This post Palestinian Olympic Swimmer’s Accusations against Israel Go Unchallenged is via Kehila News Israel.
Several international media outlets, including Reuters and Business Insider, failed to do basic fact checking and ran articles featuring a Palestinian swimmer who claimed she had no access to an Olympic-sized pool in which to train.
Palestinian swimmer Mary al-Atrash actually had access to at least two Olympic-sized pools in the West Bank including one in a neighboring city.
But news outlets ran her story, containing accusations against Israel, unchallenged.
“We are an occupied country. We don’t have pools, infrastructure and we have difficulties and barriers,” al-Atrash told Mondoweiss in a video. “For example we have trouble getting into Jerusalem where there are 50-meter pools because the Israelis don’t give us permits, just once in a while, but in the end it is forbidden to go there and this creates a problem for us if we want to train and progress.”
Her story was reported as early as June. But it took until a few days ago for the media to begin disproving al-Atrash’s false claims.
“If we were blessed with journalists who had the ability to use advanced research tools like the internet, we might’ve benefited from knowing that the Israeli government office for coordinating activities in the West Bank, or COGAT, issued a statement last month on its Facebook page, making it clear that it would’ve gladly considered accommodating al-Atrash had she bothered applying for a permit to train in Jerusalem—which, like Palestinian athletes before her, she refused to do—and wishing her the best of luck anyway,” writes Liel Leibovitz for Tablet Magazine. “It might’ve also been helpful to note that plenty of athletes around the world, including here in the United States, train, like al-Atrash, in semi-Olympic 25-meter pools, and that to qualify for the Olympics, al-Atrash had to have qualified in a regulation-size pool, which makes the whole access question a rather minor one. But never mind all that, because the Palestinian Territories, you see, have not one Olympic pool but several.”
In 2010, the media widely reported the opening of an Olympic-size pool in Gaza. And the West Bank is replete with pools according to a Haaretz article from 2007: “Nowadays, every city in the West Bank has a pool or a recreational complex: Bethlehem has one similar to Al-Khahuf (near Hebron), while Ramallah has more than 10. One of Jenin’s swimming champs committed a suicide bombing at Jerusalem’s Sbarro restaurant in August 2001. Nablus has a pool reserved for women, and an Olympic pool. Another pool and recreation complex sits between Nablus and Tubas.”
The one in Bethlehem, which border al-Atrash’s hometown of Beit Sahour, is at a resort.
“The resort houses four Olympic-sized swimming pools equipped with four water slides designed by professional engineers, as well as a special 80 by 30 meter pool for sliding,” reads the website of Murad Tourist Resort in Bethlehem.
Despite failing to qualify, Al-Atrash and a male Palestinian swimmer were invited to compete in Rio by FINA, the International Swimming Federation, on a Universality invitation. The Palestinian Authority has sent swimmers to the Olympics since 2000.
Al-Atrash will compete in the 50-meter freestyle. She practices at the YMCA in Beit Sahour in a 25-meter pool. Her best time of 29.91 seconds is more than four seconds slower than the 25.28 qualifying time needed to compete in the Olympics. But that’s not her fault.
“It will be very difficult to win a medal,” Atrash is quoted as saying.
“Because of all the difficulties that Palestinians live under … it makes it harder to practice and compete in our sports,” she said.
If she can’t medal, al-Atrash plans to use the Olympics to showcase the Palestinian plight to the world, to see “how we live, our circumstances and how we face these difficulties and overcome them.”
This post Palestinian Olympic Swimmer’s Accusations against Israel Go Unchallenged is via Kehila News Israel.