[rhm]

jonottawa, on 2013-August-18, 07:22, said:

Enough with the Munich references already, please. You speak of absurdly misleading comparisons and then you make one of the biggest we've seen in this discussion.

A bridge tournament is far closer to an academic conference than to the olympic games. You may wish it weren't so, but it is.

If someone insisted that all Israeli players had psychological evaluations or background checks performed on them before being allowed to play in a particular tournament to ensure that they have never been associated with Kach and aren't the next Baruch Goldstein, we would all rightly find that deplorable and absurd. Even though that incident occurred much more recently and involved a far greater number of casualties than what transpired in Munich. Cave of the Patriarchs massacre

You as many others do not want to understand or you can not grasp the meaning what is written.
The issue is not whether a Bridge championship is the same as the Olympics. It is not and I do not compare these two.
The issue is, whether people from Israel representing their country are more likely to be targets for terrorists.
If I visit Berlin there are no security concerns. I am not considered a likely target. (Thanks heaven)
If Salman Rushdie is invited to a literature meeting in Kairo, he will be concerned about his secuity and rightly so.
If the US president visits Berlin there are security precautions costing millions.
If the president from Israel visits Berlin there are similar security precautions.
If the representative of another country say Poland visits Berlin there are only minor security precautions.
If I fly with Lufthansa there are security precautions
If I fly with EL-AL there are different ones and rightly so.

Rainer Herrmann

[jonottawa]

What caused the Bridge Winners thread to degenerate:

1. Misleading assertions by the pro-Israel side. (denied visas, banned from Bali, etc.)
2. Misleading arguments by the pro-Israel side. (excluded/barred from competing -- Yes, but could you also mention that it is by their own government that they are excluded/barred from competing?)
3. The completely unjustified and ludicrous use of nasty epithets by the pro-Israel side, even after being asked to stop by the moderator there. (calling Roy Welland an anti-Semite, accusing me of hate speech, etc.)
4. The exclusion of exculpatory evidence (or whatever you want to call it, I think you get what I mean) by the pro-Israel side. (the fact that their security guys were on strike, for instance.)

Essentially the pro-Israel side made it personal, and so I responded in kind (albeit without the epithets or misleading arguments and assertions, but with my own unique blend of humor and charm.)

Anyway, I think Migry's post says it very well, and I'm delighted to see that there's at least one person on the other side who's as fed up with that side's shenanigans as I am:

“Is it also the moderator's job to check the facts when there is a controversial posting before long, uncivil threads even start?

Thought to mention it as a few days ago someone posted that I was denied a visa to Bali, which was completely untrue and unverified with me or the USBF/WBF. I did not enjoy being the “celebrity of the day” nor the fact that while the right people are making all the efforts to get me one (through the proper channels and bridgewinners is not one of them), 248 comments (most of them not even to the point) found their way into the thread.”

FWIW, I share Art's stated wish that this thread remain relatively free of melodrama. I think one of the best ways to achieve that is to not make it personal.

[rhm]

jonottawa, on 2013-August-18, 08:19, said:

What caused the Bridge Winners thread to degenerate:

1. Misleading assertions by the pro-Israel side. (denied visas, banned from Bali, etc.)
2. Misleading arguments by the pro-Israel side. (excluded/barred from competing -- Yes, but could you also mention that it is by their own government that they are excluded/barred from competing?)
3. The completely unjustified and ludicrous use of nasty epithets by the pro-Israel side, even after being asked to stop by the moderator there. (calling Roy Welland an anti-Semite, accusing me of hate speech, etc.)
4. The exclusion of exculpatory evidence (or whatever you want to call it, I think you get what I mean) by the pro-Israel side. (the fact that their security guys were on strike, for instance.)

Essentially the pro-Israel side made it personal, and so I responded in kind (albeit without the epithets or misleading arguments and assertions, but with my own unique blend of humor and charm.)

Anyway, I think Migry's post says it very well, and I'm delighted to see that there's at least one person on the other side who's as fed up with that side's shenanigans as I am:

“Is it also the moderator's job to check the facts when there is a controversial posting before long, uncivil threads even start?

