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I think it is a backwards Middle Eastern country thing, Israel loves to ban people too for all sorts of ridiculous reasons as well: https://www.haaretz.com/isr

I think it is a backwards Middle Eastern country thing, Israel loves to ban people too for all sorts of ridiculous reasons as well: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.827401 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.827401 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.822554 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.822554 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israel-bds-law-immigration-refuse-entry-activists-british-hugh-lanning-palestine-solidarity-campaign-a7630011.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israel-bds-la... Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America Not comparable, but we get up to shenanigans from time to time, too [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/11/nasa-chinese-scientists-conference-ban https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/11/nasa-chinese...
- mcguire 9y ago
  As you write, not comparable, but in their defense, NASA's administrative side is pretty thoroughly hoarked. It shouldn't suprise anyone that they occasionally make idiotic decisions.
leroy_masochist 9y ago
Israel banning people who are actively involved with the BDS movement from flying into Tel Aviv does not strike me as especially comparable to the Saudis prohibiting Israeli grandmasters from participating in a chess tournament in Riyadh. But that's just my opinion!
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  Strongly disagree. Why does actively being involved in BDS matter? It's a political stance against Israel's violations of international law by creating settlements and trying to annex them into Israel (among other things). Banning people because they don't agree with your politics is exactly what Saudi is doing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Because political activism takes a stance on a political issue. Simply being born in a country and playing chess does not. Banning people because they don't agree with your politics is exactly what Saudi is doing. No, it is what Israel is doing and Mozilla is doing as well. And Germany is doing with Nazi party, and so on. All are going to say it's because the given issue is that major for them. But what Saudi is doing is banning someone for being born in a country. Playing chess has nothing to do with agreeing with someone's politics.
    - abusoufiyan 9y ago
      So if playing chess has nothing to do with agreeing with someone's politics why is it okay to ban people for disagreeing with your state's politics? It isn't. Israel is doing it. Saudi Arabia is retaliating. There isn't a BDS on Saudi Arabia though, so they ban players from Israel. Being born in a country is one thing, but all Israelis (all Jewish, 18+ year old Israelis) also participate in the IDF and along with that they are a bit more complicit in any human rights violations they may commit and in furthering the political agenda of Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory as a result.
      - bhouston 9y ago
        > Saudi Arabia is retaliating. Technically that isn't true. Modern Saudi Arabia is discriminatory when it comes to other religions.
      - EGreg 9y ago
        Didn't I just explain it? Being born in a country and playing chess is not "disagreeing with your state's politics". And even that description is purposely flippant, and doesn't capture the real main reason why eg Mozilla fired its CEO or Germany bans the Nazi party. Or why many countries ban seditious speech (China, Jordan, and so on). The reason is that they consider such speech to be dangerous to the security of the state itself. In that, if it spreads, it will undermine the current stability of the state. Also there are considerations from human rights point of view - that people could be threatened and suffer. For example gay partnes might have their equal right to visit each other in the hospital infringed. Israelis would be attacked as they were in Hebron in 1929. Nazis could wreak havoc and go on murderous rampages again. And so on. What happened to freedom of speech? Well, it's not absolute in many places. And anyway, equating Saudi Arabia to Israel on freedom of speech is rather silly. Israel allows all religions to come and worship openly. Saudis suppress all non-Muslim religions, and outlaw many types of observance. Israel allows gays to openly hold parades, and much more. Saudi Arabia executes gays and atheists for exactly that. A bit beyond "banning" for "disagreeing with politics". So keep a sense of proportion when you equate things. Earlier this year for instance: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-atheism-ahmad-al-shamri-hafar-al-batin-appeal-denied-a7703161.html?amp http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-ar...
