Last month the United Arab Emirates refused to give a visa to Israeli tennis star Shahar Peer so that she could play in a tournament in Dubai, and the UAE has now been fined by the women's tennis association for doing so. A leading newspaper in Dubai, the Gulf News, offers some interesting justifications of the decision. Here's one article, quoting Shir Hever, an Israeli economist at the joint Palestinian-Israeli Alternative Information Center:
"Clearly Shahar Peer was not personally accused of committing any crime. However, in these cases one should ask - are tennis players from Gaza able to participate in international events? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Israel traps the people of Gaza in prison-like conditions, and they cannot participate in any international cultural events," he said.
And here's a second piece in the Gulf News making a similar point:
Chairman of the Palestinian Football Association and member of the Palestinian Olympic Committee Jibril Rajoub said he supported the UAE’s decision to ban Peer and encouraged other states to do the same in order to pressure Israel to ease restrictions on Palestinians.
“We appreciate this move and hope that each country in the world will not host any Israeli sportsman as long as Palestinian sport is under siege,” he said.
He cited the first international Palestinian football match ever to be played on home soil in Al Ram in October last year, where the captain of the Palestinian team was not allowed by Israel to travel from his home in Gaza to the West Bank town.
Rajoub added that Palestinian sportspeople faced many difficulties in travelling between Gaza and the West Bank as well as travelling abroad. Even within the West Bank, he said, it could take a sportsman from Hebron two days to travel to Jenin.
“There is a need for the international community to review its policies towards Israel. No Israeli sportsperson should be hosted if Israel does not agree to free Palestinian sport from suppression and injustice,” said Rajoub.
“We appreciate this move and hope that each country in the world will not host any Israeli sportsman as long as Palestinian sport is under siege,” he said.
He cited the first international Palestinian football match ever to be played on home soil in Al Ram in October last year, where the captain of the Palestinian team was not allowed by Israel to travel from his home in Gaza to the West Bank town.
Rajoub added that Palestinian sportspeople faced many difficulties in travelling between Gaza and the West Bank as well as travelling abroad. Even within the West Bank, he said, it could take a sportsman from Hebron two days to travel to Jenin.
“There is a need for the international community to review its policies towards Israel. No Israeli sportsperson should be hosted if Israel does not agree to free Palestinian sport from suppression and injustice,” said Rajoub.
All this is somewhat hypocritical though, inasmuch as Dubai lets Lev Leviev, who finances colonies on the West Bank, sell his diamonds there.
KABOBfest: It is Just to Boycott Shahar Peer
The same is true of Israeli academics, scientists, artists and performers…
Sports boycotts were very effective against apartheid South Africa, where football (i.e. soccer) is extremely popular.
Distant western outposts, whether in the mideast or deep in the austral, feel isolated from the mother hive in the northern temperate zone. Cutting off contact with them messes with their minds in a highly productive manner.
Boycotting Israeli athletes until Palestinian athletes are free to travel puts the onus on Israel to change its racist/zionist [sorry for redundancy] policies.
Israeli athletes represent a state, and include Israeli Palestinians.
Palestine is not yet a state, and is held back from that by Hamas.
There may never be a state named Palestine. There may become an autonomous region called Palestine under a Jordanian sovereignty.
All Israelis should be boycotted, whatever they do and whereever they appear. Exactly as we did with the South Africans, until the Apartheid-regime crumbled.
Note Witty's twisted racist shyster lawyering.
He could have used precisely the same arguments to oppose the boycott of S. African athletics.
Jews that deny the intrinsic racism and genocidalism of Zionism are racists guilty of aiding and abetting Zionist genocidalism and terrorism.
Simply put, those were the rules that they accepted in order to host the tournament. They knew going in what the rules were. this is not the first tournament they have hosted.
When are we going to start boycotts on: the Egyptians for their wretched treatment of the Coptic Christians? the Saudis for their treatment of woman? How about the Russians for their slaughter, torture rape and every other imaginable crime against hundreds of thousands Chechens? Not to mention China,the ethnic cleansing of Tibet and The wholesale killing, maiming and raping of millions of Christians and Animists by Muslims in Africa.
I can see the rationale for boycotting Israeli sportsmen and whoever for not letting the Gazans out, but then the same should be applied to the Egyptians, who are the second party to the Gaza blockade.
More shyster lawyering from racist Jewish Zionist apologists.
Zionists invariably argue that they should be able to get away with the same crimes that others commit. The German Nazis invariably pointed out in the 1930s that Jim Crow was worse than the Nuremberg Laws.
Demanding action against all wrongs in order to fight one wrong is simply a dodge that creates paralysis.
For Americans the issue is simple. Zionism and the State of Israel constitute an evil that we can eliminate simply by ceasing to support it.
Imposition of total sanctions on the State of Israel as a racist genocidal terrorist State would lead to its collapse within four months when international loans come due.
