It is unlikely that any team has ever arrived at an Olympics the way the men’s soccer team of Israel rolled up to the Parc de Princes on Wednesday night.
Police vans led the way, dozens of them filled with squads of French riot police and surrounded by a phalanx of officers on motorcycles. The Israelis traveled in a cocoon of safety in the center of the huge motorcade, packed into a city bus pressed into special duty for the Games. Then came more vans, more police outriders, more sirens — a stunning show of force with one task: to protect the first Israeli participants to take the field of play in the Paris Games.