On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Maysara Omar <maysara.omar@gmail.com> wrote:

I believe that Israel is not an appropriate place in which to hold a conference such as wikimania for all the reasons mentioned above, and i believe that it is fair to reconsider the decision, and i hope that we, along with the wikimedia foundation, and along with the israeli participants too, will find reason to address the issue with view to fairness and practicality.

While you are entitled to your opinions and beliefs, I don't believe this is the proper forum for them. There was a bidding process for hosting Wikimania, and Haifa was the best of the entries.

What you are doing here is second guessing the Wikimania Jury, which I believe is unfair. If your concerns were valid, I'm sure they would have been raised and addressed in the bidding process. That actually would have been the right time to raise such questions, when no decisions had yet been made.

Now, there are impediments that might prevent people from attending, but all of

the concerns you raise are beyond the scope of the organizers to address. If you wish to be constructive, I would welcome your thoughts and ideas for ways to allow more Wikimedians to attend Haifa, or to reform the selection procedure so that these issues are brought up during that process.

From a former member of the Toronto Wikimania bid team (who lost to Haifa)...

Gerald