TAKING A KNEE FOR FREEDOM

June 10, 2020 at 13:40 (Activism, Racism, Sports)

Take the knee to show Donald Trump and the world that you will not be divided. Take the knee as a way to say once and for all that black lives do in fact matter

It’s Time for White NFL Players to Take the Knee

It’s an unmistakable gesture, one that would show that the recent anti-racist statements by white NFL players are not just talk.

By Dave Zirin

The NFL season, come pandemic or revolution, will almost certainly begin this fall—and it is going to be “put up or shut up” time for the league’s white players. Here’s the reality: Many black players will be taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence and racial inequity. After a remarkable video made by black NFL playerscondemning the league’s tepid support for the Black Lives Matter protests, Roger Goodell said in a video statement, among other things, “We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.”

Whether Goodell made this speech to head off a players’ revolt in a league that is 70 percent black or for some other reason is an interesting query. But whatever you make of Goodell’s sincerity, there is no mistaking his intention: to admit that there should be no punitive or even rhetorical action condemning players for taking that knee in the future. Even if you are as put off as I am with Goodell’s inability to admit that Colin Kaepernick was forced out of the league and denied the ability to earn a living because of his protest, the line the NFL commissioner is drawing is clear: No longer will he cower behind the shield, caring more about Donald Trump’s Twitter finger than the demands of the league’s players to dissent.

Sure enough, Trump—always seeking an opportunity to use the NFL as his own personal racist and nationalistic football—put out a tweet saying:

Could it be even remotely possible that in Roger Goodell’s rather interesting statement of peace and reconciliation, he was intimating that it would now be O.K. for the players to KNEEL, or not to stand, for the National Anthem, thereby disrespecting our Country & our Flag?

The answer is that Goodell was more than intimating. He was giving Trump a tentative, quivering middle finger, yet a middle finger nonetheless. Now, pardon the sports mixed metaphor, the ball is in the player’s court. To put a finer point on it, it is in the white players’ court.

In 2016 and ’17 many white players made clear that they did not believe people should “disrespect the flag” during the anthem, as if that is what Kaepernick was doing. Only after Trump called the protesting players “sons of bitches” who should be kicked out of the sport did we see white players kneel, and that was done with the approval of ownership. It was staged, and it had far more to do with standing up to Trump than solidarity with black lives taken by police violence or allyship with their black teammates.

This is a far different moment. White players like Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz have made eloquent statements in support of their black teammates while recognizing their own privilege. Other white NFL players have made their own statements of solidarity. The Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars teams and coaches even marched in the protests. But the proof of the pudding is going to be whether their knees hit the ground the first time that anthem plays. No hands on shoulders, no linked arms, no raised fists, but actually taking the weight and scrutiny off their black teammates by taking a knee.

As Full Dissidence author Howard Bryant said to me, “The kneeling gesture is the spot where America comes apart, where all the post-9/11 pro-police messaging and militarism at sporting events collides with the reality of the cops and military. In no other element of our culture is there such a clear and defiant single gesture like taking a knee. Where else are we allowed the space to say we disagree with our police? Where else can we register with one gesture, dissent with the alleged ideals of this country? America is getting called out with this one gesture and they are determined to punish anyone using it.”

Take the knee, white players. That will show that this is more than just performative anti-racism, more than just tweets and Instagram statements, more than just fear of alienating your teammates. It’s time to show true allyship and demonstrate in practice that all the rhetoric about a football team’s being family isn’t bullshit. Take the knee to show Donald Trump and the world that you will not be divided. Take the knee as a way to say once and for all that black lives do in fact matter.

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TOKYO OLYMPICS SUCCUMBS TO THE VIRUS

March 24, 2020 at 14:09 (Health Crisis, Sports)

With the coronavirus pandemic, the precautionary principle is apt, and should point the IOC toward canceling, or at the very least postponing, the Tokyo Olympics.

The Olympics Teeter on the Brink

An upsurge of athletes and federations is forcing the IOC to consider postponement of this summer’s games.

By Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff

 

On Sunday, the International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizers at long last acknowledged that they are pondering alternative scenarios for the Olympics. After previously claiming that its Executive Board was not even considering “postponement,” the IOC acknowledged in an official statement that it “needs to take the next step in its scenario-planning.” The group bought itself four weeks to make a decision. To be clear, it also showed that its first priority was at some point to stage the Games, no matter what. As communicated on its website,

The IOC EB [Executive Board] emphasised that a cancellation of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 would not solve any of the problems or help anybody. Therefore, cancellation is not on the agenda.

