Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa | Analysis

MIDEAST: The Ball Could be in Israel's Court

Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

JERUSALEM, Feb 24 2009 (IPS) - Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rode roughshod over those who piously argue that sport and politics ought not to play in the same arena.

At the start of the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, Olmert pulled no punches: "I was astonished to hear that Andy Ram intended to play in Dubai. He really should be advised to demonstrate patriotism and solidarity; he should have boycotted the tournament."

Olmert was lashing out at the decision of the Dubai authorities to ban Israeli woman tennis player Shahar Peer from last week's championships in the Gulf state. Doubles specialist Ram is playing in this week's men's tournament after Dubai bowed to a torrent of outrage, and to pressure from international tennis authorities, and granted him the visa they had earlier denied the Israeli woman star.

Israel drew solace from the fact that tennis officialdom, Peer's fellow competitors, and international sports writers lined up to vent indignation against the ban. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) fined the Dubai tournament a whopping 300,000 dollars, and warned that any repeat of such a ban would put next year's tournament in jeopardy.

Dubai is promoting itself as the coming powerhouse of world sport, and the tennis tournament is one of the sport's top world events. Gulf officials muddied the waters a little when they insisted that there was no blatant discrimination against Peer as an Israeli, and evoked "security considerations – that our fans might not like her presence" as the reason for the ban.

During the war in Gaza, and since, Israeli athletes have been harassed when appearing in international competition – most notably in Ankara when Turkish fans violently disrupted a basketball game with an Israeli club team. In parallel to the Dubai ban, the city authorities in Malmo announced that when Sweden hosts Israel in an upcoming Davis Cup tennis match, "no spectators will be allowed for security reasons."

Olmert's outburst ignored the stringent measures taken against Dubai, but suggests an underlying Israeli concern: given the international mood following the military onslaught on Hamas in Gaza, and with the newly elected far right government waiting in the wings avowedly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on occupied territories, the citing of "security concerns" in sports may be only the thin edge of the wedge. Neither the predicament of Israeli athletes, nor the dilemmas of sports authorities around the world about how to handle mounting questions about Israel's place in the world are likely suddenly to dissolve in a welter of "love for the game".

Olmert may have had his eye on a ball further afield. In New Zealand, Prime Minister John Key declared that his government may prevent his country's cricket team from touring Zimbabwe later this year. "Aside from political reasons, there could also be safety and health risks to the players during the planned visit in July." The New Zealand leader didn't stop there. "Frankly we don't support the regime of President Robert Mugabe."

What will happen when even countries traditionally friendly to Israel come to regard the new "regime" in Jerusalem as unsavoury, its policies untenable?

In Britain and in other European countries, a 'boycott-Israel' campaign is gaining some ground, adherents encouraging a ban on everything from Israeli flowers to the shunning of academics. The design is to posit Israelis as international pariahs in order to press for a change of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

The most emphatic sports boycott was the one that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa. That worldwide boycott was broadly justified on the grounds that in apartheid South Africa teams were chosen along racial lines, and gave legitimacy to the racist regime. In contrast, commentators who are now aghast at the boycott of the Israeli tennis player insist that Peer is a professional sportswoman who represents only herself and argue that "she just happens to be Israeli."

Sport isn't as central to Israeli life as it was to white South Africa, and there is no overt discrimination against Arab citizens in Israeli sports. And, until now, Israel has managed to head off any nascent boycotts, resting on both the ambiguity of its policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians (continued occupation alongside acceptance of the principle of a Palestinian state), and also on the ambiguity of purpose of the would-be boycotters (de-legitimising Israel's policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians or de-legitimising Israel per se).

Enter Israeli politics into the politics of sports. The just completed Israeli national election campaign revolved in no small measure around a popular catchphrase devised by the anti-Arab party Israel Beiteinu (meaning Israel is our home) – "No Loyalty, No Citizenship", which targets Israel's Arab minority. If that mood is put into practice, real discrimination against Arab sportspeople may well occur.

This relates to the possibility that if the Netanyahu government indeed turns its back firmly on a "two-state solution", then willy-nilly that could mean Israel will indeed slide into apartheid-type practices, which in turn, could be even more significant than (unlikely) measures against Arab Israeli sportsmen in increasing calls for a boycott – sporting and otherwise.

The new right-wing government is soon to be installed. There is a growing sense among its domestic opponents that, more and more, the onus will be on Israel itself. The policies of the new government could have a direct bearing on the momentum of any boycott – not only on the sports field.