Article Summary: Political and Economic Analysis of Three Articles

This report provides a comprehensive summary of three articles: "Think Olympics," "Think Again Israel," and "Understanding Olympic Tourism." The first article critiques the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for compromising Olympic values by awarding the 2008 games to Beijing, citing human rights concerns and the IOC's financial motivations. The second article analyzes the complexities of Israeli democracy, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the influence of the Israeli lobby in the United States. It challenges perceptions of Israel and advocates for a balanced American approach. The third article reviews three books on the impact of the Olympic Games on the tourism industry, particularly focusing on the cost-benefit analysis of hosting such events, questioning the long-term tourism benefits, and criticizing the methodologies used in assessing the impact of Olympic Games on tourism. The report highlights the political, economic, and social implications discussed in the articles, offering a critical analysis of the events and their impact on global perspectives.

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Abstract
The work is a summary of three articles “Think Olympics” written by John Hoberman, “Think
Israel” written by Gershom Gorenberg, and “Understanding Olympic Tourism” by Paul Dimeo.

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Think Olympics
The article by John Hoberman is an outright bashing of IOC for being political and
compromising with the value and objectives of the Olympic by allotting the 2008 Olympics to
Beijing. It does not buy the justification of IOC president Jacques Rogue that politics
automatically invited itself into Olympics. Beijing is under the scanner of world body for its
undemocratic establishment and violation of human rights especially in Tibet and within China.
According to John Hoberman, this is not the first time that IOC has compromised with the values
and objectives of human rights and world peace. The writer opined that the very start of value
compromise by IOC in allocating Olympics hosting right started with Berlin Games in 1936
which at that time was under Nazi Rule alleging that the campaign to promote for rights to Berlin
was done by Nazi agents. Mexico City Olympics 1968, Moscow Olympics 1980, Seoul
Olympics 1988 are also among those allotment that compromised with the human rights and
peace agenda of the Olympics. However, the most significant target is the decision to allow
hosting of 2008 games to Beijing as it is predominantly known that Beijing is an undemocratic
country and scores nothing less than ‘A’ grade when it comes to human rights violation of its
own citizens, its neighbors and political dissidents according to various reports. Jacques Rogue
idea that Beijing would soften its stand on bashing Democracy as the 2008 games coverage
would end up creating positive effects by enforcing Chinese administration to reconsider its
value for its Tourism sector is denied vehemently in the article. It said that the Chinese autocrats
had already restricted live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square so the argument of the president
actually does not fit with the real scenario.
Furthermore John believes that the IOC is actively involved in manipulation of the brand
Olympics for its global outreach as a human rights and peaceful movement for minting millions

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of dollars. All the sponsorship, broadcasting rights as well as the other revenues collected
millions of dollars for IOC. The Chinese government’s use of tax-payers money for 2008 games
solely for the purpose of projecting China as a well to do nation is overlooked by IOC as the
hosting dispersed millions of beggars and migrant workers form the city thus violating human
rights. The article points through all this references points out eye opening reality that the IOC is
involved only in grandiosity as it overlooks daunting realities and only promotes its money
making agenda. The money making agenda of the IOC according to John is a long standing
practice that can be observed more clearly under the reign of Spanish Fascist Juan Antonio
Samaranch as president from 1980 to 2001 whose authoritarian style of functioning. Juan
promoted, through his agenda, restriction of anti doping practices and appointment of pro
corruption crusades through by appointing officials that were involved in corrupt practices.
These officials administrative policy still rule the policy making of IOC committee. All these
activities within IOC is continuing behind the shield of Olympics as a global sports body for
promoting human rights, peace and cultural diversity.

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Think again Israel
The article “Think Again Israel” criticizes Israel, Iran and the Hamas outfit and defends US
policy on Israel as a balanced approached towards the ongoing conflict between Israel and the
Arabs regarding the occupied territory of Palestine. The writer is of the view that Israel
democracy perceived as well functioning is in fact a fragile democracy. Israel has no written
constitution and that Supreme Court’s power is often endangered by Knesset, parliament of
Israel. Though secular and proponents of equal rights, the underlying fact is that the Arab
population that contains one fifth of the total population is rarely seen in civil services. The
fragility of the democracy is evident when the Israeli regime in the west bank is looked upon
where the Palestinians self rule are very limited and the Jewish settlers receive full rights as first
class citizens. Arab parties are always neglected and left out of coalitions to form government.
Israel is a Jewish state that is perceived to be born out as a result of Holocaust that necessitated
for the creation of land of Jews as they projected themselves as being the most oppressed and
endangered ones. However, the underlying fact is that Zionism, a movement of Jews for the
purpose of migration to Palestine began well before Holocaust in 1897 from various places of the
world including central Asia, Yemen, and from Europe. The holocaust only acts as the catalyst to
the mass migration of the Jews from Europe and they built their plan accordingly to form an
overwhelming majority.
Israel often project to the world body that their existence is danger and that they are at threats
from Arabs who plan to annihilate and sweep them into the seawater. Based on these threats it
continues to increase its military infrastructure. The six day 1967 war of the Middle East showed
that the inexperienced army of Arabs was no match for the might of Israel’s army. The Arabs
were handed a resounding defeat and the peace process with Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat

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neutralized threats from the coalition of Syria and Egypt who had launched surprise attack on
Israel in 1973. Israel is under nuclear ambiguity that saves it from the Nuclear watchdog IAEA
and Olmert, in 2006 had let the cat of the bag that Israel, in fact was a nuclear state. According to
some reports Israel also has a second strike capability and that Iran’s threat matters much less
under such conditions. It is worth noting that the U.S intelligence committee reports assured
Israel in 2007 that Iran was had stopped proliferating its nuclear programs. Hamas, who publicly
declared Israel as an enemy to be annihilated and work towards destabilizing Israel has also
recently turned moderate and stopped referring to its charter that declares Israel as timeless
religious enemy. It however, has not stopped stressing that the land of Palestine should be
liberated and that Palestinians have the right to return to their land. Amid all these chaos, Israel
continues to build lobby in the United States and both Israelites and Arabs stresses that they have
threats from each other. However, the fact is that Israeli lobby does not influence American
policy in a way the Arabs or the world perceives them to be. The American policy towards
conflict of Israel and Arabs is a balanced and a pragmatic one in line with American policy of
balanced approach as both Arabs and Israel are crucial to America. It is important that Israel be
looked upon as a real place and not as a place full of mythical threats and sentiments of
Holocaust.

