Sunday, February 10, 2008

At the Altar of Palestine

Mona el Tahawy won the International Media Council Award in London a year ago - but she remains controversial as ever. Moreso these days. This is her latest offering:

CAIRO -- After he scored a goal in a recent match against Sudan in the African Nations Cup, Egyptian soccer star Abou Trika lifted his jersey to show an undershirt inscribed with the message “Sympathize with Gaza”. His message earned him a yellow card for violating a no-politics rule but promptly crowned him the latest hero for Palestine.

While the plight of Gazans does indeed deserve concern, it was telling that Abou Trika’s t-shirt made no mention of sympathy for, say, Darfur, where some 200,000 have died in fighting between rebels and pro-government militias and 2.5 million driven from their homes. But it has been so for decades in the Arab world, where issue after issue is sacrificed at the altar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

TO VIEW MONA'S ARTICLE CLICK HERE

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