Within hours of their announcement, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committee issued a statement saying that it would not be sending its athletes to the Tokyo Olympics if they were held this summer. This was a bold move—a de facto boycott—and shortly afterward, the Australian Olympic Committee followed suit, telling its athletes to prepare for a 12-month postponement.

This sharp U-turn did not happen because the IOC had finally seen the light. It emerged only in reaction to a groundswell of anger as well as dissatisfaction from Olympic athletes, coaches, and administrators from around the world. USA Track and Field joined USA Swimming to call for postponement, uniting the two sports that haul in the medals for Team USA. US Olympic track legends Dick Fosbury and Ashton Eaton took to Twitter to advocate postponing. So did US swimmers Nathan Adrian and Jacob Pebley. In one survey of US athletes, 70 percent supported postponing the Tokyo Games.

It is not only US athletes. Internationally, Olympic competitors and officials have been sounding the alarm: Kaori Yamaguchi of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Spain Olympic Committee President Alejandro Blanco, Irish Olympian Sonia O’Sullivan, India badminton coach Pullela Gopichand, four-time Olympian and CEO of Sport Ireland John Treacy, Norway’s National Olympic & Paralympic Committee, Brazil’s Olympic Committee, the Slovenian Olympic Committee… the list goes on and on. Thomas Bach and the IOC were being hit from all sides, and this tidal wave of criticism finally prompted a statement.

But anyone waiting for the IOC to do the right thing needs to understand that the committee still lives in a Lausanne fantasy land. The IOC’s assessment asserted:

On the one hand, there are significant improvements in Japan where the people are warmly welcoming the Olympic flame. This could strengthen the IOC’s confidence in the Japanese hosts that the IOC could, with certain safety restrictions, organise Olympic Games in the country whilst respecting its principle of safeguarding the health of everyone involved.

Meanwhile, back in reality, epidemiologists—and anyone who cares about the transmission of coronavirus—looked on in horror at the Olympic flame’s warm welcome in Japan this weekend. In a ceremony staged in Ishinomaki, around 200 miles north of Tokyo, hundreds of spectators bumped and jostled to get a glimpse at the flame, ignoring the social distancing measures that health officials are urging across the world. Moreover, NHK in Japan reports that coronavirus infections in Japan continue to escalate.

Under such conditions, even the pretension of pushing ahead with the Olympic Games is willfully reprehensible and dangerous. And yet, in an interview last week with The New York Times, IOC President Thomas Bach wouldn’t budge, stating time and again that the IOC would not engage in “speculation” about the future of the Tokyo Games. Bach’s talking-point tactics were reminiscent of the way climate change deniers have long framed their status quo stance, using the uncertainty inherent to science as political shield for inaction. “What makes this crisis so unique and so difficult to overcome is the uncertainty,” Bach stated. He continued:

Nobody today can tell you what the developments are tomorrow, what they are in one month, not to mention in more than four months. Therefore it would not be responsible in any way to set a date or take a decision right now, which would be based on the speculation about the future developments.

Of course, this is pure balderdash. Epidemiologists have been clear that when it comes to the coronavirus, we’re in the fight for the long haul. The US Department of Health and Human Services has indicated that the outbreak could go on for 18 months. Another peer-review scientific studyfound that the coronavirus’s peak in parts of the Northern Hemisphere may not arrive until winter 2020–21. The IOC often trumpets its relationship with the United Nations. It should consider the “precautionary principle” advocated by the UN, which dictates that where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

With the coronavirus pandemic, the precautionary principle is apt, and should point the IOC toward canceling, or at the very least postponing, the Tokyo Olympics.

Han Xiao, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Athletes’ Advisory Council chair and former member of the US National Table Tennis Team, told us, “Having a date to look to for more information and a decision is a step in the right direction. Previously, the IOC would not commit to any date for making a decision, so we are certainly in a better position today than we were yesterday. Many of our athletes are still facing tremendous anxiety and uncertainty and would like an earlier decision, but we also have some athletes who would like the IOC only to make their decision when they are ready. Ultimately, we are looking for more information and more transparency in the next four weeks as the IOC evaluates all possible alternatives.”

