Pride of Place - by Liat Collins

There’s a place for pride; there’s room for improvement; but there’s no place like home. There’s no need to be ashamed to say it.

Liat Collins..
My Word/JPost..
02 September '16..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/My-word-Pride-of-place-466680

I'm proud to be proud. It might not be fashionable. It might not be popular. But I am who I am. A Jewish, Israeli woman. I could live with it just fine, if only I were allowed to do so in peace.

My eyebrows, hackles and pride all rose in turn last week when I read an opinion piece by Uri Avnery in CounterPunch titled, “Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Judokas.” I very rarely agree with something Avnery writes, and the fact that Sharon was invoked in the title was a clue that this wasn’t going to be the exception.

“The scene at Ben-Gurion Airport this week was rather astonishing,” wrote Avnery.

“More than a thousand young male fans came to welcome the two Israeli judo fighters – one female, one male – who had won a bronze medal each at the Olympic Games in Rio.

“It was a very raucous welcome. The crowd went wild, shouted, pushed, raised fists.

“Yet judo is not a very popular sport in Israel... So Israeli crowds suddenly became judo fans (some called it ‘Jewdo’). People who did not go wild with enthusiasm were considered traitors. We did not hear anything about the judo champions who got the gold or silver medals...

“We can only imagine what would have happened if the Israeli Olympic contingent had included Arab athletes. Arabs? In our contingent? “True, Arabs constitute some 20% of the Israeli population, and some are very active in sports. But God – or Allah – saved us from this headache.

None made it to Rio.

“But there is another question that should have drawn attention. Israel is – by its own official definition – a ‘Jewish state.’ It claims to belong to the Jewish people. It considers itself, in a way, the headquarters of ‘world Jewry.’

“So why does no one in Israel take the slightest interest in the medals won by Jews and Jewesses in other national delegations? Where is Jewish solidarity? Where is Jewish pride?

“Well, it simply does not exist where it counts. In the Olympic Games, a highly nationalistic event, nobody in Israel cares about the Diaspora Jews.

“To hell with them.”

There’s more, but I’ll spare you.

Avnery’s diatribe is so twisted, he ties himself in knots. If linguistic contortions were an Olympic sport, Avnery’s score would be impressive.

Yes, Israelis welcomed their medalists – particularly as the country didn’t win any medals at the London Olympics four years ago.

Of course the Games are “highly nationalistic,” as Avnery notes.

That’s the whole point of them.

Deadly dangerous games and those who play them

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
03 December '12..

We started this blog some years ago out of immense frustration.

Living here in a democratic society, humanistic values are taken for granted. Human rights can actually be obtained, if need be, by turning to the media, the law and public opinion; no small quality here in this part of the world. We saw over time and particularly after the events of 2001 how a deadly combination of media reporting (sometimes malicious, sometimes manipulated, sometimes incompetent and superficial) and political hypocrisy produced a result in which the war by the terrorists against Israelis went under-reported and was and is, tragically, little understood.

Being the parents of a child murdered in a deliberate and greatly-celebrated massacre of children in the center of the country's capital city makes us feel there's no need to dwell on the consequences of such lethal factors. To us, it's clear that people need to hear about the terrorism and the terrorists. For the most part, that does not happen.

Today there's a reminder of how this sickening duplicity/stupidity/hypocrisy works. It concerns sport.

An Associated Press report from this past Saturday says there's yet another world-wide campaign to damage Israel by appealing to uninvolved parties - in this case footballers - to boycott an international sporting competition that is set to take place here next year.

(Continue)

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Kick racism out of sport…unless the victim’s a Jew. Is this the new mantra of international sports and athletics bodies?

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
24 November 09

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.
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