Recently, I asked whether Israel was becoming the new pariah state of international sport. More evidence of that emerging status comes from the Davis Cup tennis tournament in Sweden. Mira Vogel at Engage picks up the story:
Israel is doing very well in the Davis Cup, currently being played in Malmö. But one demonstration against the Israeli team’s presence mobilised 6000. According to Malmö police chief, Håkan Jarborg Eriksson, some demonstrators declared an intention to “stop the match at any cost” and consequently 1000 officersremains unclear. It must be particularly galling for these vicarious Palestinian nationalists that the Israeli Davis Cup team isn’t cracking. Au contraire - they just beat Sweden.
Hardly anybody was in the 4000-seater stadium to see it because Malmö’s Sports and Recreation Committee had ordered that the match be closed to the public - for security reasons. That was a terrible response.
Here’s a video of the pro-Hamas fascist thugs in action.
This is why I regard the prospect of Israel qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa with a mixture of breathless anticipation and terrible fear.
Members of the Norwegian Progress Party (Fremskrittspariet) visited Malmö, Sweden, today, in order to study integration of immigrants there. The decision to visit Malmö was made after some anti-Israeli, anti-semitic and other disturbances in Malmö, involving the throt-slitting of a Swedish homosexual. Initially, the Progress Party was accused of exaggerating the problems in Malmö. Everything was hunky-dory in Malmö and there was no need to study anything there at all. Now, after last weeks’s violent riots, people aren’t so sure anymore. After having visited Malm’o today The Progress Party delegation reports (in Dagbladet) that they wish to avoid creating the same sort of environment in Norway.