Xiao’s attention to the “tremendous anxiety” faced by aspiring Olympians is vital. The IOC, through its tone-deaf, glacial response to the coronavirus pandemic, has only increased the mental stress and strain on athletes. By telling athletes to continue training and to stay ready in the face of Covid-19, the IOC is making life harder. After all, many training facilities are closed down, including the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Centers in Colorado Springs and Lake Placid and numerous US universities where aspiring Olympians train. For all the IOC’s claims of putting athletes first, too often it seems that athletes are told to go to the back of the Olympic bus.

The IOC had better evaluate “all possible alternatives.” If they don’t, you can guarantee that the athletes will “evaluate” it for them. It will be either “reevaluated” from above or from below. That’s up to Thomas Bach. Either way, these Olympics should not and cannot take place this July.

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BLATANT PROPAGANDA AT THE SUPER BOWL

February 5, 2020 at 11:41 (mind control, Sports)

There is no amount of football and no flag big enough to hide the fact that these are dangerous times, and any kind of national unity—even around football—only exists in the fevered dreams of Fox Sports executives and Madison Avenue hacks.

Trump Super Bowl Ad: America Is Stronger, Safer, And More Prosperous

This Year’s Super Bowl Was Blatantly Propagandistic

Kansas City won the big game, but that was a sideshow compared to the political bombast on display.

By Dave Zirin

You could choose your own country based upon your worldview. There was, “Look how awesome the United States is, because in three years we made America great!” Or you could order up, “Look at how Donald Trump has turned our country into a racist, festering shithole!” Two political ads bookended Super Bowl 54, and they portrayed two visions courtesy of two New York City billionaires, Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg.

The ads represented two stark perspectives that have nestled inside this country: one that is thrilled with the rising stock market as well as the naked bigotry of this administration, and another that believes Trump has dragged this country toward racist autocracy.

These ads gave life to the mission statement and rosy Norman Rockwell–esque politics projected by the 2020 Super Bowl. The NFL’s stated mission is to “keep politics out of sports.” Its owners even colluded against a Super Bowl quarterback and banished him from their league because he dared to take a knee against racialized police violence. But, as was more than evident on Sunday, it’s not politics that the league wants to expunge but a certain kind of politics: resistance politics, anti-racist politics, anti-militaristic politics, the politics of human liberation. Instead, an entire other set of ideas was spray-painted all across Super Bowl Sunday, and somewhere in the middle of that political messaging there happened to be a football game.

The reality of the Fox production of Super Bowl Sunday could be heard in a comment Boston Globe writer Ben Volin reported from a Fox executive: “If it doesn’t celebrate football or celebrate America, it’s not going to be in the show.” The NFL’s idea of “celebrating football” was seen in a commercial where a young black child, with dyed blond hair, is seen running through a field of would-be tacklers, without helmets or pads, as NFL legends cheer him on. There was a shot of 83-year-old legend Jim Brown sitting on a park bench telling him to “take it to the house.” The child, in the middle of his epic jaunt, stopped in sad silence at a statue of the late NFL player turned Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

This much-praised ad was football propaganda of the worst sort. Look at every box it checked. It portrayed the game as safe for people with individuality (the blond dyed hair), even though it is a league that tries to crush individual expression. It celebrated black athleticism, even though it is a league without black ownership and a shameful paucity of black coaches and executives. It projected a sport that is both safe for children and absent of physical tragedy, even though it is a game that breaks players’ bodies and causes life-altering concussive head injuries. It celebrated Jim Brown, even though Brown has a long history of violence against women. And, perhaps most cynically, it used the memory of Pat Tillman as a near-mythological symbol of the synthesis of the NFL, the military, and sacrifice; positively genuflecting in front of his statue, even though Tillman’s history is profoundly more complicated than that. Even though Tillman turned into a critic of both the army and the invasion of Iraq while he was still in service, and then died under a very suspicious and sloppily covered-up instance of friendly fire; even though the NFL, with all its power and political connections, never lifted a finger to help Tillman’s family when they were pressuring the government to find out the truth.

As for celebrating “America,” this was seen by invoking militarism at every turn, even comparing NFL players to the troops. The only comparison, in the real world, is that both suffer from traumatic brain injuries that are covered up or scoffed at by their respective commanders in chief. The commercials also echoed this theme of one America, most grotesquely in an ad for Budweiser that celebrated the hugging of fully armored police by a young black man at a standoff between riot cops and young protesters who were calling on police to stop killing them.

