How Can Israelis Play Games in the Arab World?

[IndianaGreen]

Thursday, 19 February 2009

How Can Israelis Play Games in the Arab World?

Dr. Ahmad Jamil Azem

The Western world of tennis has been provoked to anger by the story of the Israeli tennis player, Shahar Peer, who has been denied a visa by the UAE authorities and thus prevented from competing in the Dubai Tennis Championships. As a person whose origins were in the city of Jerusalem, I feel not only angry about the issue, but also worried on seeing that my children are pleased to hear that the tennis player has been banned from an Arab country, for I know this reaction does not augur well for peace mentality.

According to documents going back hundreds of years, I am an indigenous Palestinian, for my family has lived in a village close to Jerusalem, in a location from which the Old City can easily be seen. Our story as a family is documented in a book written by Said K. Aburish in English and entitled Children of Bethany: The Story of a Palestinian Family. The author describes clearly how my parents and grandfathers have been always part of the city of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, for more than eighteen years, I have been denied entry to that city. All the Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, in the West Bank are denied this right. Not one of us is allowed to pray or shop in, or visit the city.

I myself have had to abandon a book that I spent years writing, including producing a thesis for a Ph.D. degree on the same topic: “How to settle the issue of Jerusalem peacefully” On reaching a certain point, I needed to visit the city myself to write about it; however, it was impossible because of the Israeli Separation Wall and because of the Israeli government’s policy of closing off Jerusalem in the face of the Arabs. To add to the frustration and humiliation, dozens of Palestinian expectant mothers have been obliged to give birth at Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank because Israeli soldiers would not allow them to proceed to the hospital.

My children are pleased on hearing the story of the Israeli tennis player’s predicament because they regard it as a kind of retaliation for preventing them from entering Jerusalem to pray there or visit relations. Yet more than 5 million Palestinian refugees have been forced to endure, for more than 60 years, a similarly unhappy situation that has not provoked the same level of anger as that resulting from the UAE’s ban on the Israeli tennis player.

http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2009/02/19/66833.html