Hate as policy

Living in our society, where hate is mostly shunned except on the fringes of the political spectrum, it can be jarring to discover how prevalent and how accepted hate, and in particular anti-Semitism, is in most other parts of the globe. Stories like this being the sad truth into focus:

Just two days after winning the Tiberias Marathon and speaking about how "people should live together in harmony," Kenyan-born runner Mushir Salem Jawher was stripped of his Bahraini citizenship Saturday for competing in Israel.

The first athlete from an Arab country to compete in an Israeli marathon, Jawher won the race after completing it in just over two hours and 13 minutes. [...]

"When I decided to come I didn't know it was history for me to be in here, but when I arrived [I was] told no other athlete had competed in Israel," said Jawher, a Catholic. "For me, it was no problem and I hope to come back and compete next year."

But while he celebrated afterward and declared that he was "very proud" to have run in Israel, Bahrain's Athletic Union said in a statement Saturday that it had received the news that a Bahraini national competed in Israel with "shock and regret."

"The union deeply regrets what the athlete has done," the statement said. A committee of sport and government authorities decided to strike Jawher's name off the sport union records and strip him of his Bahraini nationality, the statement said.

It said Jawher had entered Israel with his Kenyan passport and added that the runner's Bahraini citizenship was revoked because he had "violated the laws of Bahrain."