The 20th edition of the Mediterranean Games will take place in Taranto, Apulia, from August 21 to September 3, 2026. It will be the fourth time Italy will host the multi-sport event, which brings together approximately 4,000 athletes from 26 countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, despite facing the Mediterranean Sea, Israel will not participate for the twentieth time. Technically, the issue is that admission is decided by the plenum. “The plenum includes many Arab countries that have always ostracized Israel,” Italian-Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola explained to Pagine Ebraiche. “However, the problem lies with Western countries like Italy, which are not in opposition to this boycott,” he added. Della Pergola, a prominent member of the Italkim community (the Italian Jewish community in Israel), does not speak only as a sports fan, but also as the son of Massimo Della Pergola, one of the most well-known Italian sports journalists of the 1900s and an inventor of the football pool Totocalcio.
Israel’s participation in the Mediterranean Games “is a matter to which my father have always been steadfastly committed,” stated Sergio Della Pergola. “He engaged in direct dialogue with the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI). He received many kind words and promises from the top representatives of Italian sports, but only in theory. Making a change takes courage, but opportunism prevails.”
Israel was first excluded in 1951, when the first edition of the Mediterranean Games was held in Alexandria, Egypt. Only ten nations and male athletes competed at the time. Since 1993, the Games have been held every four years, and Israel’s exclusion has been constant, even before the Palestinian issue emerged in European public debate.
In 2025, Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi expressed hope for the participation of Israeli and Palestinian athletes in the Taranto edition. Sergio Della Pergola noted, “It is not the first time I have heard such statements. My father heard it many times, too: ‘You will see. This is going to be the last time without Israel. You will see. The situation is going to change.'” However, he added, “We are always at the same point, and it is curious that excluding Israel matters more to Arab countries than opening the Games to Palestinian athletes in the name of a state that anyway does not exist.”
“The problem,” he argued, “is Europe, including Italy, which is doing nothing to challenge this stance.” Twenty-six countries will compete in Taranto, where President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are expected to attend. The participating delegations will include countries where Islamist radicalism is pervasive, such as Syria, Lebanon, and Libya, as well as Egypt under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. However, Israel will not be among them.