Susie Kneedler tried to comment on the Shahar Peer story, couldn’t get her comment posted. We’re working out the bugs. Here it is:
"I thought it was brave of her to come here and try and play despite knowing that it is not going to be easy for her. My dad grew up in an area where if you spoke too much, it was your life. So I felt I had a small opportunity to say something where everyone will listen."
She added: "I am not here to rock any boat or upset people, I am just here to do things that are right, and I think right things are already happening next week and right things will happen next year."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065849.html
John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, and Mary Carillo also praised Andy Roddick for his refusal to compete in the Dubai Tournament after Roddick learned that Peer would not be allowed to play.
Most unfortunately, McEnroe, King, and Carillo all compared Williams’s and Roddick’s defense of the Shahar Peer to John McEnroe’s principled boycott of South African apartheid. At a time before McEnroe had become rich, he refused a then-unimaginable sum, $1 million, because he did not want to legitimate the South African racist system.
We can see the inadequacy of current "news" "reports" if–even after the Gaza carnage–three people who travel widely, who have very well-developed social consciences, equate liberal values with defending the rights of a former IDF soldier.
McEnroe, King, or Carillo dropped no hint of the restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinian athletes–let alone all Palestinian civilians. If the three commentators (social activists?) want to defend Peer, they could at least speak out for Palestinian players and people as well.
Perhaps McEnroe, King, and Carillo’s obtuseness came from ignorance. But what does that obliviousness say about the lack of a fair, free press in the U.S., or (Phil’s point) the state of liberal values here?