Thought to mention it as a few days ago someone posted that I was denied a visa to Bali, which was completely untrue and unverified with me or the USBF/WBF. I did not enjoy being the “celebrity of the day” nor the fact that while the right people are making all the efforts to get me one (through the proper channels and bridgewinners is not one of them), 248 comments (most of them not even to the point) found their way into the thread.”

FWIW, I share Art's stated wish that this thread remain relatively free of melodrama. I think one of the best ways to achieve that is to not make it personal.

This thread is not about "pro Israel" and "the other side". It is also not about whether there are Jewish or Israeli terrorists or not.
I refuse to accept to be labeled "pro Israel", just because what I have written here or at Bridgewinners.
You seem to be very critical about Israel and you do not understand that this is not the forum for it.

Rainer Herrmann

[mgoetze]

rhm, on 2013-August-18, 07:47, said:

You as many others do not want to understand or you can not grasp the meaning what is written.
The issue is not whether a Bridge championship is the same as the Olympics. It is not and I do not compare these two.
The issue is, whether people from Israel representing their country are more likely to be targets for terrorists.
If I visit Berlin there are no security concerns. I am not considered a likely target. (Thanks heaven)
If Salman Rushdie is invited to a literature meeting in Kairo, he will be concerned about his secuity and rightly so.
If the US president visits Berlin there are security precautions costing millions.
If the president from Israel visits Berlin there are similar security precautions.
If the representative of another country say Poland visits Berlin there are only minor security precautions.
If I fly with Lufthansa there are security precautions
If I fly with EL-AL there are different ones and rightly so.

You accuse me of bad comparisons and then you bring these? That's hardly worthy of a response. But I will say this: it cannot be the issue just whether these representatives of Israel (and them being that in some sense does not automatically make them comparable to Salman Rushdie or the president of Israel!) are more likely to be targets for terrorists - some consideration must be given to how high these risks are in absolute numbers. If the chance for an average contest to be targeted by terrorists is 0.00005% and the chance for an Israeli contestant is 0.00006% then sorry, no, the fuss is not justified.

[rhm]

mgoetze, on 2013-August-18, 09:39, said:

You accuse me of bad comparisons and then you bring these? That's hardly worthy of a response. But I will say this: it cannot be the issue just whether these representatives of Israel (and them being that in some sense does not automatically make them comparable to Salman Rushdie or the president of Israel!) are more likely to be targets for terrorists - some consideration must be given to how high these risks are in absolute numbers. If the chance for an average contest to be targeted by terrorists is 0.00005% and the chance for an Israeli contestant is 0.00006% then sorry, no, the fuss is not justified.

I do not make silly comparisons to imply like you do they are comparable. On the contrary I try to illustrate why similar looking events may be different and require very different measures!
I understand well why you do not want to grasp that.

And of course you are the one, who can judge the absolute and relative risks representatives for Israel face in Muslim countries.
Luckily you (as I do) live in a country, which has never seen anything of the exposure to terrorist threats on the scale Israel did during all of its existence.
Few countries have. But your naivety is telling

Rainer Herrmann

[GreenMan]

rhm, on 2013-August-18, 08:40, said:

This thread is not about "pro Israel" and "the other side".

Maybe not explicitly.

[hrothgar]

rhm, on 2013-August-18, 10:53, said:

Luckily you (as I do) live in a country, which has never seen anything of the exposure to terrorist threats on the scale Israel did during all of its existence.
Few countries have. But your naivety is telling

I don't consider myself naive about the threats faced by Israeli athletes compete abroad or, for that matter, by Israel.
At the same time, I don't consider this to be my problem. Nor do I consider this to be an issue that the WBF should focus on.

If the Israeli government is able to reach a private accommodation with the host country that's great.
If they can't, that's regrettable. But I don't consider it appropriate to sanction the host country or move the event.

In 1985, the Bermuda Bowl was originally scheduled to be held in India.
The Indian government stated that they could not provide appropriate security for the Israeli team.
The WBF chose to move the event to Brazil.

