She must be totally self-absorbed and has no concept of the day before yesterday. Actors and athletes think they’re so above it all.

John Cunningham on February 19, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Looks like American athletes don’t have the market cornered on stupidity and arrogance. Maybe she’d like to date Charles Barkely when she’s not playing tennis.
[S: WELL, HE *IS* MARRIED. NOT THAT THAT WOULD STOP HIM. DS]

samurai on February 19, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Since 1996, the Israel MFA has had a trade office in Doha, Qatar. They came close to working out an LNG deal with them in the late 1990’s.
I’m not trying to sanitize Qatar’s manifest national policy of anti-Semitism. Just trying to tell you that there are a few cracks in the dam.
Sometimes, I think the Qataris like to play footsie with Israel just to get the Saudis angry. The two royal families don’t get along especially well.
[TINSC: THEY ARE DOING THIS TO GET AN OLYMPICS. NOTHING MORE. DS]

There is NO Santa Claus on February 19, 2008 at 1:02 pm

The Israeli Left has succeeded in doing the impossible: putting the Jew back in the ghetto and making the Jew again a pariah among the nations.
That pariah status won’t change even if Shahar Peer is allowed to go play tennis in Qatar. All it will underline is just how abnormal the Jewish State’s condition remains 60 years after Israeli independence. And no one is surprised when Iran’s Foreign Minister describes Israel as a “fabricated state” that is still illegitimate and has played no role in the region.
This is the reality in the Middle East and a few Jewish Uncle Toms being invited to Qatar won’t change it.

NormanF on February 19, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Just wait — if there is ever any type of Qatar investment in this country that could undermine our security, like the Dubai ports deal, the elite and their ‘conservative’ stooges will point to this tennis matach as proof that Qatar is not prejudiced, and the mainstream media will inundate us with it. they will not publicize the things mentioned in this writeup.

c f on February 19, 2008 at 4:27 pm

They are what is know as “court Jews”.

lexi on February 19, 2008 at 4:53 pm

You are right to criticize Dubai and all the apartheid Muslim states. However, if Peer sees this opportunity as a crack in the door, possibly the beginning of a thaw, that is her right. There can be another legimate way to see this. We don’t need Jews bashing Jews when there is an enemy to be fought.
[PB: THIS IS NO “THAW.” READ THE USA TODAY ARTICLE. AT THE END OF IT THE QATARI TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR ADMITS THIS IS ABOUT THEIR OLYMPIC HOSTING BID. THAT’S IT. I WILL BASH ANYONE WHO PULLS THIS KIND OF CRAP, REGARDLESS OF RELIGION. I MAKE NO EXCEPTION FOR JEWS WHEN THEY PANDER TO MUSLIMS. THEY ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION. AND THEY NEED TO BE EXPOSED AND, YES, BASHED. DS]

Papa Bear on February 19, 2008 at 5:14 pm

” … Now, there is Shahar Peer. Despite her travel to Qatar and her participation in the Qatar Open being prohibited for years, yesterday, she played in the Qatar Total Open. Her match there is being called “historic. …”
so why take it out on *her* ??
did she support any Qatar boycott or otherwise do anything that shows she favors the anti-Israel stance over her own country
(maybe she did, but if so, it’s not apparent from your quote, so if she *didn’t*,
then maybe save the ‘zonah’ appellation for condaleeza rice, rosie o’donnell, etc.)
take it out on Qatar, the IOC, and all who do business with Qatar, and all the others who tolerate the Arab boycott of Israel
this is a great opportunity to rub Qatar’s nose in the filth of their own policies,
by the Israeli team insisting on bringing it’s own kosher food, it’s own Rabbi, it’s own Sefer Torah,
have it’s own daily minyan, etc.
(the Israelis should, of course bring a small army of their own, to provide ‘security’ which of course cannot be guaranteed by Qatar)
and wouldn’t it be nice if they had to let the Israelis play and ‘still’ didn’t get the olympic bid …

exdemexlib on February 19, 2008 at 6:31 pm

We’ll never know what might have happened if she had had the guts and the decency to say that she would never play in Qatar because of their discrimination against Israel and Jewish people. Maybe nothing would have happened, but maybe it would have brought some publicity to Qatar’s anti-semitic policies. If anythng would open the door to reducing the anti-semitism of Qatar and countries like it, it is holding them up to the light, and exposing their policies for all to see.