gumby 9y ago
You can’t get a visa to KSA if you are Jewish, no matter where you are from. Used to be you couldn’t get one if you wrote “Atheist” either. Then again they don’t have tourist visas (though isn’t that what a visit to Mecca is?) > Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part. Umm, you have it backwards: there are people still alive who were subject to such rules in the Europe and North America (famously up into the 1940s, but also through 1990s in Balkans at least) and there are large numbers of people trying to revive such rules, some of whom are in governments (e.g. Hungary, Poland, Austria, USA...)
- bhouston 9y ago
  Isn't Israel denying voting and movement rights to millions of people within its formal borders merely because of the religious/ethnic identity of those individuals? I could have sworn that is what the BSD movement is all about... The Middle east is full of countries that act backwards. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, to name just the worst...
  - linkmotif 9y ago
    People say Israel withholds Palestinian voting rights in the occupied territories, but that's simply not true since the Oslo Accords. Palestinians aren't Israeli citizens. They can vote in PA elections, and do, when they have elections. Except the PA rarely has elections but that has nothing to do with Israel or the occupation. Israeli Arabs, like all Israeli citizens, can vote in Israeli elections, and do. Israel is the only place in the Middle East Arabs regularly vote.
  - sshumaker 9y ago
    The Palestinian Territories aren’t within Israel’s formal borders, and it has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. There are 1.7mm Israeli Arabs (20% of population, 90% are Muslim) who vote and have representation in government.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      But Israel occupies a large portion of the Palestinian Territories and maintains settlements throughout the occupied lands. As the saying goes, Israel wants to have its cake and eat it too.
fahadkhan 9y ago
> Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part. Isn't that what Trump's "Muslim ban" is?
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  If your values and ideas aren't so convincing and inherently good and right that people voluntarily moving to your country don't want to adopt them and you need to resort to banning them rather than accepting them into your country and proving with your way of life how much better your values and ideas are, then how good are those values and ideas really? Free speech but when free speech doesn't work ban the other speakers and live in a bubble. Awesome.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    You're completely wrong on this entire thing. The ban is not about values, it is about not being able to acceptably vet who is entering the country when they originate from certain areas. And to your point, even though it is an incorrect analysis of the situation - what makes you think that people just do what is inherently good and right? Prisons exist in every country for a reason.
    - miracle2k 9y ago
      > The ban is not about values, it is about not being able to acceptably vet who is entering the country when they originate from certain areas. My spouse is an Iranian national and affected by the ban. I'm from Germany, where we live. Why can't the Trump administration vet her, given that previous administrations could and did?
      - oh_sigh 9y ago
        The question isn't about vetting one person - it is about laying out a general rule that we won't accept people from countries where terror cells are common and the rule of law and record keeping is weak.
AzzieElbab 9y ago
It would make 0 sense for a BDS supporter to try to participate in a chess tournament held in Israel. So, your example is 100% irrelevant

