The New York Times International - 29.07.2019

T HE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION MONDAY, JULY 29, 2019 | 5

world

The Iraqi teenager does not look like a

traditional athlete: Her right leg is am-

putated at the thigh, her left at the knee,

and her right arm ends at the biceps.

But when Najla Imad Lafta, 14, plays

table tennis, her torso turns as smoothly

as a dancer’s to meet the ball and she re-

turns it so fast her opponents are hard

put to send it back.

She just brought home her fourth sil-

ver and her fourth bronze medal from an

international sports tournament for the

disabled in Egypt in June.

“In fourth grade, I realized I was dif-

ferent from the other girls,” said Najla as

she sat in a narrow wheelchair in her

family’s home on the outskirts of Ba-

quba, a provincial capital in Iraq. She

lives on an unpaved street where no one

has indoor plumbing and the electricity

is erratic.

“I saw my friends were running at

school, walking and playing, and they

were thinking about what they would do

in the future,” she said. “And all I could

do was sit in my wheelchair and think

that I wanted to run like them.”

Najla was 3 when a bomb magneti-

cally attached beneath her father’s car

went off. The sabotage was most likely

the work of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which tar-

geted her father because he worked at

the local military base with American

soldiers.

In a matter of seconds she became

one of the hundreds of thousands of

Iraqis seriously wounded in the civil

war that followed the American inva-

sion in 2003. Civilians young and old

were caught in the crossfire, crippling

them physically and psychologically.

Not all became amputees. Many have

less visible scars: back injuries that

make it impossible to walk and carry

anything; hearing loss; or a missing eye

from flying shrapnel. Some families,

with their top wage earners unable to

work, ended up homeless and many

more now live diminished lives.

Each struggles to find a way to cope,

and Najla is one of a growing number of

Iraqi athletes who are competing in

sports at a high level after losing one or

more limbs.

Since 2003, there has been an approxi-

mately 70 percent increase in the num-

ber of Iraqis participating in the Para-

lympic Games whose injuries are ter-

rorism related, according to Moham-

med Abbas al-Salami, the deputy head

of the Iraqi Paralympic Committee.

Players injured in the war are ex-

traordinarily driven and talented, said

Mr. al-Salami. But they struggle more

emotionally because they remember

the time before their injuries.

That emotional struggle is part of Na-

jla’s story, too.

One of eight children born to a close-

knit family, Najla was an active child and

every day would run to meet her father’s

car as he returned from his work at a

joint Iraqi-American army base.

“It was April 19, 2008, and as I drove

up to the house, Najla ran towards me,

holding out her arms and smiling,” re-

called her father, Imad Lafta, 56, who

worked at the time on communications

technology for the Iraqi Army.

“I got out of the car to help her get into

the passenger seat, but as she pulled

open the door, the sticky bomb explod-

ed,” he said, looking away from his

daughter as he recalled the moment.

“I was at the hospital three months

and once I realized I had lost my legs

and arms I cried and cried and became

angry because I knew I had lost every-

thing,” she said.

It was this depression, in part, that

brought Najla to table tennis.

Five years ago, sad that she could not

run like her classmates, she bought a ta-

ble tennis paddle to give herself some-

thing to do when she finished her home-

work. But it quickly proved frustrating.

She had begun life as a right-handed

person but with that hand gone and no

prostheses, she struggled to learn to use

her left, hitting the ball over and over

against the wall of her family house.

She kept thinking that if she could just

have legs, she could run to the ball in-

stead of having to reach and hope it

would not fly too high or too low.

Her father went to a hospital in Bagh-

dad and implored the staff members to

give prostheses to his daughter.

Eventually they did, but they were

poorly made and hurt so much she could

not walk in them.

Then her father heard that there

might be better prostheses in another

province. After scrimping together the

cash to pay for them, he brought the new

ones home, only to find that these too

were a poor fit. A third and fourth at-

tempt also failed to get her prostheses

that did not hurt.

“The quality matters,” he said. “The

best are from England.”

But a prosthetic leg from Britain can

cost $15,000 and one fitted for an athlete

costs much more. Najla needed three

limbs and with her father’s retirement

income of $400 a month, even one pros-

thetic limb was beyond the family’s

reach.

