Israel, the New York Yankees of Countries
I know very little about baseball. What I do know is that the clubs have no limits on their budgets, which like international relations, lets the wealthy ones beat the poorer ones up most of the time. The richest of the teams is the World Series champion New York Yankees.
One would think that a poorer team such as the New York Mets would be able to relate to other underdogs, such as the Palestinians.
But, no, no one in their organization seems to make this quite far-fetched parallel.
Instead they’ve decided to contribute to Israel’s domination over the Palestinians by hosting a fundraiser for Israeli settlers. And what’s worse, it’s for the most infamously rabid and violent settlers, the ones trying to take over the Palestinian city of Hebron from the inside-out.
As one writer pointed out, the settlers trying to steal Hebron from its natives are “fanatic extremists even by Israeli standards. They regularly ransack Palestinian shops, cut electricity lines and water pipes, wreck cars, and attack schoolchildren.”
Eleven organizations from the US, Palestine and Israel have called on the Mets to cancel a November 21st dinner at the Caesars Club at Citi Field for the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund. So far, the Mets have refused to cancel the event — even if it expressly funds the violation of international law.
A zionut activist called the fundraising event, a “celebration of the human spirit.” If conquering land and dispossessing natives is the human spirit they celebrate, Genghis Khan or Andrew Jackson should be their mascot.
It seems the Mets prefer good community relations over solidarity with an oppressed underdog. I am not surprised by that. But the Mets should know that when the top pitchers start coming out of Palestine, after years of practice throwing stones at Israeli tanks, we’ll remind them to consider other clubs… including the bully down the road.