c f on February 19, 2008 at 6:52 pm

The decision by Shahar Pe’er and Andy Ram to play tennis in Qatar is an insult to Jews around the world who have supported them. I think some of the blame must go to the revisionist, post-Zionist educators, politicians and media who have dominated the Israeli establishment since Oslo.
Heck, if the Israeli government is willing to enter into negotiations with Arafat, call Fatah and Gulf states “moderate” and publicly put faith in phony promises from Palestinians–“taking risks for peace and reconciliation” and such nonsense–how hard should we be toward a couple of 20-something athletes who think real barriers are falling by their simple act of participating in an the Qatar Open?
Pe’er and Ram are acting as one would expect from people who have received a multi-cultural, morally relativistic education in which Qatar’s religious-apartheid policy toward Jews and Israel is just another point of view or narrative to be be bridged through dialogue and engagement, not a moral wrong to be loudly condemned in a way that might upset enemies.
Arab leaders historically have made small, insincere gestures toward Jews when they want to appear moderate and reasonable in order to achieve a short-term goal or overcome bad publicity in the eyes of suspicious Westerners. The list of American Jewish organizations, leaders and Rabbis willing to jump at the slightest hint of a warming of relations by Gulf Arabs (and then explain the Gulf Arab point of view almost verbatim to the larger Jewish or American public after being granted the rare privilege of a non-official meeting) makes it difficult for me to be too critical of these tennis players.
Nonetheless, I hate that Qatar can use Pe’er and Ram for propaganda purposes. Even if Qatar lands the Olympics, who could reasonably believe it will result in Qatar making changes in political relations with Israel or religious/cultural attitudes regarding Jews?
I do think you are a little too hard on Sania Mirza. She has done much to offend the sensibilities of Muslims in India and Pakistan, including saying that it is unrealistic for Muslim men to expect their wives to be virgins until marriage.
Her decision to play tennis alone has angered Muslims (tennis attire isn’t modest) and she showed courage by playing doubles with Pe’er. You can’t fault Mirza if she is concerned about the safety of family members. And you can’t expect more resolve from her than from Jewish athletes when it comes to taking a stand on political issues concerning Muslim anti-Semitism.

4infidels on February 21, 2008 at 12:07 am

B”H Debbie, probably the most important thing you said here was “just wanting to be loved.”
In every generation since Spain in the 1400’s, we Jews have tried assimilation as a strategy for survival, and have failed every time. Yet, we continue to make the same mistakes over again, expecting different results,…which, according to Einstein is the definition of insanity.
The diagnosis I give is co-dependence. We are more concerned about other people liking and accepting us, than about liking and accepting ourselves.
The Israeli left (Peres, Beilin, Eloni, etc., YSh”W) want nothing more than to be another member of the European Union. Religious, Sefardi, Yemenite, and other cultural contributors to Jewish and/or Israeli culture be damned (according to their views).
Remember Pres. Bus (41)’s statement about the “Cultural Elite?”
The American far left would lose big to the Israel far left in a contest of arrogance.

Ben-Yehudah on February 21, 2008 at 7:08 am

never ceases to amaze me how stupid jocks can be about politics.
its like they all get this memo stating that as jocks they have this weird quasi world citizenship and infantile ambassadorship for peeeaace..
whenever the US sends baseball players down to Cuber the reds ensure that only party members get to watch and there’s always some stupid moron jock saying “theyre just like us, they just want to play!!”.
IF she was cool she wouldve shown up with a tennis suit made of striped pajamas and rubbed in their faces. But theyre all just so vacuous that no one would get it anyway.
“thats hot..”- P.Hilton.
co dependent generation.

playertwo on February 21, 2008 at 10:44 am