I think that this was a mistake. If you have a single country that repeated runs into security issues, the burdens should fall on that country rather than on the organization or the hosts...

[Cyberyeti]

rhm, on 2013-August-18, 08:40, said:

This thread is not about "pro Israel" and "the other side". It is also not about whether there are Jewish or Israeli terrorists or not.
I refuse to accept to be labeled "pro Israel", just because what I have written here or at Bridgewinners.
You seem to be very critical about Israel and you do not understand that this is not the forum for it.

Rainer Herrmann

I agree, I don't know whether I've been characterised as pro Israel or not. I support them absolutely in this but not in a lot of other things.

Yes some unwise and racist comments were made by one poster on the pro Israel side on BridgeWinners (although the point he was making wasn't totally without merit had he done it in another way).

A lot of the posters on both sides give the feel that they will support Israel or oppose it regardless of the issue in question, which is not good for reasoned debate.

[gnasher]

Trinidad, on 2013-August-18, 05:57, said:

Asking if you can discuss security (for your participants) is different from asking about security...

But other than that, this seems to be more or less what happened (though I am not sure whether it was the Israeli BF who did the asking). Specific assurances were given (and can be found on the resort's web site), vague assurances were added where they (quite obviously) refused to be specific. More information was requested, the request was not answered. Israel withdrew.

Here is a description from Eitan Levy (IBF President) of what the IBF asked for:

We also repeatedly asked for contact details in order to discuss security issues. This request was repeatedly and completely ignored. ...
Again the question of security was ignored. After further correspondence we were told that the person in charge of security was still unavailable! ...
We replied and made it clear that security was an essential element of our participation, but received no reply. At no stage did we ask for armed security – we simply had no one to talk to or to talk to us, so security could not even be discussed at a basic level.

If this is accurate, the IBF never got beyond asking for a contact name, they didn't receive any assurances, whether specific or vague, and they never had the opportunity to request more information.

There is a statement by Giannarigo Rona (WBF President) in which he says that the Indonesians gave assurances to the WBF about security, but he doesn't say that the IBF received any such assurances from anyone.

Do you have another source that tells us something different? If so, who is the source? What "specific assurances" and "vague assurances" were given to the Israelis, and by whom?

As for the security information "on the resort's website", can you give us a URL? (Hint: before you do that, read this post by Jan Martel.)

Quote

Given the fact that this is a political game, it wouldn't have mattered whether the Indonesians would have replied to the request or added more security measures. The Israelis would have asked for more... until Indonesia would refuse... and the political game would have had the same outcome: Indonesia refused!! We have to withdraw!! The fact that the request was unreasonable beyond ridiculous -who would give information about security to an enemy?- is irrelevant for this political game.

Are you saying that the IBF actually made a request that was "unreasonable beyond ridiculous"? If so, which of their requests falls into this category?

Or if you're saying that the IBF would in due course have made a request that was "unreasonable beyond ridiculous", how do you know that they would have done that? Have they done it before, and if so when?

[jonottawa]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-August-18, 12:56, said:

I agree, I don't know whether I've been characterised as pro Israel or not. I support them absolutely in this but not in a lot of other things.

Yes some unwise and racist comments were made by one poster on the pro Israel side on BridgeWinners (although the point he was making wasn't totally without merit had he done it in another way).

A lot of the posters on both sides give the feel that they will support Israel or oppose it regardless of the issue in question, which is not good for reasoned debate.

I'm sorry my 'pro-Israel' shorthand bothered some people. I should have said 'pro-Israeli women's bridge team getting whatever they requested in this instance' but that seemed cumbersome and I'm lazy and prefer to keep my posts brief if at all possible. My dang.

Had the Israeli women been denied visas, which is what was implied in the original thread, and which is why I was in the thread in the first place, I would have been totally behind them (including moving the event if Indonesia hadn't eventually agreed to offer them visas) BUT I would want to see an ironclad precedent established that is clearly written and agreed upon for future host countries as to what degree of visa-denial will or won't be tolerated (and it must not name specific countries/religions, etc.) I'd still like to see that agreed upon even though the original (perhaps merely strongly implied) assertion turned out to be completely false.

