Boycott, Ban & Bar Israel?

Zan Azlee in his Malaysiakini column penned What’s wrong with banning Israeli athletes? (extracts follows):

I personally feel uncomfortable with banning sportspeople, although in the end I've to agree with both Zan and even, wakakaka, Mahathir.

Banning or boycotting Israel would be better notified and publicised as BDS, a movement which is strong among European academic circles.

Wikipedia informs us (short extract): The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (also known as BDS) is a global campaign promoting various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets what the campaign describes as Israel's "obligations under international law", defined as withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties".

Aeons ago, the sporting world (except for some Western nations like the USA) boycotted White South African (and possibly Israeli) athletes especially in tennis tournaments.

Australia was one exception in that it didn't boycott any sporting event or person, as demonstrated by its participation in both the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics. The Australian Olympic Council was/is totally independent of the Australian government and Australian politics.

The boycott-Afrikaans moment would witness, say a Russian (or in those days, a USSR tennis player) on seeing a white South African (or Israeli) as his or her opponent, he or she (the USSR person) drops out, refusing to play with that pariah nation, preparing to forfeit his or her standing in the tournament.

Thus boycotting players of certain nations is not new.

Notwithstanding this, as mentioned above I personally feel that allowing politics to intrude into sports especially the Olympic Games is not a desirable action.

The Yanks were the first culprit in boycotting the Moscow Olympics because of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (whilst hypocritically pretending to forget its own murderous interference in Vietnam where millions of Vietnamese were slaughtered by Yankee weapons and the country severely and horrendously damaged in infrastructure, agriculture, economy, and worse, socially etc).

Zan wrote: Do not also forget about South Africa under apartheid. It took a huge concerted effort by the entire international community on every aspect from trade and finance to sports and culture in order to put successful pressure on the South African government. Malaysia played a major role in the movement.

In reality it was both the end of the Cold War (which neutralised South Africa's usefulness in the USA's fight against communism) and her failing economy which broke the White Supremacist back, and not mere international social, cultural and sports pressure.

However, I do not agree when Malaysians call for boycotts of establishments like McDonald’s and Starbucks within the country. These boycotts will not affect anything because are franchises that are essentially owned by Malaysians who have employees who are Malaysians. Boycotts of these establishments only hurt our own people.

Unfortunately, the efforts to protest the Israeli government isn’t as popular as the protests that have happened against Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa because Israel has the support of some of the strongest and most influential governments in the world.

For efforts like this to be a success, it needs to be huge and needs to have the support of the entire international community. And even though this isn’t happening at the moment, I am still glad that we have a government that is standing firm and will not back down under the pressure of more ‘influential’ governments.

And the reason why Israel has the support of some of the strongest and most influential governments in the world is due to two factors, namely religion in the USA and guilt of the WWII Holocaust in Europe.

The American Christian Right or the Christian Zionists sees Israel as an intrinsic, nay, vital part of their Christian salvation, for they believe that the Christian Messiah will ONLY make his Second Coming in the Promise Land where the Jews gather, namely Israel. Thus those yanks will defend Israel even at the expense of the USA's interests. Aid to Israel has never been cut or reduced whilst financial budgets for various US departments have been.

I bet the belief of the Christian Zionists in Israel as vital to the Return of Jesus even surpasses and eclipses the conservative Malaysian Muslim faith in their religion, such is the fanaticism of those Christian Zionists.

The Europeans, especially the Germanic nations, of course, have never gotten over their guilt about the Holocaust in WWII.

Surprisingly or perhaps not, but certainly annoying, that guilt seems to apply to ONLY matters Jewish, like Israel, Israelis and Jews, whilst the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust (gypsies, Russian, Poles, Slavs, etc) whose deaths actually outnumber the Jewish victims are conveniently ignored. Such is the power and effectiveness of Jewish propaganda and constant reiteration in reminding Europeans of their culpability in the Holocaust.

Even the term 'anti-Semitism' has been unjustly misappropriated by the Jews for themselves, when that term should apply equally to hostility to, prejudice, or discrimination against Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, some Ethiopians, and Aramaean tribes including Hebrews.

Thus it can be argued that today the most anti-Semitic people are actually the Israelis in their hostility, prejudice, racism and discrimination against Arabs in general and Palestinians specifically.