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America Not comparable, but we get up to shenanigans from time to time, too [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/11/nasa-chinese-scientists-conference-ban https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/11/nasa-chinese...

mcguire 9y ago
As you write, not comparable, but in their defense, NASA's administrative side is pretty thoroughly hoarked. It shouldn't suprise anyone that they occasionally make idiotic decisions.

leroy_masochist 9y ago

Israel banning people who are actively involved with the BDS movement from flying into Tel Aviv does not strike me as especially comparable to the Saudis prohibiting Israeli grandmasters from participating in a chess tournament in Riyadh. But that's just my opinion!

abusoufiyan 9y ago
Strongly disagree. Why does actively being involved in BDS matter? It's a political stance against Israel's violations of international law by creating settlements and trying to annex them into Israel (among other things). Banning people because they don't agree with your politics is exactly what Saudi is doing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- EGreg 9y ago
  Because political activism takes a stance on a political issue. Simply being born in a country and playing chess does not. Banning people because they don't agree with your politics is exactly what Saudi is doing. No, it is what Israel is doing and Mozilla is doing as well. And Germany is doing with Nazi party, and so on. All are going to say it's because the given issue is that major for them. But what Saudi is doing is banning someone for being born in a country. Playing chess has nothing to do with agreeing with someone's politics.
  - abusoufiyan 9y ago
    So if playing chess has nothing to do with agreeing with someone's politics why is it okay to ban people for disagreeing with your state's politics? It isn't. Israel is doing it. Saudi Arabia is retaliating. There isn't a BDS on Saudi Arabia though, so they ban players from Israel. Being born in a country is one thing, but all Israelis (all Jewish, 18+ year old Israelis) also participate in the IDF and along with that they are a bit more complicit in any human rights violations they may commit and in furthering the political agenda of Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory as a result.
    - bhouston 9y ago
      > Saudi Arabia is retaliating. Technically that isn't true. Modern Saudi Arabia is discriminatory when it comes to other religions.
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Didn't I just explain it? Being born in a country and playing chess is not "disagreeing with your state's politics". And even that description is purposely flippant, and doesn't capture the real main reason why eg Mozilla fired its CEO or Germany bans the Nazi party. Or why many countries ban seditious speech (China, Jordan, and so on). The reason is that they consider such speech to be dangerous to the security of the state itself. In that, if it spreads, it will undermine the current stability of the state. Also there are considerations from human rights point of view - that people could be threatened and suffer. For example gay partnes might have their equal right to visit each other in the hospital infringed. Israelis would be attacked as they were in Hebron in 1929. Nazis could wreak havoc and go on murderous rampages again. And so on. What happened to freedom of speech? Well, it's not absolute in many places. And anyway, equating Saudi Arabia to Israel on freedom of speech is rather silly. Israel allows all religions to come and worship openly. Saudis suppress all non-Muslim religions, and outlaw many types of observance. Israel allows gays to openly hold parades, and much more. Saudi Arabia executes gays and atheists for exactly that. A bit beyond "banning" for "disagreeing with politics". So keep a sense of proportion when you equate things. Earlier this year for instance: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-atheism-ahmad-al-shamri-hafar-al-batin-appeal-denied-a7703161.html?amp http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-ar...

gumby 9y ago

You can’t get a visa to KSA if you are Jewish, no matter where you are from. Used to be you couldn’t get one if you wrote “Atheist” either. Then again they don’t have tourist visas (though isn’t that what a visit to Mecca is?) > Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part. Umm, you have it backwards: there are people still alive who were subject to such rules in the Europe and North America (famously up into the 1940s, but also through 1990s in Balkans at least) and there are large numbers of people trying to revive such rules, some of whom are in governments (e.g. Hungary, Poland, Austria, USA...)

bhouston 9y ago
Isn't Israel denying voting and movement rights to millions of people within its formal borders merely because of the religious/ethnic identity of those individuals? I could have sworn that is what the BSD movement is all about... The Middle east is full of countries that act backwards. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, to name just the worst...
- linkmotif 9y ago
  People say Israel withholds Palestinian voting rights in the occupied territories, but that's simply not true since the Oslo Accords. Palestinians aren't Israeli citizens. They can vote in PA elections, and do, when they have elections. Except the PA rarely has elections but that has nothing to do with Israel or the occupation. Israeli Arabs, like all Israeli citizens, can vote in Israeli elections, and do. Israel is the only place in the Middle East Arabs regularly vote.
- sshumaker 9y ago
  The Palestinian Territories aren’t within Israel’s formal borders, and it has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. There are 1.7mm Israeli Arabs (20% of population, 90% are Muslim) who vote and have representation in government.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    But Israel occupies a large portion of the Palestinian Territories and maintains settlements throughout the occupied lands. As the saying goes, Israel wants to have its cake and eat it too.

fahadkhan 9y ago

> Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part. Isn't that what Trump's "Muslim ban" is?

abusoufiyan 9y ago
If your values and ideas aren't so convincing and inherently good and right that people voluntarily moving to your country don't want to adopt them and you need to resort to banning them rather than accepting them into your country and proving with your way of life how much better your values and ideas are, then how good are those values and ideas really? Free speech but when free speech doesn't work ban the other speakers and live in a bubble. Awesome.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  You're completely wrong on this entire thing. The ban is not about values, it is about not being able to acceptably vet who is entering the country when they originate from certain areas. And to your point, even though it is an incorrect analysis of the situation - what makes you think that people just do what is inherently good and right? Prisons exist in every country for a reason.
  - miracle2k 9y ago
    > The ban is not about values, it is about not being able to acceptably vet who is entering the country when they originate from certain areas. My spouse is an Iranian national and affected by the ban. I'm from Germany, where we live. Why can't the Trump administration vet her, given that previous administrations could and did?
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      The question isn't about vetting one person - it is about laying out a general rule that we won't accept people from countries where terror cells are common and the rule of law and record keeping is weak.

AzzieElbab 9y ago

It would make 0 sense for a BDS supporter to try to participate in a chess tournament held in Israel. So, your example is 100% irrelevant