The one respite from this was the epic halftime show featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, which, in an act of protest, had Latinx children in cages as part of their set. In a video taken before her performance, J-Lo said, “Other people can try to build walls, keep us out or put us in cages.” It was a harrowing image to have projected amid the glitz and glamour. Yet even this—not to mention her and Shakira’s scorching performance—rings somewhat hollow, since we know that the halftime show was planned and executed by Jay-Z as part of his NFL-branded social justice initiative, which seems entirely geared toward enriching Jay-Z and erasing Colin Kaepernick. But the two women rocked it and, in addition, they seem to have upset all the right people: evangelicals like Franklin Graham more concerned with the children at home seeing some skin than the children who live behind bars in our homegrown internment camps.

I swear a game was played somewhere amid this politicized din. The actual sport appeared almost quaint discerned through the blaring John Philip Sousa bombast. It was a fun game where the Kansas City Chiefs came from behind and scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to win 31-20. But the actual contest that will be remembered was the battle between the forces of Fox bleating about the greatness of America and those who see us turning toward a much darker place. There is no amount of football and no flag big enough to hide the fact that these are dangerous times, and any kind of national unity—even around football—only exists in the fevered dreams of Fox Sports executives and Madison Avenue hacks.

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NEW RULES, NEW HYPOCRISY ON SPORTS FIELD

January 16, 2020 at 12:45 (Civil Liberties, Hypocrisy, Sports)

A new list of restrictions against political speech or gestures was released on Thursday by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 

John Carlos, right, and Tommie Smith, center, raise gloved fists in protest at the 1968 Summer Olympics. (AP Photo)

John Carlos Responds to the New Olympics Ban on Political Protest

The 1968 Olympian points out the hypocrisy of new rules against any political demonstrations on the field or medal stand.

By Dave Zirin

 

Olympic athletes competing in Tokyo have been put on notice. They are there to be seen and not heard. A new list of restrictions against political speech or gestures was released on Thursday by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The move is as arrogant as it is censorious. Any athlete who may have planned to take a knee like Colin Kaepernick, or raise their fist like John Carlos or Tommie Smith in 1968, will have to think again. Make a gesture of solidarity with your oppressed brethren in your home country as 2016 Olympian Feyisa Lilesa did and you could find yourself ostracized.

The actual punishments for political speech are opaque but threatening, the IOC saying that such will be determined on a “case by case basis.” In the official statement, Olympic organizers write:

The unique nature of the Olympic Games enables athletes from all over the world to come together in peace and harmony. We believe that the example we set by competing with the world’s best while living in harmony in the Olympic Village is a uniquely positive message to send to an increasingly divided world.

This is why it is important, on both a personal and a global level, that we keep the venues, the Olympic Village and the podium neutral and free from any form of political, religious or ethnic demonstrations.

There is something particularly ironic about the fact that the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) just admitted John Carlos and Tommie Smith into its Hall of Fame last November, 51 years after they raised their fists on the medal stand in 1968. The ceremony was meant to be a celebration of reconciliation and a tacit acknowledgment by the USOPC that it was wrong to ostracize the two runners. This new ruling sends a hell of a message that the “Olympic movement” wants to absorb the protest into the past and criminalize it for the present and future.

I spoke to John Carlos on the phone and, as one might expect, he was livid. Here’s what he told me:

This is nonsense. They’re way out of line with this. They’re trying to take people’s rights away and it’s ridiculous. They are saying that they don’t want politics at the Olympics but this is a political move. The silencing of people is political. We all love the Olympics but I’m not sacrificing my humanity to win a medal. Every time they go to different nation for a different Olympics, are you going to tell me that the choice of the country isn’t politically motivated? I ain’t buying that. The athlete should be able to make a statement on that medal stand. They are not disrespecting a flag. They are using their time to do what they think is right. They are trying to save lives. No one has the right to take away what’s inside you or silence what you want to say.

I asked Carlos how he squares being inducted into the USOPC Hall of Fame and then given this anti-political crackdown. He said:

It shows that if you stand with it, you’ll be accepted in time. But people have to have the courage to step up. I’ve done mine. I’ve been stepping up and living by the truth of that gesture for 51 years. It’s time for that next generation to step up and show their moral character…If you think all is fine, and you go to the Olympic Games with your mouth zipped, you’ll find you’ll regret it.

