Double standards
Only Israeli athletes held accountable for government actions
Where’s the outcry?
Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva won the French Open this last weekend.
What was notable from a non-sports perspective was that there were apparently no protestors waving signs condemning genocide, no reporters asking her views on Russia’s claims to Ukrainian territory, no social media types shoving a mic in her face and asking if she supports the murder of babies.
Which is ironic given that any Israeli athlete winning (or even merely participating) in an athletic event can expect to face all of the above over Israel’s response to Hamas’ pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023. Even non-Israel Jewish athletes can expect to experience that kind of questioning, scrutiny and harassment.
Of course, Arab and/or Muslim athletes are never asked to condemn Hamas, nor to speak out against pan-Arab nationalism.
It’s only Jews who are held collectively responsible for whatever supposed ills the Israeli government commits, and who face demands to renounce Jewish nationalism (Zionism).
The great irony here, of course, is that Russia actually is attempting a real genocide in Ukraine: The stated goal of the Putin regime is to bring Ukraine under full Russian control, eliminate the Ukrainian language, and rewrite the history books so that an independent Ukraine never even existed.
In Ukrainian territory that Russian troops have conquered, Ukrainian children are taken from their parents and shipped by truck and rail to live with Russian families.
While pseudo-intellectuals in the West trip over themselves to sign up for a half-dozen or more ongoing boycotts that include refusals to work with Israeli athletes, authors, artists, actors, etc., no such effort has been undertaken to pressure Russians.
Nor is China facing such pressure campaigns – despite having successfully “ethnically cleansed” Tibet of the native Tibetans in the 1950s, and now working to de-Islamify western China, with more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs placed in concentration camps.
No, the proud intellectual descendants of Ezra Pound seemingly find offense only in what the world’s sole Jewish nation does. Even when faced with actual genocide, in which entire ethnic groups are slated for elimination or removal, they petulantly stamp their feet and insist that it is only Israel committing “genocide” – when it is easily proven Israel has done no such thing.
Now, obviously, a 19-year-old tennis player is in no way, shape or form responsible for what Putin’s dictatorship is up to in Ukraine – or anywhere else.
But neither are Israeli athletes responsible for what their government does – and how non-Israeli Jews are supposed to be held accountable for what Israel does can really only be attributed to one motivation.
Tell me again how “anti-Zionism” isn’t the same as anti-Semitism ...
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