Friday column: Berlin to Dubai to Caracas

We’ve seen it before:

A Jewish athlete is not allowed to compete in an international event, excuses are made and the competition goes on anyway.

In 1936 it was the Berlin Olympics, where United States Olympic Committee head Avery Brundage — at the last minute — replaced Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman on the favored 4x100-meter relay team, sparing Hitler the embarrassment of seeing two Jews on the gold-medal platform.

In 2009 it’s the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, where the United Arab Emirates — at the last minute — denied Israel’s Shahar Peer a visa.

The UAE said that in the wake of Israel’s recent incursions into the Gaza Strip, it was concerned for Peer’s safety.

No one bought the excuse, especially since the UAE waited to deny the visa until last weekend — when most of the players were already in Dubai — making it extremely difficult for the Women’s Tennis Association to cancel the event, which began Sunday.

But protests were made. To its credit, the Tennis Channel responded to the snub of Peer by canceling plans to televise the tournament, and the WTA told Dubai its actions threatened future tennis events in the UAE.

But does the exclusion of a single athlete really matter?

It does.

Barring an athlete from an international event is meant to marginalize and intimidate. When it goes unchallenged, it’s not only wrong, it also can be a sign of the times. Two years after the Berlin Games — when the USOC seemingly bowed to Nazi pressure and benched Stoller and Glickman — came Kristallnacht.

But that was long ago, you say. The world has changed, you say. Well, this year in Venezuela, strongman Hugo Chávez, pushing a referendum that could allow him to stay in office indefinitely, cast about for a useful scapegoat to replace the departed George W. Bush, and found one.

According to a Washington Post editorial, a commentator on a pro-government Web site, following Chavez’s lead, demanded that citizens ‘publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street, shopping center or park’ and called for a boycott of Jewish businesses (and) seizures of Jewish-owned property ...” Caracas’ largest synagogue was attacked by thugs, who spray-painted “Jews get out” on the walls and confiscated a registry of members.

Oddly, that news has been under-reported, while the controversy over Peer has not — and columns critical of the UAE in The New York Times, ESPN and elsewhere, combined with tough talk from the WTA, apparently have had an effect.

Thursday it was announced that Andy Ram of Israel would be allowed to play in a tennis tournament next week in Dubai. Ram’s lawyer said, “I hope that this is a breakthrough and marks the end to these types of things.”

I hope so, too — but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.