Dejected over his inability to help his

daughter, Mr. Lafta asked a friend who

coached table tennis and scouted for

Iraq’s Paralympic team to stop by and

give her some lessons.

Najla remembers the day Hossam

Hussein al-Bayat came to the family’s

house — a traditional Iraqi compound

with individual rooms built around a

common courtyard with an outdoor toi-

let and water from a communal well

down the street.

“He said to me, ‘I want you to take that

paddle and start training daily,’ ” she re-

called.

She took him at his word and began to

work one to two hours a day on her

strokes.

After watching her and seeing her im-

provement in a short time, his assess-

ment was that because of her drive, “she

has the potential to be very good,” Mr.

al-Bayat said.

Once a week he would bring her to his

house to practice, coaching her until she

was ready to compete against disabled

players from other provinces.

She was only 12 when she won a place

on the country’s Paralympic team. The

key for her success, she said, was not to

look at the other players — table tennis

is a game where players routinely use

psychological tricks to disarm their op-

ponents.

“I was a little scared,” she recalled. “I

was talking to myself, saying ‘just focus

on the ball, just focus on myself, if I focus

on her, I will be afraid,’” she said refer-

ring to her opponent.

When Najla plays, her eye is always

on the ball — it is her friend and her ene-

my; its speed, spin and arc are her sole

concern.

“What amazed me in Najla is that she

is from a very poor family and lives in a

neighborhood where squatters live, and

she has only one arm and she is the

champion of Iraq and took the golden

medal in the Iraqi championship and

took the silver medal in Asia,” said Aqil

Hameed, the head of Iraq’s Paralympic

Committee.

“Really, I consider this a miracle, and

the persistence and the effort and the

hope that Najla has must be a big lesson

for us and for all of the Iraqis,” Mr.

Hameed added.

Najla practices two or three hours a

day at home — her family bought a play-

ing table that takes up almost all the

space in one of the compound’s rooms —

barely leaving enough space for her to

practice with her sisters.

The Paralympics committee recently

bought prostheses for Najla, and these

are far better than the ones she had be-

fore but they are still not the kind made

for athletes.

“To be honest, nothing compares to

having legs and arms,” Najla said with a

wistful look on her face.

“But at least I am happy with what I

have done.”

Blast survivor now a top table tennis player

Falih Hassan contributed reporting.

Najla Imad Lafta, 14, above and below, just brought home her fourth silver and her fourth bronze medal from an international sports tournament for the disabled in Egypt. She

began life right-handed, but with that hand gone and no prostheses, she was forced to learn to use her left, hitting the ball over and over against the wall of her family house.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY IVOR PRICKETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Najla is one of a growing number

of Iraqi athletes who are

competing in sports at a high

level after losing limbs.

PROFILE

BAQUBA, IRAQ

Triple amputee was hit

by explosive placed under

her father’s car in Iraq

BY ALISSA J. RUBIN

In a matter of months, a campaign to

boycott Israel has moved from the mar-

gins of politics — liberal college cam-

puses and protest marches — to Con-

gress, where the freshman representa-

tives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ra-

shida Tlaib of Michigan have become its

most vocal backers, drawing fire from

the White House.

Last week, the House overwhelm-

ingly passed a resolution condemning

the campaign, the Boycott, Divestment

and Sanctions movement. With its ad-

herents prominent in the British Labour

Party and critics fighting it in Washing-

ton and dozens of state capitals, B.D.S.

has become a proxy for the Israeli-Pal-

estinian conflict in the United States and

Europe, with all the emotion the conflict

stirs.

The movement’s supporters are rou-

tinely accused of anti-Semitism. Oppo-

nents are accused of trampling on free

speech. Yet B.D.S. is often misunder-

stood and misrepresented by people on

both sides. Is it a legitimate, nonviolent

protest to protect the rights of Palestin-

ians or a movement that aims to elimi-

nate Israel and traffics in anti-

Semitism?

Here are answers to some of the most

difficult questions.

WHAT IS B.D.S.?

The B.D.S. movement seeks to mobilize

international economic and political

pressure on Israel in solidarity with the

Palestinians. Modeled on the fight

against the apartheid regime in South

Africa, it calls for countries, businesses

and universities to sever ties with Israel

unless it meets three demands:

• End its occupation of all land captured
  in 1967 and dismantle the wall and fence
  that separate Israel from much of the
  West Bank, dividing many Palestinian
  neighborhoods.


