The physically handicapped Palestinian athelete, Khamis Zakout, has won numerous medals throughout his career.
from Al Arabia News,June 7, 2012. see article below.
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Many citizens in Canada and the USA prefer their nightly TV news to highlight positive feel good human interests stories and prefer not to hear about the bad news in foreign lands or in their own country or city or town.
But sometimes the media can use what appears to be a simple human interests story to highlight blatan injustice and or government or bureaucratic indifference to an individual's plea for justice.
So here's a Palestinian athlete who wants to take part in the para-Olympics celebrations in Jerusalem and in the city of Ramallah and yet is barred from doing so by the Israeli Apartheid racist regime.
This is just down right mean-spiritedness on the part of the Israeli government. Once again the Israeli government bullies the citizensof Gaza even to the point of keeping a parapalegic Palestinian out of these celebrations.
The question is that given the facts of this story which should be an appealing tuging the heart strings type of human interest story why isn't it being picked up by the Mainstream Media in the USA and Canada.
Is it because the media sees the Palestinians through the hate filled eyes of the Israeli far right government???
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Israel bars disabled Palestinian athlete via AL Arabiya News, June 7, 2012
Israel has barred a paralyzed Palestinian athlete who lives in Gaza from an Olympics celebration sponsored by the British government.
Khamis Zakout says the British Consulate in Jerusalem invited him and five fellow athletes on the Palestinian para-Olympics team to a pre-Olympics celebration in Jerusalem and the city of Ramallah.
He says he was the only one banned from attending.
The Israeli military says Zakout was barred for security reasons. The Shin Bet internal security service had no immediate comment.
The 47-year-old Zakout says he has no security record and worked in Israel before his legs were paralyzed in a work accident there in 1992.
Zakout competes in the javelin and shot put. He plans to travel from Gaza by way of Egypt to attend the London Olympics.
Ma’an News Agency reported that Zakout receives no financial reward for his vocation. He buys his own uniform, shoes, and sports wheelchair and trains in a public park in Gaza City.
“I have no professional advice on particular training techniques or specific diets for my athletic condition. Even if I had, I would rather provide my family with adequate food, than find for myself the special vitamins I need,” he said.
For Zakout, moral strength “is worth the best equipment and training in the world.”
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