Tel Aviv view from Jaffa Park hill
Tel Aviv view from Jaffa Park hillFREEPIK

German sports officials have suggested that Tel Aviv should joint bid for the 2036 Olympics with Berlin.

The president of the German Olympic Association, Richard Meng, and the managing director of the 2018 European Athletics Championship in Berlin, Frank Kowalski, wrote in an op-ed in the Berliner Morgenpost on Saturday that bidding together for the 2036 Olympic Games, exactly a century after the notorious Nazi Olympics in Berlin, would send a “strong signal of peace and reconciliation.”

“It’s a vision, nothing more,” they wrote.

They note that 2036 is a “truly difficult date for Germany after the Nazi Games in 1936.” But added, “Is the date alone therefore a reason for abandonment?… One could also look at it the other way around to show what changed and what still needs to change.”

“So why not send a completely new, strong signal of peace and reconciliation in 2036? A signal that doesn’t suppress the historical burden but takes up the responsibility that comes from it?” they said.

Meng and Kowalski stated that as “two liberal and vibrant metropolises” Tel Aviv and Berlin could come together for a “different spirit, for perspective beyond the present”.

“Such a signal would be if Germany and Israel were to apply together, or more precisely: Berlin and Tel Aviv” and would send a “clear signal of how obligation is created from responsibility”.

In a statement to Germany press agency DPA, the Israeli Olympic Committee did not comment on the two officials' idea of a joint bid. They did give their support for holding the Olympics in 2036 in Berlin.

“Holding the Olympics in Berlin, 100 years after Hitler’s 1936 Olympics, will remind us all of the dark times we experienced and send a strong message to the world of the values we must uphold,” the Committee stated.