Venus Williams, Ambassador for Israel

Nadene Goldfoot

The United Arab Emirates has a population of 5,432,746 Sunni Muslims of which Islam is the state religion. Surpisingly, only 76% of the population are Muslims. It has a federal constitutional monarchy which is no surprise in that we know it's not a democracy.

Dubai is one of the seven emirates or provinces with a population of 1,306,000 and lies south of the Persian gulf on the Arabian Peninsula. They hold the Dubai Championships Tennis Tournament. In 2009 Israel's female Shahar Peer was denied a visa and could not participate. This is no surprise, as Israelis are not usually allowed into any Muslim country. Israelis can't even be in the "back of the bus!" We can't get in the door.

In 2009, Venus Williams, USA's outstanding tennis player and Grand Slam Champion, was not about to allow Israel's Shahar Peer to be denied the opportunity because she was Israeli. Venus wouldn't play and give anyone else the opportunity to challenge her title there unless Shahar could also play. Because of this excluding Peer, the WTA fined Dubai $300,000. Part of the fine went to Peer and her doubles partner, Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany.

This did it. Shahar was allowed to enter the competition in the winter of 2010 but had to be surrounded by guards. She also had to play on the most secure court which was not Center Court all week.

Who would have had the guts to call Dubai on this anti-semitic act and challenge this country? Without Venus, a #1 contender, the event would have been nothing. They conceded.

Venus played Shahar and Venus won in the semifinals. It must have been a great game for both. We should all commend Venus for her brave act of standing up to the deliberate snub that Dubai had been practicing. She commented that as a black woman, her family had gone through similar treatment, coming from the south. She said that this was professional tennis 2010 and excluding an athlete was not acceptable. Peer now has the ranking of #19. She has played Venus many times and always loses to her. This is a valuable experience for her.

"For her stance on this issue, Venus Williams was honored in New York with an award from the Anti-Defamation League. If Williams' support doesn't sound much like a revolutionary position, consider how few athletes in this sport, and others, seem willing to comment on any political matter."

It looks like professional athletes can do much in being ambassadors for peace.

This year's event will be held from February 14 - 20, 2011. Venus will be returning along with Caroline Wozniacki. Shahar Peer, now #13, will also be returning.

Resource: Venus Williams and Israel

http://www.haaretz.com/news/venus-williams-hails-brave-peer-after-winning-uae-tourney-1.270632 from 2009

http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/13888561/venus-had-peers-back-in-dubai-and-peer-never-forgot from Sept 5, 2010

http://www.thenational.ae/sport/tennis/dubai-tennis-championship-to-host-the-best-again
Wikipedia

Hamas Leader Mahmoud Maabhouh Assassinated

Nadene Goldfoot

A terrorist has been assassinated by someone. Israel's Mossad is being accused. He was assassinated in the first part of February, and it just made the news as a big event yesterday, so it's taken more than two weeks to be talked about. Mahmoud Mabhouh, Hamas leader was in Dubai at the time.

As it turns out, Dubai had terrific security and 11 people are dubbed the killers of which 6 of them were holding Israeli passports that were stolen. Would Mossad frame their own citizens for this deed?

My feeling is that Mossad does a better job than this bungled operation has been handled. They're being framed by British operatives. Every country has their network of spies, some of which are double agents or maybe even triple. Up till now, Mossad has been the most skillful operation. Israel gets blamed for everything, and this may just be another set-up. The difference is that Israel has a darn good reason to feel less regret about this death. We don't rejoice over deaths of anyone, even people that have done us harm. That lesson was learned in the exodus from Egypt.

Israel wasn't the only country who wanted to see this terrorist's demise. He was getting missiles from the Iranians which could have hit Tel Aviv, and there would have been one great war after that would have happened. It's possible that Arab governments don't want to get that involved. Then again, Israel doesn't want missiles to get into Hamas hands in Gaza and destroy it's 6 million citizens. Even a rival Palestinian group could have been the assassinators. Jordan and Egypt have been looking for him for a long time.

Dubai is the center of buying arms. Mabhouh lives in Damascus, Syria. He was on a buying mission. It's bad enough that Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and just as bad if not worse if Hamas gets some of their deadly weapons. They're a loose cannon and a wildly irresponsible emotional terrorist band.

I didn't think that Israelis were allowed into an Arab country like Dubai. I know we can visit Egypt, but thought that was it. Of course, some of our Israelis are Arabs and they are citizens

Reference: The Israel Project press@theisraelproject.org. by Tom Gross