Andy Ram, an Israeli tennis player, has just published a sober and heartbreaking piece about what the Israeli tennis team has just faced in competition in Sweden.
Athletes and anti-Semitism: Who can ever forget the Munich Olympics under Hitler? And the fact that, in the Nazi era, Jewish-Austrian and Jewish-German athletes had to have their own swimming and fencing clubs, since they were not allowed to compete with “Aryans.”
We all remember the trauma of the 1972 Palestinian massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich. I certainly do. The mishandling of the situation–especially by the German police was enraging, unbelievable.
Now, Israeli tennis player, Shaar Peer, was not allowed to play tennis in Abu Dhabi. Although Venus Williams denounced this, she still played there.
Today, another kind of situation faces the Israeli tennis team in Sweden. Andy Ram writes about it in YNet News today, below. He begins this way:
“In almost every respect, the events of the past week in Sweden are a sad moment for Tennis, for sports in general, and certainly for Israel. Never in my career as an athlete have I encountered such hatred and such blend of sports and politics.
Up until the last moment, the protestors attempted to prompt the cancelation of the David Cup match between Israel and Sweden. After we already landed here, their leader met with Swedish team captain Mats Wilander and asked him to call off the contest. “
Ram goes on to describe how the Israeli team had to be sequestered in their hotel, guarded there, enroute, and at the stadium by many police officers and anti-terrorist squads. Sadly, the stadium was empty since people feared riots or worse. He concludes:
“The feelings within the Israel team are very grim. All the innocence that prompted us to play tennis has disappeared, and this match, which was supposed to be a beautiful moment of sports, has become completely worthless. Nothing here is reminiscent of the Davis Cup; what we have is a war atmosphere, tension, and the feeling that something very bad may happen at any moment.”
This is exactly how it feels when one tries to speak the truth about Israel and America on the American campus. It is a similarly politicized war-zone, with ugly threats and menace which requires police protection. Certainly not the atmosphere in which to compete in sports or to deliver a lecture.
World: Are you watching? Can you see what is happening?
World: What are your plans? If we do not resist radical evil ultimately, we collaborate with it.
You may read Andy Ram’s article HERE
Anti-Zionism is the most powerful political movement on earth. It makes no sense at all that this is so. Anti-Zionism is the child of anti-Semitism, the most powerful prejudice on earth. This too makes no sense. In a world where everybody hates everybody else, anti-Semitism stands out as being the most persistent and ubiquitous hatred.
Israel has admitted refugees from Darfur and granted them asylum. Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know. Golda Meir was the first woman head of government in history who was neither the daughter nor the wife of a previous head of government. Feminists will never know this. Nobody will ever know. Israel has drafted openly gay men and women since Day One of its existence. Gay rights activists don’t know this. Nobody will ever know.
While I am not trivializing anti-semitism in sports, I feel that you are overlooking racism in global sports. It may be because in America there are less occurrences of outright racism, or it may be because Americans are often blind to the subtleties of race and sports. Examples that quickly come to mind are Spanish crowds making money chants at Lewis Hamiliton, other fans throwing bananas at African footballers, and Rush Limbaugh’s assessment of Donovan McNabb on ESPN.
Surprisingly, USA Today wrote a good article about racism in football (the real football, you know the one that is actually played with feet). http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/worldcup/2006-06-01-intolerance-cup_x.htm
So the bottom line is that Americans should acknowledge Anti-Semitism in global sports, but that does not mean that they should look past racism, or put a higher weight on Anti-Semitism. In the end, it is hate that we are fighting, we are not just looking to protect players or colour or players from Israel.
They’re BAAAAAAAAaaaaack.
=========
I always recognized that what has happened before could happen again.
I never expected it to be in my lifetime.
Bloody hell!
joeblough: yes, they are back. just as vile, vapid, crazy brained, stupid and vacant and lest we forget, perverse. quite perverse. we should have expected it, even when yu spray for cockroaches they come back because they are always with us like evil and all other bad things like decay, and rot and stink.
take a whiff. that’s them.
I don’t think it really matters that much anymore.