The brazen contradiction is of course that the Olympics are already political from top to bottom. They are political in the host country, where the head of state makes the argument that the Olympics will benefit the country economically. Government leaders also inevitably argue for national unity in support of the games, no matter how much debt is accrued, how much militarization is demanded, and how many people are displaced. The games are are political for the sponsors who use the Olympics to hawk their products, in a process one could call “sin washing.” Sponsors like McDonald’s—which pushes the utter opposite of an Olympic diet—sell their wares and benefit from the warm glow emitted by the Olympics. The games are political for the environment, which suffers a gigantic global footprint during the course of the Games. And in this era of political athletes, there is of course something political about an edict that aims to shut them down.

I reached out to Jules Boykoff, author of four books on the Olympics, including the forthcoming NOlympians: Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Beyond. He said:

The IOC’s edict, as laundered through its Athletes Commission, brims with hypocrisy. Athlete activism emerges from overlapping systems of injustice. To deny athletes the right to express their thoughts and feelings on the political injustices that wrack the world today reeks of authoritarianism, which is political in itself. This policy is a slap in the face to the exciting zeitgeist of smart, savvy athletes who are not willing to check their brains in at the Olympic door.

One thing is certain. As long as athletes are willing to confront their fear and risk punishment to speak their truth, this issue is going nowhere.

 

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SPORTS CAN BE MORE THAN JUST GAMES

January 9, 2020 at 14:43 (Activism, Sports)

For as long as there has been organized, professional sports in this country, the business has intertwined itself with the military. The drive for war was baked into the cake from the beginning.

Two fingers victory peace sign body language at sport stadium

Can Sports Be a Site of War Resistance?

Athletes have used their platforms to amplify messages against police brutality and other forms of oppression—can they do the same for war?

By Dave Zirin

For as long as there has been organized, professional sports in this country, the business has intertwined itself with the military. The drive for war was baked into the cake from the beginning.

The first time a baseball team visited the White House was in 1866, at the invite of our first impeached president, Andrew Johnson, as a way to call for national unity in the aftermath of the Civil War. The reason the baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, New York, is because a fictitious origin story said the creator of baseball was a general named Abner Doubleday who organized the game in bucolic Cooperstown. This was a lie created by Albert Spalding, as in Spalding sporting goods, someone who said at the beginning of Major League Baseball’s founding, “Baseball, I repeat, is war! And the playing of the game is a battle in which every contestant is a commanding general, who having gained an advantage, must hold it by every resource of his mind and muscle.”

It’s no coincidence that he said this at the end of the 19th century, when the United States was beginning to flex its imperial ambitions. President Teddy Roosevelt, along with the father of football Walter Camp, openly used football as a method of preparing young men for battle before World War I. And sports have continued to be used to marshal support for war ever since.

Today, from the constant military recruitment ads during games to the NFL’s formal partnership with the Pentagon, that relationship continues. As Trump dives headlong into an imperial conflict of choice against Iran, we can expect an uncritical response from the sports establishment on the basis of “supporting the troops.” Yet there is a counter-tradition in sports: a tradition of resistance to imperial conquest that sides with those crushed under its weight. It’s not nearly as deep as traditions against racism or sexism in sports, for example, but it is still there and it needs to be remembered.

I could write about athletes like Dave Megyessy, who spoke out against the war in Vietnam, but the period I want to recall is the time between 2003 and 2007, when George W. Bush started his disastrous war on Iraq. It is largely forgotten now, but there was a vast and dynamic movement in the streets aimed at stopping the war. It involved activists, veterans, family members of those fighting, student organizations, Arab and Muslim groups and many, many more. This mass expression in the streets found expression in the world of sports. Steve Nash, Etan Thomas, Josh Howard, Adam Morrison, Carlos Delgado, Martina Navratilova, Scott Fujita, Adonal Foyle, and even Ultimate Fighting Champion Jeff Monson all raised their voice against war.

A mass movement in the streets—which we aren’t close to having at this point—is a prerequisite to seeing athletes use their platform. But already there are rumbles, thanks to the easy access of social media. Colin Kaepernick, still waiting for someone in the NFL to have the courage to sign him, let loose on Twitter, writing, “There is nothing new about American terrorist attacks against Black and Brown people for the expansion of American imperialism. America has always sanctioned and besieged Black and Brown bodies both at home and abroad. America militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism, to enforce its policing and plundering of the non white world.” He also put out this quote from longtime civil rights fighter Angela Davis—retweeting Ameer Loggins @Leftsentthis—“As a Black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.”

