Israel Matzav

Will countries who forfeit matches against Israelis be expelled from international competition?

In an earlier post, I reported that Tunisia has been banned from Davis Cup tennis for one year for ordering star player Malek Jaziri not to compete against Israeli Amir Weintraub. Ben Cohen discusses some of the consequences of that ban.

The ITF’s announcement is a welcome and courageous one for three reasons. Firstly, by correctly depicting the Tunisian decision as based upon “prejudice,” it rejects wholesale all the justifications and rationalizations for the boycott of Israel and Israelis advanced by the Arab League Central Boycott Office and its contemporary echo, the anti-Semitic “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement, which portrays the boycott of Israel as the twenty-first century incarnation of the movement to boycott apartheid South Africa.

Secondly, the announcement shifts the costs of a boycott away from the Israelis onto the boycotting countries themselves. Those countries that continue insisting on a boycott of Israeli athletes now have a choice: either drop this primitive bigotry, or accept that through your actions, it is your own professional sports representatives that will be punished.

Lastly, the ITF decision should properly be read as establishing a precedent that can equally apply in other sports. At an international swimming competition in Dubai last month, the Israeli team was grudgingly allowed to participate, but scoreboards at the event, as well as television broadcasts, were banned from mentioning the word “Israel.” Gratifyingly, the success of the Israeli swimmers at the tournament meant that the policy of pretending that the team was not present became untenable.

Nonetheless, there should be consequences to these actions. As well as ejecting boycotting countries from competitions, international sporting authorities should also ban countries that still advocate the boycott of Israel – like Qatar, which will host the 2022 soccer World Cup – from hosting such prestigious events. Thanks to the ITF, that outcome is now one step closer.

Well, yeah. But we're still a long way from - for example - the Olympics banning countries who refuse to allow their athletes to compete with Israelis.

Labels: Arab boycott of Israel, Davis Cup tennis, Muslim anti-Semitism, Summer Olympics, Tunisia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:37 AM