• Grant “full equality” to Palestinian cit-
  izens of Israel.


• Assure the right of Palestinian refu-
  gees and their descendants to return to
  the homes and properties from which

they or their ancestors were displaced

in the wars that led to the establishment

of Israel in 1948.

Many who embrace B.D.S. see it

aimed primarily at ending Israel’s occu-

pation of the West Bank. Its demands

sound innocuous enough: Israel already

claims to give its Arab citizens equal

protection under the law. Withdrawing

from Palestinian territory would create

space for a coherent Palestinian state.

The future of Palestinian refugees

would have to be addressed in any ulti-

mate resolution.

But many Israelis say the move-

ment’s real goal is the elimination of Is-

rael as a Jewish state. Full equality for

Arab citizens of Israel would require

overturning or amending Israeli laws

that grant Jews automatic citizenship

and define Israel as the nation-state of

the Jewish people. Granting a right of

return to the Palestinians classified as

refugees — the original refugees and

their millions of descendants — would

spell the end of a Jewish majority.

In an interview, Omar Barghouti, a

top B.D.S. spokesman, called the Israeli

laws racist and exclusionary. A demo-

cratic state could still provide asylum

for Jewish refugees, showing “some

sensitivity to the Jewish experience,” he

said, “but it cannot be a racist law that

says only Jews benefit.” Asked if that

means Jews cannot have their own

state, he said, “Not in Palestine.”

WHO IS BEHIND IT?

B.D.S. describes itself as a loosely con-

nected, nonhierarchical network of ac-

tivists, though coordination is provided

by the Palestinian B.D.S. National Com-

mittee, of which Mr. Barghouti, a Pales-

tinian resident of Israel, is a co-founder.

A host of affiliated groups lead the

charge for B.D.S., including Students for

Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for

Peace in the United States, the Palestine

Solidarity Campaign and War on Want

in Britain and the World Council of

Churches in Europe.

Within the West Bank and Gaza, spon-

sors include a broad coalition of unions

and nongovernmental organizations.

B.D.S. enjoys at least the tacit support of

a large majority of Palestinians, accord-

ing to Khalil Shikaki, a Ramallah-based

pollster.

Elsewhere, it appeals to those, includ-

ing a significant number of politically

liberal Jews, who are frustrated by the

Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and

the blockade and frequent bloodshed in

Gaza.

IS B.D.S. ANTI-SEMITIC?

Leaders of B.D.S. insist that it is not anti-

Semitic, and the movement’s umbrella

group explicitly rejects anti-Semitism.

But many Israelis and American Jews

say it is, using the so-called three-Ds

test to distinguish fair criticism of Israel

from anti-Semitism: Does the criticism

delegitimize Israel, apply a double

standard or demonize it?

B.D.S. does all three, its critics say, by

questioning Israel’s right to exist, and

by singling out Israel for its treatment of

Israel’s Arab citizens when minorities in

some countries suffer far more. The col-

umnist Ben-Dror Yemini, a critic of the

movement, said B.D.S. supporters de-

monize Israel when they portray the

country as “the great danger to human-

i t y.”

Rebutting the double-standard

charge, B.D.S. leaders say that Palestin-

ians fighting for their own rights should

not be expected to give equivalent atten-

tion to abused minorities elsewhere.

And Kenneth Stern, director of Bard Col-

lege’s Center for the Study of Hate,

urges a distinction between effect and

motivation: Palestinians who feel no ill

will toward Jews but yearn for self-de-

termination in the land of their fore-

bears may rightly argue that to dispar-

age that yearning is a form of bigotry.

IS IT NONVIOLENT?

In its original 2005 call, B.D.S. urged

strictly “nonviolent punitive measures,”

and Mr. Barghouti said B.D.S. “consid-

ers violence targeting noncombatants

as illegal and immoral.” Still, he said,

B.D.S. treats resistance to what it sees

as Israeli oppression, including armed

struggle, as a legitimate right. Asked if

B.D.S. condemned violence against Is-

raeli soldiers, he declined to comment.

Opponents have attacked B.D.S., not

just for failing to condemn violence but

for allowing terrorists and their sup-

porters under its umbrella. The B.D.S.