In addition, Los Angeles Charger Justin Jackson has put out a long series of tweets against war, writing, among many other sentiments, that “we can drone strike a foreign leader from the sky with a death robot all the way in Iraq but we can’t get clean water pipes under Flint.” He also cited the costs of war and wrote, “Yet somehow cable news has the gall to ask Bernie how we’ll pay for free college and a less expensive healthcare system. Oh and by the way, war is a racket. But you already knew this.”

There are other stray tweets out there of athletes raising issues about this mad rush to war. These words are hopefully just a beginning. The hope is not only that they will inspire other athletes to use their voices, but that they will also help propel a movement against this administration’s imperial ambitions and the bipartisan thirst for forever wars.

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STILL KNEELING AND REFUSING TO BEND

November 19, 2019 at 14:02 (Civil Rights, Sports)

It is crystal clear after last Saturday in Atlanta that the reason Colin Kaepernick does not play in the NFL has nothing to do with ability.

Colin Kaepernick Refused to Bend to Roger Goodell’s Will

The quarterback remade the NFL’s hastily called league-wide tryout and demanded transparency.

By Dave Zirin

 

“I’ve been ready for three years. I’ve been denied for three years. We all know why.”

Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played in the NFL for three years because he dared to say that black lives matter in a league that treats black bodies as disposable. He dared take a league that uses patriotism, nationalism, and militarism as marketing, and turn that stage on its head. He dared to be a free man in a league that preaches obedience.

It is crystal clear after last Saturday in Atlanta that the reason Colin Kaepernick does not play in the NFL has nothing to do with ability.

In a workout session that started as a hastily assembled circus of the NFL’s making, Kaepernick threw a serious of high-velocity darts and 50-plus yard bombs with the flick of his wrist. At age 32 and visibly in the best shape of his life, he clearly has the ability and desire to compete. What he doesn’t want is to play as a broken person for a league determined to break him. Roger Goodell and the NFL tried to bend Kaepernick to their will this week. They scheduled him for a tryout with only three days’ notice. They insisted he come to Atlanta and work with a coach not of his choosing at the Falcons’ headquarters. They told him that it would be on a Saturday, when coaches and top scouts are busy either preparing for Sunday games or analyzing college contests. They did not tell him who the receivers he would work with would be. They wanted him to sign a “non-standard injury waiver” that have would prevented Kaepernick from suing the league for collusion in the future. Most egregiously, they insisted that the workout not be open to the press. Roger Goodell wanted all the positive public relations for “ending the collusion” against Kaepernick and none of the transparency.

Kaepernick then committed a grave sin in the eyes of not only the NFL but also a pathetic coterie of members of the sports media who also work for broadcast partners with the league. He showed up in Atlanta and refused to work out at the Falcons facility under the watchful eye of an NFL chosen coach. He instead went to a high school an hour away with his own receivers. He kept it open to the press, several of whom live-streamed the workout over social media, preventing the NFL from spinning the event as if he no longer had the goods. Kaepernick wore a shirt that said “Kunta Kinte,” a reference to LeVar Burton’s African name in the miniseries Roots, a name Burton’s character clung to even as he was whipped to accept that his new name would be Toby.

Of the reported 24 team reps that showed up at the Falcons headquarters only a handful had the courage to get in their cars and follow Kaepernick and the assembled media to his tryout. Then Kaepernick, as expected, balled out and said to everyone, “I’ve been ready for three years. I’ve been denied for three years. We all know why. I came out there and showed it today in front of everybody.” Kaepernick then thanked scouts who were there from Washington, New York (the Jets), and Kansas City, and said, “When you go back, tell your owners to stop being scared.”

Immediately afterward, the NFL’s media prizefighters put the day’s tomfoolery on Kaepernick’s shoulders, as if he was the one who set this dumpster on fire. This is a gaslighting, Bizarro World analysis, and should be recognized as such. These journalists—who really want you to sign up for Disney Plus—are doing little more than sucking up to the multibillion-dollar teat of a league dependent on a compliant media’s using Kaepernick as a negative object lesson for any other player who might try to flex their personal or political will. Then, as if by clockwork, Jay-Z, who is being paid handsomely to be Roger Goodell’s racial justice whisperer, let it leak that he was “disappointed with Colin’s actions and believes he turned a legitimate workout into a publicity stunt.” But it’s the NFL that staged a publicity stunt. All Kaepernick did was refuse to play their game.