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Understanding Olympic Tourism
This article is a sort of review essay on three books written on Impact of Olympic Games on
Tourism Industry by Michael Weed’s “Olympic Tourism”, Coalter’s “A wider social role for
sport”, and Theodoraki’s Olympic event organization. The article points out how these books
represent and analyzed the basic purpose of establishing sports events like Olympics as major
boost for the Tourism sector. The focal point is the tourism sector as most of multilateral events
like Olympic Games are promoted specifically as a means of boosting tourism industry by both
IOC and the host nations. The major underlying reason is the decision of London administration
for hosting the 2012 games which according to Paul Dimeo, the writer of the review article is not
a good idea. The writer points out that the Beijing Olympics 2008 that came under the heavy
scanner of human rights activists all over the world actually was a mere gimmick of Chinese
administration to project themselves as a developed tourism sector. The rationale was derived
from the fact that, Olympic Games by far is the most popular multilateral events representing
various games and sports. Paul observed that the impact on the overall health of tourism of china
is an exaggerated view of the proponents of Olympics as well as Chinese administration as a
needed boost for enhancing tourism. The issue of human rights, pollution, doping, security and
politics relating to China is a negative publicity for the games. Paul is also of the view that
London’s tourism sector has already reached a saturation level. His focus through these reviews
is to highlight that the overall cost associated with hosting events like Olympics supersedes the
benefits and that any gains in tourism sector in long term is not determined solely by positive
impact of Olympics as a means of boosting tourism. The negative impact created by migration of
workers and exaggerated investment on infrastructures also has to be looked into as boost in
tourism sector is solely for the purpose of boosting overall economy and social benefit.

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Let us look into Paul’s critical analysis of all the three books that he used to validate his points.
Michael weed’s Olympic Tourism
The book according to Paul starts off very well with the admission that the contents of the books
are derived from secondary sources that remain unused for years in establishing the credentials
of boosting tourism through Olympic Games hosting. The essence of the book by Weed lies in
the fact that it divides the book’s contents based on research of three important areas that
determines the overall impact; tourism, Olympic related studies and sports tourism. Paul divided
the book into two sections; the first part deals with classification of tourists motivated by sports
events to tour and their behavior whereas the second part goes on to focus on leveraging on the
first part for better planning. Paul then views, that Michael Weed’s book promoting Olympic
Games as a successful means for tourism sector is totally devoid of sense. The first part of the
book written by Weed rightly used the framework of Preuss to classify various types of tourists
and the way they go about spending money on tour. The use of five circle for planning purpose
known as “Olympic Tourism Policy Rings” is too generic as big ideas presented is not meet with
the policy needed to implement them. The use of Calgary Winter Olympics, 1988, that was used
as a research did not address some important questions as to what are the ways to distinguish
economic impact from tourism impact. The other factor that comes into long term measurement
of Olympics’ impact on tourism is also not taken into consideration. Weed totally avoids his
earlier classification of tourists in his books. The lack of empirical evidence by Weed comes
under heavy criticism and Paul detached himself from buying Weed’s view that Barcelona 1992
games was instrumental in development of Barcelona as a tourism sector and that other cities
such as Prague and Dublin developed much more than Barcelona despite the fact that they did
not host any such event. Paul asserted that the availability of flight routes made possible by

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“Easy Jet” since 1996 was one of the primary factors neglected in an attempt to project
Barcelona Games as success for Tourism Boost. Overall, Paul comes down heavily on Michael
Weed for neglecting so many important factors and avoiding his own established classification
for planning purpose.
Coalter’s “A Wider Social Role for Sport”
The book according to Paul rightly points out the various underlying factors that determine
hosting sports events as a success one for the purpose of overall development. Coalter mentioned
that the lobby for hosting sports events comes from the vested interests of stakeholders or they
arise out the unquestioned myth that prevails around. Coalter according to Paul underlines the
fact correctly that sports events also comes with general public disruptions, exaggerated costs of
setting and reuse of infrastructure and facilities, costs associated with transport infrastructure,
costs that comes with bidding and management consultants costs. These costs according to
Coalter is not defined and compared easily with the overall benefits to the economy that is very
much related with the benefits for tourism industry that comes with hosting games.
Theodoraki’s Olympic Event Organisation
Paul deemed this book as a missed opportunity as tourism was completely missing from the book
and that was supposed to be the main issue as the main motive behind hosting Olympic Games is
Tourism Benefit. The book according to Paul though uses primary research and detailed analysis
of events such as Athens; it fails to highlight any social benefits and tourism that is totally
missing.

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Paul’s conclusion
Paul is of the view that Michael Weed only sought to further the agenda pursued by lobbyist and
the websites of Olympics and neglected many factors while Coalter rightly pointed out that the
detailed analysis is not considered for studying the overall impact on society and economy.
Theodoraki’s book is not worth considering for the purpose as it does not involve tourism at all.