National Committee’s members, for ex-

ample, include the Council of National

and Islamic Forces in Palestine. The

council includes several groups desig-

nated by the United States as terrorist

organizations, including Hamas, Pales-

tinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular

Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

HOW ENTRENCHED IS B.D.S. IN THE

UNITED STATES?

As an organized movement, not very.

B.D.S. does not appear especially well fi-

nanced, its leadership is atomized and at

the grass-roots level even its most en-

thusiastic backers do not always agree

on what they are trying to achieve. Still,

the idea has significant support and may

be gaining ground.

A survey released in February sug-

gested that one in five Americans ap-

proved of B.D.S. as a way of opposing Is-

raeli policy toward Palestinians. A De-

cember 2018 University of Maryland

poll of a much larger sample put support

at 40 percent.

Actual accomplishments have been

minimal: a few dozen resolutions in uni-

versity student assemblies; a handful of

decisions by law-enforcement agencies

to stop training with the Israeli military;

votes by two faculty groups last year —

the Association for Asian American

Studies and the larger American Studies

Association — for limited boycotts of Is-

raeli academia. Opponents of B.D.S.

have more to show for their efforts. Leg-

islatures in at least 26 states have

passed laws barring government agen-

cies from contracting with or investing

in companies that support B.D.S. In

New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed

an executive order to that effect in 2016.

IS IT LINKED TO ANTI-SEMITISM?

Anti-Semitism has increased in Europe

because of numerous factors, including

globalization, populism, loss of national

identity and the perceived oppression of

Palestinians by Israel. A growing Mus-

lim minority, mostly from North Africa,

has viewed Israeli policies toward the

Palestinians as anti-Muslim, leading

many to support B.D.S.

There is some overlap between sup-

port for B.D.S. and anti-Semitism.

But while the European Union and

some member states have introduced

labeling requirements for products from

the occupied West Bank and have de-

nied funding to academic institutions in

West Bank settlements, B.D.S. has had

very little impact outside university set-

tings.

Generally there has also been far less

political pushback to B.D.S. in Europe

than in America, partly because Jews in

Europe are fewer and less organized

than in the United States. European

countries have strict nondiscrimination

laws that would make official adherence

to B.D.S. difficult.

IS B.D.S. WORKING?

In the most tangible ways, not so much.

Despite scattered pullouts from Israel

by some companies, foreign direct in-

vestment in Israel is at an all-time high.

Israel’s economy is well-suited to resist

boycotts because it depends less on ex-

ports of commodities, which can be

sourced elsewhere, than on sales of in-

tellectual property, like software, and

business-to-business products, against

which it is harder to mobilize con-

sumers. And while Ireland advanced

legislation to ban imports of goods

produced by Israeli settlements on the

West Bank last year, the B.D.S. move-

ment acknowledges that few foreign

governments have imposed sanctions

on Israel. Reputational damage is hard-

er to quantify, and B.D.S. frequently

scores public-relations victories: The

singer Lana Del Rey pulled out of a Tel

Aviv music festival last year and the Ar-

gentine national soccer team canceled a

match in Israel.

But an effort to boycott the Eurovision

song contest in Israel in May failed to

make much of a dent.

HOW DO ISRAELIS VIEW B.D.S.?

Not kindly, though some are happy to

exploit it.

Many in what is left of the peace camp

support a targeted boycott of settlement

products but see a boycott of all of Israel

as unacceptable.

Israel’s government has embraced

two seemingly opposing views, boasting

on the world stage that B.D.S. is having

no effect while warning Israelis that it is

a strategic threat. In domestic politics,

exaggerating the threat of B.D.S. adds to

the sense that Israel is besieged and that

the Palestinians are not really inter-

ested in peacemaking, bolstering right-

wing arguments for continued expan-

sion of Jewish settlements in the West

Bank.

Deciphering the international drive to boycott Israel

JERUSALEM

BY DAVID M. HALBFINGER,

MICHAEL WINES

AND STEVEN ERLANGER

Demonstrators in Bethlehem calling for the boycott of the Eurovision song contest in

Israel. They had little effect, though B.D.S. has achieved some public relations victories.

MUSA AL SHAER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

David M. Halbfinger reported from Jeru-

salem, Michael Wines from Washington,

and Steven Erlanger from Brussels.

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