Over at No Right Turn Idiot/Savant is calling the police “blue-uniformed thugs who decide for themselves what is and isn’t acceptable” in response to the arrest of  an individual for protesting against tennis player Shahar Peer just because of her nationality.

This is nonsense on two counts. Lets first deal with the issue of the arrest of the protestor. The individual in question was using a loudhailer to voice his opinion. That message that he was being broadcast so loudly that it was being heard right across into the tennis game while the match was in question. The protestor was allowed to continue for 45 minutes before he was made to stop. That is more than enough time to make your point and if you want to continue do so – but without breaching the peace of others through the use of a loudhailer. I believe that the police did the right thing in arresting the individual for breaching the peace and did not violate his human rights unlike what NRT would want us to believe.

The second point is since when was it ever acceptable to make racist comments about an individual as a means of protest? The herald reports that the protestors were chanting: “blood, blood on your hands”, “freedom for Palestine”, “go home, Shahar”. Lets look at these slogans a little more closely because it appears that the protestors need a history lesson:

• “blood, blood on your hands” now I have no idea if Peer has completed her compulsory time in the IDF as required under Israeli law, however, what is the relevance of this to a tennis match? Let alone something that you have no control over. If the protestors wanted to make this point go and protest outside the Israeli embassy or something. Don’t target an individual just because of their nationality. Not online is it naive it is also just plain stupid.
• “freedom for Palestine” firstly how is protesting at a tennis match going to achieve this? The person is a tennis player not a politician! Second there is freedom in Palestine there are two countries that make up the traditional land of Palestine the Jewish state of Israel and the Islamic state of Jordan. Furthermore there are many more Islamic states throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world. There is only one Jewish state.
• “go home, Shahar” this is the most dumb line of them all. The protestors do not believe that the state of Israel should exist so therefore where is home? By telling Peer to go home the protestors are stuffing their message so well that they are in fact expressing their desire for Israel to actually exist. Brilliant.

And what bugs me most about this? I blogged on exactly the same incident twice last year.