Aside: The post you reference had no merit to it whatsoever, but to discuss it at length would probably not be productive and certainly not on-topic. If you truly believe it does have merit, I'd be curious as to hearing your reasoning privately.

[cloa513]

gnasher, on 2013-August-18, 13:28, said:

Here is a description from Eitan Levy (IBF President) of what the IBF asked for:

We also repeatedly asked for contact details in order to discuss security issues. This request was repeatedly and completely ignored. ...
Again the question of security was ignored. After further correspondence we were told that the person in charge of security was still unavailable! ...
We replied and made it clear that security was an essential element of our participation, but received no reply. At no stage did we ask for armed security – we simply had no one to talk to or to talk to us, so security could not even be discussed at a basic level.

If this is accurate, the IBF never got beyond asking for a contact name, they didn't receive any assurances, whether specific or vague, and they never had the opportunity to request more information.

There is a statement by Giannarigo Rona (WBF President) in which he says that the Indonesians gave assurances to the WBF about security, but he doesn't say that the IBF received any such assurances from anyone.

Do you have another source that tells us something different? If so, who is the source? What "specific assurances" and "vague assurances" were given to the Israelis, and by whom?

As for the security information "on the resort's website", can you give us a URL? (Hint: before you do that, read this post by Jan Martel.)


Are you saying that the IBF actually made a request that was "unreasonable beyond ridiculous"? If so, which of their requests falls into this category?

Or if you're saying that the IBF would in due course have made a request that was "unreasonable beyond ridiculous", how do you know that they would have done that? Have they done it before, and if so when?

The problem I see with that is that one of communication logistics- if the IBF want to talk to the security person- he is unavailable because he talking the WBF and every other international event organiser and collaborating with police on his side- probably only person in the entire national force to handle such matters. If the IBF want to talk security, what about every country's BF represented in that WBF event- each wants to talk security- it'd be too much for many countries- certain developing countries like Indonesia. The IBF should be going through the WBF or whoever is the organiser rather than trying to do it direct.

[the hog]

ArtK78, on 2013-August-18, 07:40, said:

I returned to this thread for the first time in 24 hours to find many additional posts, the last one by Rainer Herrmann. In my opinion, his post got to the heart of the matter - the Israelis have a legitimate concern about their security when appearing in a competition in a Muslim nation. The Munich comparison is entirely legitimate and appropriate.

Others have mentioned that there are other Israeli nationals participating in the tournament in Bali. But they are not representing Israel. They can make their own decisions as to whether to participate or not. I wish them the best.

I left the thread and was looking at others. Then I noticed that there was an additional post by the esteemed Jonottowa, the primary protagonist of the disgrace that was the Bridgewinners thread on this subject. His post is consistent with everything that he posted on Bridgewinners.


I call on the administrators to closely monitor this thread (if they are not doing so already). It is on the verge of degenerating into a new version of the Bridgewinners thread, and if Jonottawa is going to being to participate frequently, then that is what will happen.

I see that Art is again getting personal. Not only that but he obviously does not realise that yes, though Indonesia is a Muslim nation, Bali is not a Muslim state - it is Hindu.
He and others also ignore the fact that Indonesia planned to open an embassy in Ramallah in 2012. After the Israeli's refused to allow the Indonesian foreign Minister, Marty Natalagawah, into Ramallah, this plan was shelved. Natalagawah is a moderate and enjoys excellent relations will all governments in the Asian Pacific region.
Art and others ignore the fact that Israel was never told "You may not attend". They chose not to.

There is no evidence, apart from anecdotal, as to what was asked for by the Israeli's and what was provided, (or not provided), by the Indonesians. Based on the misleading statements and utright lies published on the BW site, I will not believe any statements unless they are accompanied by hard evidence.

It is convenient to "forget" or to ignore these points.

