Shahar Peer

For many years I have admired John Minto’s courage in taking a stand, often in the face or virulently hostile public opinion, on issues he believed in, most notably his opposition to sporting contacts with South Africa during the apartheid era.

But I can find nothing courageous about a group of protestors congregating outside the ASB Tennis Centre with loud hailers shouting at one Israeli woman player, “Blood, blood on your hands, freedom for Palestine’ and ‘Go home, Shahar’. ‘Intimidating, cowardly, inappropriate, embarrassing  and  pointless’ might all be better epithets.

And probably, though the concept may have little currency with these zealots, a singularly unsporting way of trying to put Shahar Peer off her game.  And counterproductive too, since I – a severe critic of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians – and I suspect many others, now hope that Peer takes the women’s singles title despite this barracking harassment.

What is happening in the Middle East cannot and should not be laid at the feet of one Israeli tennis player. Responsibility for the policies that have turned Palestinians into squatters in their own land belongs solely with the Israeli government. If we disagree strongly with those policies, then the appropriate course of action is to attempt to persuade the New Zealand government to impose sanctions against Israel, possibly including sanctions on sporting contacts.

When I’m occasionally asked what I think is the defining characteristic of the New Zealander, I invariably reply, ‘Above all, New Zealanders are a fair-minded people.’ For that very reason, I’m confident that while we might accept the idea of rowdy protests against the presence of a large Israeli sports team, very few New Zealanders will feel comfortable with an abusive demonstration against one woman tennis player, whose only crime is to be an Israeli citizen.

2.55 pm  Friday. Congratulations to Yanina Wickmayer who has just beaten Shahar Peer in closely fought straight sets. Peer was beaten not by the taunting abuse of the protestors outside the ground, but by a better player on the day.  An entirely satisfactory outcome.