Spanish Euroleague basketball team Valencia have stated that as a result of the heightened security threat in Israel, they will not come to play their scheduled match on Thursday night.
In a statement released on the club’s Web site, Valencia said that “the climate of tension and the situation of violence which is only escalating are not conducive to playing basketball and that the team is not prepared to play under these conditions. The team’s mental state is not good [because of the situation] and it will only get worse upon entering the warlike atmosphere, for the players as well as their families.”
Although I can understand worrying about the players’ safety, I find this argument disingenuous, especially considering that Spain is hardly a beacon of safety anymore. In fact, no place is. What the Spaniards fail to understand is that this attitude of surrender is playing right into the terrorist’s hands. They didn’t understand this 9 days ago, and they don’t understand it now.
Compare this conduct with that of Israel after the Madrid attacks. Far from staying away from Spain, our government offered to send Israelis to help the Spanish in the aftermath of the attacks.
But what I really don’t like about the Spanish team’s conduct is it’s press statement, which uses words like “situation of violence” and “warlike atmosphere.” Notice that the word “terrorism” is not used once!
