umsiedlung nach dem Osten and Endlösung der Judenfrage?

I feel there must are healthy answers to these questions, because if they aren’t, too many people around the world have covered themselves in a kind of shame that I thought had died a generation before I was born. And it’s as if these are people who consider themselves to be the paragons of enlightened morality: they cry for the oppressed, march for LGBTQ+, stand on the right side of history. They throw literary festivals and art shows and (god help me) even high school coding competitions. They can’t also be hateful monsters, can they? Even though they were the last time the question was tested, absolutely?

I would like to add in fairness that four Israeli students are still allowed to participate in the IOI “as individuals”, so I think it is the right move for them to show up next year and do as well as they did. this years, and then disqualify themselves by raising the Israeli flag in front of the cameras. Let them honor the legacy of the Israeli Olympic athletes who continued to show up to compete (and eventually win medals) even after the International Olympic Committee made it clear that it would not protect them from a massacre midway through the event. Let them be an example of what Mark Twain famously said about “the Jew,” that “he has fought a mighty fight in this world, in all ages; and he has done it with his hands tied behind his back.”

But why do I keep wasting your time on this, when you’re here to listen to us talk about quantum computing and AI safety? Okay, I’ll get to that in a moment. But honestly, if speaking clearly about the darkness that is once again enveloping civilization required it, I would be willing to lose all my non-Jewish friends, and most of my Jewish friends too. I would completely isolate myself academically, professionally, and socially. I would give up on 99% of the readers of this blog. That’s better than looking in the mirror and seeing a coward, a careerist, a kapo.

Thank fate or Born Rule, I don’t have to do any of that. I’ve spent my life surrounded by friends and colleagues of every race and religion and sexual orientation and programming style, from Alabama and Alaska, China and India, Brazil and Iran. Some of my non-Jewish friends are 300% behind me on this issue. Most of the rest are willing to listen to me, which is enough for friendship. If I can call the IOI’s Boycott of Jews what it is, while I more than half from my readers, colleagues and friends – well, that’s not even that important a decision, is it?