Peering into the real meaning of Shahar's Dubai ordeal

To watch or not to watch, was this week's question: All the top women were in action, but wasn't a counter-boycott in order?

Shahar Peer was adamant: Her exclusion from the prestigious Dubai event was unfair, unjust, and deserved sanction of some sort. She's less on the ball in resorting to the hoary old non-truism about sport and politics not mixing. Like all aspects of life, sport can't be simply divorced from politics, not even when we don't like the kind of politics.

Abu Dhabi officials muddied the waters somewhat by insisting that security considerations were what lay behind the refusal to let Shahar play, not blatant discrimination against Israelis. Swedish authorities went down the same road in announcing, when Sweden hosts Israel in the upcoming Davis Cup match, there will be no spectators for "security reasons."

Some instant gratification was to be had from tennis officialdom, fellow competitors, and even sports writers across the political spectrum lining up to vent indignation and distaste at the pusillanimous position of the Gulf state selling itself as the coming powerhouse of world sport.

Dubai's Sports City, a $4 billion venture due for completion next year, will incorporate a global cricket academy, the world hockey academy, the Butch Harmon School of Golf, Manchester United's first purpose-built soccer school, a tennis academy, an Olympic swimming pool, and other world-class arenas. Scouring the Web proved supporters of the decision to keep Shahar out were few and far between.

Mostly, it was the tone of Michelle Kaufman in the Miami Herald: "For all the guts and ferocity they show on the court, the women of professional tennis (and the officials of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour) wimped out by deciding to carry on with the Dubai Tennis Championships... They should have boycotted. That would have sent a real message to the United Arab Emirates. Instead, they are fumbling and bumbling, saying all the right things, insisting they sympathize with Peer, but the words ring hollow."

Or, Richard Williams in the Guardian: "Just imagine... that, by winning the Champions League final in May, Liverpool become Europe's representatives in the Club World Cup, to be held this year for the first time in the United Arab Emirates... Envisage what might happen when visas are requested for the members of Rafael Benitez's squad. Liverpool will be told to leave Yossi Benayoun, their Israeli international midfield player, at home."

The players were united in their criticism, but went ahead and played anyway. The Web site of the intelligent Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli reflected the sentiment well: "We do not prejudice on the basis of religion, nationality, color, gender or sexual orientation. There is only one prejudice to which tennis players and fans subscribe - the virtuous prejudice called ability... We love the sport and glory in the competition and accept, if not always celebrate, every player and every diversity - whether Christian, Atheist, Jew, Moslem, black, white, gay, straight, cheese-and-pickle, whatever."

Hamlet is helpful: "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with his regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action."

Even though Israel's doubles specialist Andy Ram was late Thursday granted a visa to play in next week's men's tournament in Dubai, neither the predicament of Israeli sportsfolk, nor the world sportsfolk dilemmas about how to handle mounting questions about Israel's place in the world, are likely suddenly to dissipate in a welter of "love for the game."

What will happen when even friendly countries regard the "regime" in Jerusalem as unsavory? The most emphatic sports boycott helped bring down apartheid in South Africa.

Heed the thinking of another Guardian columnist, Seth Freedman: "The boycott-Israel campaign is gaining traction once more with supporters encouraging everything from Israel's artichokes to its academics to be shunned and turned into symbolic pariah figures as a way of putting pressure on the country's leaders."

And, friendlier voices - Dave Zirin for instance, an important sports blogger and author of "A People's History of Sports in the United States."

"Sport in Israel may represent a sacredly apolitical space, a place to flee the headaches of the real world, but it has been thrust into the heart of a conflict raw with politics. Protests against Israeli actions in Gaza are sure to continue in sporting events outside the U.S. But the ramifications could very easily be felt inside our borders, as political leaders come to the White House and tell the new administration tales of sports fans gone wild."

Another important insight comes from a New Zealand chatroom. Last month in Auckland Shahar had to face down what Hamish McBrearty called "odious attempts" to harass her on court: "The reason the protest was so disgusting was that Peer is just a person going about her normal business.

I can understand people protesting the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour, as that team represented South Africa, was chosen along racial lines and gave some legitimacy to the regime, but Peer is a professional tennis player representing herself, she just happens to be Israeli."

Unlike individual tennis players, national and club teams competing internationally don't just 'happen to be Israeli.' Sports aren't as central to Israeli life as they were to white racist South Africa. Sadly, though, it could well become the thin edge of a deadly boycott - even if there is no sort of sports apartheid or blatant discrimination of Arab citizens in other fields of life.

But hasn't "no loyalty, no citizenship" become a popular catchphrase? Who will guarantee that Arab players won't one day be obliged to sing the national anthem when selected for the national team? And, what if/when there is a slide into some apartheid practices should we turn back on the two-state principle?

Maybe in the end, as Hamlet has it, we should accept it depends much more on what we do, than on what others do to us: "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?" End them, that is, by doing right by ourselves and so deny others the chance to wrong us.