Kick racism out of sport…unless the victim’s a Jew. Is this the new mantra of international sports and athletics bodies?
Consider the following: A soccer star living in an Arab dictatorship doesn’t much care for black people. He therefore refuses a transfer to a Premier League club in England because it has two blacks on its staff. He publishes his reasons on his website but the affair is barely reported in the press and the football authorities are so far silent.
Now consider this: Demonstrators and activists in a Scandinavian country in Europe object to an international tennis match because the visiting players are black. The sports authorities in collusion with the government cave in to pressure and force the match to be played behind closed doors.
Finally, consider the following: At the 2008 Olympics a swimmer from an Islamist theocracy makes it clear that he will not compete against a black man. In order to avoid penalties he then says he has withdrawn from the competition due to illness. The International Olympic Committee accepts his explanation without demur.
Substitute “Israeli-Jew” for “black man”, and the above is a precise representation of recent events in international sport.
The first example concerns the Egyptian soccer star Amr Zaki who has just refused a potentially lucrative transfer to Portsmouth FC because it employs two Israelis: defender Tal Ben Haim and director of football Avram Grant. Zaki said on his website:
“I refused their offer before, but now joining Portsmouth is no longer an option for me. After Portsmouth signed an Israeli player and also hired an Israeli football director a possible move was ruled out.”
According to opinion polls anti-Semitism is ubiquitous in Egyptian society where polite distinctions between “Israelis” or “Zionists” and “Jews” are rarely bothered with. As I note in my recently published book (see link below), a poll by Pew in 2006 found that 97 percent of Egyptians confessed to holding unfavourable opinions about Jews.
Since football’s international bodies in cooperation with the United Nations are running a massive campaign under the rubric “Kick Racism out of Football” it will be interesting to see how they react. If Zaki had in fact directed his bigotry against black people he would, rightly, now be facing a lengthy (possibly lifetime) ban and a huge fine. But given the way that other international sports bodies have effectively turned a blind eye to virulent anti-Semitism we should not hold our collective breath.
In March this year, authorities in the Swedish city of Malmo — which has a large Muslim minority and a leftist municipal council — forced a Davis Cup tennis match between Sweden and Israel to be played behind closed doors saying they could not guarantee the Israeli players’ safety after protestors threatened to disrupt the event.
Malmo was initially banned by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) from hosting Davis Cup matches for five years and the Swedish tennis authorities were given a $25,000 fine. The ban is pointless since other Swedish cities are still allowed to host Davis Cup events and the fine was reduced on appeal to $5,000 — a sum of money so trivial that most readers could pay it out of their own pockets.
The swimming event referred to concerned the case of Iran’s Mohammad Alirezaei who withdrew from a 100-metre breaststroke heat at the Beijing Olympics that included an Israeli competitor. His threadbare claims that he pulled out due to illness were simply accepted at face value by the International Olympic Committee despite the fact that Iranian athletes have a track record of boycotting Israeli competitors.
At the Olympics in Athens in 2004, Arash Miresmaeili Iran’s gold medal favourite in the Judo competition pulled out of a bout with an Israeli competitor. He publicly stated that he would not compete against an Israeli because he was an Israeli and was congratulated by the Iranian government for saying so.
Even more disgustingly, the Iranian basketball team at the Paralympics last year withdrew from the competition to avoid meeting the Israeli wheelchair team. Iran has not been banned from international sporting events.
The conclusion to be drawn from such examples is clear: anti-Semitism is deemed acceptable by the world’s top sports bodies who are steadfastly refusing to take appropriate action to stamp it out. It is now a matter of urgency that a campaign is launched to reverse this shameful state of affairs.
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My recently published book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel, is available here:
November 24th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Spot on Robin. Anti-semitism is the most acceptable and the most persistent racism. The anti-racist liberal left are prone to making anti-semitic comments while simultaneously frothing at the mouth when they see instances of anti-black racism. Living in their enclosed world, shielded from other points of view, they are blind to their own ridiculous hypocrisy.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Bitterly regret having Zaki in my fantasy football team last season. Guy’s a complete falafel-brain. Soon as the weather turned cool, he couldn’t score to save his life. Stay in Egypt my son. Egypt deserves you.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Austrians Mute Israeli Anthem at Fencing Tourney
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134525
(IsraelNN.com) Young female athletes from Israel’s fencing team swept top medals at a 28-nation European tournament held in Mödling, Austria last week – but faced an additional challenge when they stood on the winners’ podium to receive their medals: the organizers did not play the recording of the Israeli national anthem, and the Israeli winners had to sing the anthem on their own, a capella style. The Israeli team’s staff has no doubt that the incident was intentional.
Israel’s Dana Strelnikov, 14, won the gold medal and Alona Kamarov won the bronze at the tournament, which hosted 120 fencers aged up to 17. Both Israeli medalists hail from the northern Israeli town of Ma’alot, whose fencing club has produced many of Israel’s best young fencers. But as they stood on the podium and awaited the opening sounds of national anthem HaTikvah – they heard only silence. The girls and their trainers quickly understood what was happening and proceeded to sing the entire anthem on their own, with some scattered support from voices in the spectators’ bleachers.
The Israeli national team’s coach, Yaakov Friedman, told Arutz Sheva that the Israeli team faces constant political challenges on the international circuit. At a tournament in Göteborg, Sweden, in January this year, Israel won the silver medal and when the medalists were already on the podium the organizers informed Friedman that they do not have a recording of the Israeli anthem. The team sang the anthem without the help of the recording. It was understood by everyone, Friedman said, that the reason was Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which had just ended.
‘We only have the old anthem’
In the Mödling incident, Friedman said, the organizers approached him when the winners were on the podium and told him that “we do not have a recording of the new Israeli anthem, just the old one.” Friedman informed them that to the best of his knowledge, Israel has only had one anthem – HaTikvah – since it was founded, but this did not change anything, and the team had to sing a capella again. While the anthem was missing, the Israeli flag still hung proudly, he said – because tournament rules specifically require the presence of the national flags.
The head of the Israel Fencing Association, Yossi Harari, told The Forward that in the next tournaments Israel participates in, the team and every single one of the athletes will be equipped with recordings of the anthem, so that organizers will at least no longer be able to use the same excuses when refusing to play HaTikvah.
Friedman said that Jews have been prominent in the modern sport of fencing because it requires “character and brains,” besides certain physical qualities. “Like chess,” he explained, “decisions need to be made very quickly and that is why there are many Jews who excel in the sport.”
November 25th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
In the Turkish capital Ankara, a basketball game between the Turk Telekom and Israeli Bnei Hasharon teams was canceled after Turkish fans stormed the court shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “Death to the Jews.”
November 28th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
go on zaky…..this is the way we should treat those criminals
Robin Shepherd says: Irony, I presume…?