Tennis, Israel and Extremists

Have you ever heard of a Swedish city named Malmö? It’s in the southern part of the country, right next to Copenhagen actually. What’s so special about Malmö is that it’s known for it’s problem with segregation where you have parts of the city, like the area called Rosengård, that’s mainly inhabited by immigrants (legal or not) living in overcrowded apartements. It’s also an area where the Fire Departement has had their fire trucks under attack from people when entering the area.

This weekend a Davis Cup game (Tennis) was played in Malmö. There wouldn’t be anything special to say about that game if it weren’t because it was played in front of empty stands. The city decided that it couldn’t guarantee the security around the game and promptly decided to not allow any crowd at the game.

The decision is of course outrageous and has received attention in the Jerusalem Post.

INTERNATIONAL SPORTS strive to be free of politics and prejudice. But here they provide real-time proof of the poisoning of Swedish public life by biases that have echoes in Nazi Europe’s anti-Semitism. In Sweden’s third largest city, Malmo, where a virulently anti-Israel Muslim community makes up a significant percentage of the 250,000 population, the City Council voted five to four to hold the scheduled Davis Cup match between Israel and Sweden in an empty stadium, behind closed doors.