War Gives Palestinian Olympians a New Role: Athlete-Diplomats

Taliyah Brooks gingerly approached the athlete as he lay on the grass and asked her question in a voice just louder than a whisper.

“Do you have a pin?” she began, squeezing her shoulders together in a nervous shrug and offering a slight smile. She needn’t have worried.

The athlete, who had been stretching, shot up immediately and flashed a huge grin. Pins are the currency of friendship at the Olympic Games, and for Mohammed Dwedar, who will run for the Palestinian team in the track and field competition, this intrusion was more than welcome.

“I was almost nervous to come over,” Brooks, a Texan, said, “because I don’t know how y’all feel about the United States.”

Brooks was lucky. Dwedar, who had traveled to Paris from his home in Jericho, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was almost out of pins. So were most of his teammates.

The war in Gaza has given the eight Palestinians competing in Paris a higher profile than usual at the Olympics. They, along with the Israeli team, are experiencing the Paris Games this year very differently. While Israelis experienced a surge in international sympathy after the Hamas-led atrocities last October, they have faced increasing hostility ever since for the ferocious way in which the Israeli military has retaliated in Gaza.