Americans have no ethical obligations to the conglomeration of Israeli Zionist criminals that are squatting on other people's land. In fact, the USA should probably seize them and then rent them out as convict labor as part of the effort to clawback all the fraudulent costs that American Jewish Zionists have manipulated the US government into expending on behalf of Zionism.
The US legal system is now sufficiently developed that all Zionists can be arrested and all their assets seized. Applying US anti-terrorism laws uniformly is an efficient and just mechanism to fix the US economy that Zionist manipulations have ruined.
As for the tennis tournament, corrupt Jewish social networking has put criminal racist Jewish Zionists in the position of writing or influencing the rules.
The rules of the tournament are simply another expression of racist Jewish Zionist criminality and are therefore inapplicable and illegitimate. The UAE should be commended for willing to support justice over racist Jewish Zionist shyster lawyering.
More shyster lawyering from racist Jewish Zionist apologists.
Zionists invariably argue that they should be able to get away with the same crimes that others commit. The German Nazis invariably pointed out in the 1930s that Jim Crow was worse than the Nuremberg Laws.
Demanding action against all wrongs in order to fight one wrong is simply a dodge that creates paralysis.
For Americans the issue is simple. Zionism and the State of Israel constitute an evil that we can eliminate simply by ceasing to support it.
Imposition of total sanctions on the State of Israel as a racist genocidal terrorist State would lead to its collapse within four months when international loans come due.
Americans have no ethical obligations to the conglomeration of Israeli Zionist criminals that are squatting on other people's land. In fact, the USA should probably seize them and then rent them out as convict labor as part of the effort to clawback all the fraudulent costs that American Jewish Zionists have manipulated the US government into expending on behalf of Zionism.
The US legal system is now sufficiently developed that all Zionists can be arrested and all their assets seized. Applying US anti-terrorism laws uniformly is an efficient and just mechanism to fix the US economy that Zionist manipulations have ruined.
As for the tennis tournament, corrupt Jewish social networking has put criminal racist Jewish Zionists in the position of writing or influencing the rules.
The rules of the tournament are simply another expression of racist Jewish Zionist criminality and are therefore inapplicable and illegitimate. The UAE should be commended for willing to support justice over racist Jewish Zionist shyster lawyering.
Zionists invariably argue that they should be able to get away with the same crimes that others commit.
Joachim, calm down. This is absolutely not the case here. Where did you hear of a justice system where it is OK to convict one person of a crime and to let another similarly guilty person to walk away with it? We are not talking about comparing Jim Crow and Nazis, but about two parties to the same blockade of Gaza that I consider absolutely abhorrent. Evenhandedness would require the international community to punish both, that's all.
"When are we going to start boycotts on: the Egyptians for their wretched treatment of the Coptic Christians? the Saudis for their treatment of woman? How about the Russians for their slaughter, torture rape and every other imaginable crime against hundreds of thousands Chechens? Not to mention China,the ethnic cleansing of Tibet and The wholesale killing, maiming and raping of millions of Christians and Animists by Muslims in Africa."
We should drop the annual foreign aid to Egypt conditional on Egypt's playing nice with Israel.
The USA is not in a position presently to boycott Saudi Arabia because of our nearly total dependence on oil, the world's
most precious commodity. The Saudis are a major buyer of US weapons (to offset the better ones we keep giving Israel for free), a secondary hurdle.
Russia poses a major threat; as we just saw when we and Israel tried to set up a puppet regime in Georgia.
China ditto, plus we owe them trillions by now and depend on China for nearly everything we use in our daily lives–having killed our industrial base here at home.
Even-handedness would suggest that the same people can hardly describe Samir Kuntar as a cold-blooded murderer, and Baruch Goldstein as a saint; but they do, and not only in the fringe web-mags, either: they do it in the JPost.
Peter, Aren't you describing the US criminal system, which invariably gives Jews a pass where non-Jews and Muslims go to jail?
Just consider the Holy Land Foundation versus LIBI.
As I understand, if Egypt does not do what the Israelis want at the Gaza entry, Egypt loses US foreign aid. Personally, I wish Egypt would forgo the aid, but I don't consider Egypt as culpable in the blockade of Gaza as Israel and the USA.
As an aside, I have been aware since the 1980s of a crypto-Jewish group that has functioned at the highest levels of the Egyptian political and social elite since the 1950s. It is heavily interconnected with the Israeli government and the wealthiest Newton Jews. This crypto-Jewish group may be partially responsible for Egypt's behavior with regard to Gaza.
"Peter, Aren't you describing the US criminal system, which invariably gives Jews a pass where non-Jews and Muslims go to jail?"
Wherever the case, it is a subversion of the justice system rather than what it is supposed to be by design.
"but I don't consider Egypt as culpable in the blockade of Gaza as Israel and the USA."
Maybe USA athletes should be boycotted as well then. But, seriously, motives and justifications and crypto-Jewish groups aside, we are talking about two concrete and immediate parties to the blockade. They should be treated in approximately the same manner.