[jdeegan]

My father taught me that there are three topics verboten at a cocktail party - religion, politics and family doctors (aka. sex). This WBF fiasco is not settling down. I think it is because it can't shake religion and politics. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about the Arab-Israeli feud. I do care about our little bridge community. It got blindsided by this mess, and perhaps because of that surprise, it has not been able to do its best job of taking care of its own, at least so far.

Everyone else, understandably, is taking their path of least resistance. The Hindu Balinese want to protect their tourist industry. Indonesian bridge players of all faiths (who are part of our little community) want to ride out the crisis. The Israeli government is faced with extreme political turmoil in Syria and Egypt, so it does not want to roil the pot even in this small way. The ardent Muslim faithful in the rest of Indonesia and elsewhere want to make their political points at our expense.

Forget about these assholes! (other than the Indonesian bridge players, who are by definition not assholes). Please, don't be someone's 'useful idiot' braying other's propaganda like a dumb animal. Can we, please, just get together and take care of our own? I don't see any outsiders volunteering to do it.

[mike777]

fwiw this so called feud in bridge is now 50 years old and running if you know your bridge history.

The WBF in its books and statements long ago published its position, please read your wbf history and history of NBO's. This is nothing new.

[Antrax]

jonottawa, on 2013-August-18, 15:10, said:

I'm sorry my 'pro-Israel' shorthand bothered some people. I should have said 'pro-Israeli women's bridge team getting whatever they requested in this instance' but that seemed cumbersome and I'm lazy and prefer to keep my posts brief if at all possible. My dang.

That's one of the worst examples of backpedaling I've ever seen. Did you really mean "in this debate, there are the supporters of one side of the debate and the supporters of the other side, so it can't progress"? How is that not the situation in any debate with two sides?

GreenMan, on 2013-August-18, 11:20, said:

Maybe not explicitly.

Maybe not. Are you saying it is, implicitly?

[jdeegan]

mike777, on 2013-August-18, 20:58, said:

fwiw this so called feud in bridge is now 50 years old and running if you know your bridge history.

The WBF in its books and statements long ago published its position, please read your wbf history and history of NBO's. This is nothing new.

LOL. My own personal 'bridge history' is older than 50 years. Charlie told me in person one morning why he quit competitive bridge. Jake and I were friends. Also Jimbo, and Judith still is. Al was kind enough to steer me off from the two cent game at his club. Bob and I played on teams together, and he used to be my insurance agent. I played with Ira both in duplicate games and at the mansion. I partied with Omar. There are many other memories too, but relating them is becoming tiresome.

Tell me again, pal, what is it exactly that you want me to read?

[GreenMan]

Antrax, on 2013-August-18, 21:55, said:

Maybe not. Are you saying it is, implicitly?

I'm saying that enough arguments in this thread start with the conclusion and work backwards that it'd be a stretch to conclude that it isn't going on.

[mike777]

jdeegan, on 2013-August-18, 23:46, said:

LOL. My own personal 'bridge history' is older than 50 years. Charlie told me in person one morning why he quit competitive bridge. Jake and I were friends. Also Jimbo, and Judith still is. Al was kind enough to steer me off from the two cent game at his club. Bob and I played on teams together, and he used to be my insurance agent. I played with Ira both in duplicate games and at the mansion. I partied with Omar. There are many other memories too, but relating them is becoming tiresome.

Tell me again, pal, what is it exactly that you want me to read?

only that you say you don't give a "rat's ass" about the feud for 50 years but then show you do .....no problem: so do \most of us after 50 years

anyway I forget what is the question regarding this entire thread?

[jdeegan]

mike777, on 2013-August-19, 00:11, said:

only that you say you don't give a "rat's ass" about the feud for 50 years but then show you do .....no problem: so do \most of us after 50 years

anyway I forget what is the question regarding this entire thread?

What is your recreational drug of choice?

[Antrax]

GreenMan, on 2013-August-18, 23:47, said:

I'm saying that enough arguments in this thread start with the conclusion and work backwards that it'd be a stretch to conclude that it isn't going on.

Is it any different in other debates? Most humans tend to operate like that, why is it noteworthy? If anything people are much more open minded in this thread than the BW one.