Wimbledon: Zeynep Sönmez's watermelon symbol

The Wimbledon tennis tournament has surprisingly backed Turkish tennis player Zeynep Sönmez’s stand of solidarity with Gaza. Yet the gesture still exposes the establishment’s cowardice in the face of Israel lobby arrogance. Sönmez used a watermelon-design ‘string dampener’ to get around the tournament’s ban on watermelon pins.

Wimbledon — Deadly double standard

Sönmez, ranked 51 in global women’s tennis and Turkey’s highest-ever ranked women’s player, said that she had switched to the dampener specifically because tournaments banned Palestine pins. She also accused organisers of double standards because pins supporting (nazi-riddled) Ukraine are not banned:

I used to wear a pin. Tournaments no longer allow me to wear it. We had a discussion with the organizers because the Ukrainian flag is allowed but Palestine is not. They ultimately told us they definitely would not allow it … I can use the vibration dampener and they can’t object to that. That’s why I put the watermelon symbol on my racket

Tournament director Jamie Baker insisted that political symbols are not allowed, despite making an exception for Ukraine, which he said was an “individual” situation. Right. In fact, Wimbledon has made a massive exception for Ukraine, waiving its whole dress code to allow players to wear Ukraine-flag caps and other items.

However, he also said that the watermelon didn’t “cause any destruction”:

In terms of the watermelon, we don’t think that’s meeting the threshold for causing any kind of destruction.

All too predictably, the Israel lobby threw a hissy-fit, insisting that the watermelon is — you’ve guessed it — antisemitic. Israel front group ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ said that the watermelon means the “destruction of the Jewish state” and demanded tighter control in future ties:

The choice of a watermelon is highly deliberate. A half-watermelon contains the same colours as the flag of the Palestinian Authority and replicates the entire shape of the state of Israel, implying, however mundanely, the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with a Palestinian state.

Sport is meant to bring people together, not create further divisions. It is a mark of how deeply entrenched extremism is in our society that such ardent political symbols are not considered noteworthy or actionable any more.

There is still time for Wimbledon to learn lessons and apply their policy more robustly in future matches.

Of course, Israel’s slaughter of almost 700,000 Palestinians in Gaza and its increasing theft of the occupied West Bank are not “creating divisions”. Not according to the Israel lobby, at least, which denies not just the genocide but the whole existence of the Palestinian people.

Featured image via Facebook