On June 4, Palestinian
national soccer team member Mahmoud Sarsak
completed 81 days of a grueling hunger strike. He
had sustained the strike despite the fact that
nearly 2,000 Palestinian inmates had called off
their own 28-day hunger strike weeks ago.
Although the story of Palestinian
prisoners in Israel speaks to a common reality of
unlawful detentions and widespread mistreatment,
Sarsak's fate can also be viewed within its own
unique context. The soccer player, who once sought
to take the name and flag of his nation to
international arenas, was arrested by Israeli
soldiers in July 2009 while en route to join the
national team in the West Bank.
Sarsak was
branded an "illegal combatant" by Israel's
military judicial system, and has since been
imprisoned without any
charges or trial.
Sarsak is not alone in the continued
hunger strike. Akram al-Rekhawi, a diabetic
prisoner demanding proper medical care, has
refused food for over 50 days.
At the time
of writing of this article, both men were
reportedly in dire medical condition. Sarsak, once
of unmatched athletic build, is now gaunt beyond
recognition. The already ill al-Rekhawi is dying.
According to rights groups, an Israeli
court on May 30 granted prison doctors 12 more
days before allowing independent doctors to visit
the prisoners, further prolonging their suffering
and isolation. Physicians for Human Rights -
Israel (PHRI), which has done a remarkable job
battling the draconian rules of Israeli military
courts, continues to petition the court to meet
with both Sarsak and al-Rekhawi, according to
Ma'an news agency.
Sadly, the story here
becomes typical. PHRI, along with other prisoners'
rights groups, are doing all that civil society
organizations can do within such an oppressive
legal and political situation. Families are
praying. Social media activists are sending
constant updates and declaring solidarity.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is merely looking
on - not due to any lack of concern for human
rights, but due to the selective sympathy of
Western governments and media.
Think of
the uproar made by US media over the fate of blind
Chinese political activist Chen Guangcheng. When
he took shelter in the US embassy in Beijing, a
near-diplomatic crisis ensued. Guangcheng was
finally flown to the US on May 19, and he recently
delivered a talk in New York before an astounded
audience.
"The 40-year-old, blind activist
said that his lengthy detention [of seven years]
demonstrates that lawlessness is still the norm in
China," reported the New York Post on May 31. "Is
there any justice? Is there any rationale in any
of this?" Chen asked. Few in the US media would
contend with the statement. But somehow the logic
becomes entirely irrelevant when the perpetrator
of injustice is Israel, and the victim is a
Palestinian. Al-Rekhawi is not blind, but he has
many medical ailments. He has been in Ramle prison
clinic since his detention in 2004, receiving
severely inadequate medical care.
Sarsak,
who has been a witness to many tragedies, is now
becoming one. The 25-year old had once hoped to
push the ranking of his national team back to a
reasonable standing. If Palestinians ever deserve
to be called "fanatics", it would be in reference
to soccer. As a child growing up in Gaza, I
remember playing soccer in increments of a few
minutes, braving Israeli military curfews, risking
arrest, injury and even death. Somehow, in a very
crowded refugee camp, soccer becomes tantamount to
freedom.
Palestine's ranking at 164th in
the world is testament not to any lack of passion
for the game, but to the constant Israeli attempts
at destroying even that national aspiration.
The examples of Israeli war on Palestinian
soccer are too many to count, although most of
them receive little or no media coverage
whatsoever. In 2004, Israel blocked several
essential players from accompanying the national
team out of Gaza for a second match against
Chinese Taipei. (Palestine had won the first match
8-0.) The obstacles culminated in the March 2006
bombing of the Palestinian Football Stadium in
Gaza, which reduced the grass field to a massive
crater. Then, in the war on Gaza (Operation Cast
Lead 2008-09), things turned bloody as Israel
killed three national soccer players: Ayman
Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshtahe. It also
bombed their stadium again.
Sarsak was a
promising new face of Palestinian soccer. In times
of Palestinian disunity and factionalism, it was
the national team that kept a symbolic unity
between Gaza and the West Bank - and indeed
Palestinians everywhere. These young men exemplify
hope that better times are ahead. But Sarsak's
star is now fading, as is his life. His mother,
who hasn't seen him since his arrests, told Ma'an
that she thinks of him every minute of each day.
"Why is there no one moving to save his life?" she
asked.
Writing in the Nation on May 10,
Dave Zirin wrote:
Imagine if a member of Team USA
Basketball - let's say Kobe Bryant - had been
traveling to an international tournament only to
be seized by a foreign government and held in
prison for three years without trial or even
hearing the charges for which he was imprisoned
... Chances are all the powerful international
sports organizations - the IOC [International
Olympic Committee], [global football's
organizing body] FIFA - would treat the jailing
nation as a pariah until Kobe was free. And
chances are that even Laker-haters would wear
buttons that read, "Free Kobe".
Sarsak
is the Bryant of his people. But ask any political
commentator and he will tell you why Mohmoud
Sarsak is not Kobe Bryant, and why al-Rekhawi is
not Chen. It is the same prevalent logic of a
powerful Washington-based pro-Israel lobby and all
the rest.
Even if the logic was founded,
why are international sports institutions not
standing in complete solidarity with the dying
Sarsak? Why don't soccer matches include a moment
of solidarity with killed Palestinian players, and
the dying young man aching to join his teammates
on the field once more? Why is Israel not fully
and comprehensively boycotted by every
international sports organization?
"As
long as Sarsak remains indefinitely detained and
as long as Israel targets sport and athletes as
legitimate targets of war, they have no business
being rewarded by FIFA or the UEFA, let alone even
being a part of the community of international
sports," wrote Zirin (the second being the
European footballing organization).
That
would be a belated step, but an unequivocally
urgent one, for Palestinian sportsmen are
literally dying.
Ramzy Baroud
(www.ramzybaroud.net) is an
internationally syndicated columnist and the
editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book
is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's
Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
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