Israel in Canadian Campus Media

This blog exists for the purpose of keeping people informed as to how Israel is being discussed in Canadian campus media. It is maintained by a York University student.

Saturday, September 04, 2004

McGill students - a Tribune article

A note about sequence might be just what the doctor ordered in this 'news' piece in the McGill Tribune this week.

When nationalism distracts from athletes in skimpy clothes - The McGill Tribune - news:

"A few weeks ago, the judo competitor from Iran appeared at his weigh-in looking a little pudgy, and was disqualified.

After years of training, did he throw it all away by succumbing to the tempting aroma of moussaka on the evening of the event? Hardly. Arash Miresmaeili, disqualified himself rather than tangle with his Israeli competitor, Ehud Vaks. Iranian policy is not to compete against Israelis, because to do so would recognize Israel's legitimacy as a country.

The Olympics has always been political, in the way that any organization bringing people together inevitably becomes politicized. One group counts as a nation, while another does not. Victory becomes a matter of national status."


I encourage reading the entire article. The problem with the article is that it presumes that Miresmaeili disqualified himself for political reasons rather than being disqualified and announcing that he did so for political reasons, when in fact he was just getting porky.

Anyhow, this news piece reads like an op-ed and deserves a few comments on the absolute right of Israel to exist.

Letters can be sent in here.

Update: If you all don't think it's a big deal, then feel free to ignore it. My function is simply to "crawl" student newspapers, as it were, and report on mentions of Israel in any context. It merely caught my eye because it's labelled news, but incorporates the personal opinions of the writer (a big no-no for news writing.)

2 Comments:

  • At 10:38 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hello to all,

    From the Tribune’s Article ‘When nationalism distracts from athletes in skimpy clothes’, Rebecca Graber writes:
    “The Olympics has always been political, in the way that any organization bringing people together inevitably becomes politicized. One group counts as a nation, while another does not. Victory becomes a matter of national status.”



    If you read the article I believe that Rebecca meant this sarcastically. I think that what she wanted to write was that the Olympics almost always get mixed up with politics, which is sad, especially considering the fact that this is supposed to be the only one time when politics should not matter.

    I personally, as a McGill student, as a Jew, and as an Israeli, am not really offended by her article. I agree, it is a poorly written piece of work, and Rebecca Graber has a lot of work to do on her satire technique, but I do not believe that she actually meant to say that Israel is not a country. I think it’s important that we read the news (especially campus newspapers), but I do not feel that we need to blow the whistle every time the world Israel is mentioned. It discredits us and makes us seem overly sensitive. There is nothing wrong with criticizing a country and its politics, but there is a problem when that criticism turns to anti-Semitism. I personally feel that this is not the case, and writing letters to the editor about this article would be overreacting.



    Marina Gerbin

    McGill Student, Biology

     
  • At 10:49 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Just for information purposes, the Angles column that appears in the News section is a forum shared by Graber and Wilner to respond (opinion wise) to news event/quote/issue that catches their attention.
    Not news.

     

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