Now that the spectacle in Atlanta is over, we are actually back where we started. Everyone knows that Kaepernick has the ability to play. Everyone knows that he is only being kept out for political and PR reasons. The question will be whether there is one team that is willing to put their team’s success over their political prejudices. This is where we have been for three years, and this is where we remain.

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ONE LEGGED MUNDIAL … A MUST WATCH BEFORE ISRAEL KICKS IT OFF THE NET

June 24, 2018 at 13:33 (Gaza, Sports)

A new soccer team for amputees gives refugees in Gaza new hope.

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MONTH OF PRIDE FOR BDS

June 6, 2018 at 12:38 (Activism, Argentina, Cartoons, DesertPeace Exclusive, International Solidarity, Sports)

First, they were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize …

Now this;

Argentina’s Soccer Association cancels the friendly soccer match between Argentina and “Israel”, planned to be held in occupied Jerusalem soon, in response to BDS 

Image by Carlos Latuff

Argentina cancels football friendly with Israel in Jerusalem

The match was expected to be played at the Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem which was once home to a Palestinian village.

Argentina‘s national football team has cancelled an upcoming friendly match with Israel, Argentine news sources reported.

Argentinian sports website Minutouno reported on Tuesday that Saturday’s game in Jerusalem had been “suspended” amid an “escalation of violence, threats and criticism” directed at captain ‘Leo’ Messi.

Argentina, a major contender to win the World Cupthis summer, has made four previous pre-World Cup visits to Israel since 1986.

The fixture between the two teams was set to be played in Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium on June 9, which is built on land that was once a Palestinian village that was destroyed in 1948.

Israeli media reported that in light of this latest development, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak to his Argentinian counterpart Mauricio Macri by telephone.

The ambassador of Palestine in Argentina, Husni Abdel Wahed, had expressed his opposition to the friendly.

“This match would be similar to us celebrating … the occupation of Malvinas,” he told Radio Cooperativa on Tuesday, referring to the Falkland Islands.

Abdel Wahed went on to say that the match was part of the celebrations of Israel’s 70th anniversary since its establishment in 1948, after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their villages and lands by Zionist paramilitaries.

“For us, it is unacceptable to hold this game in Jerusalem because it is occupied territory, and it is painful to see that the team, which has the love and support of so many Palestinians and Arab citizens, support the violation of international law,” he said.

‘Nothing friendly about military occupation ‘

Last month, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement launched a campaign urging Argentina to pull out of the fixture.

“There is nothing ‘friendly’ about military occupation and apartheid,” the movement said, which calls for an end to the occupation of Palestine, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and equal rights for Palestinians citizens of Israel.

“Don’t play Israel until Palestinians’ human rights are respected.”

BDS criticised the fixture as “political”, and accused Israeli officials of using it to cover up attacks on Palestinians “on and off the field”.

As part of the campaign, Mohammed Khalil, a Palestinian footballer, directed a message towards Argentina’s beloved forward Lionel Messi.

“I call on the Argentinian team and especially captain Lionel Messi – because he is very popular in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip – to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and to boycott the scheduled game with Israel, which is occupying our land,” Khalil said.

Khalil was shot by Israeli snipers on March 30, during the first Friday protests of Palestinians demonstrating east of Gaza, demanding their right to return.

He was shot in both of his legs, and one of his kneecaps had to be removed, putting an end to his footballing career.

Earlier this week, the head of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) Jibril Rajoub slammed the friendly as being opposite “a game of peace”.

“The Israeli government is trying to give it political significance by insisting it be held in Jerusalem,” Rajoub said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

3 Comments

ISRAELI RACISTS LAUD TRUMP

May 22, 2018 at 15:43 (Israel, Racism, Sports)

“I think it’s quite fitting for a racist soccer team to give homage to a man who encapsulates what Israel has embodied under the cover of liberalism, namely a self-righteous and violent goal of establishing a racial and religious supremacy. This is not just about his embassy move, this is about a shared—and destructive—vision for the world.”

Beitar soccer fans march in Jerusalem chanting racist slogans

Israel’s Most Racist Soccer Club Renames Itself After Donald Trump

If there were ever two entities that deserve each other, it’s Beitar Jerusalem and Donald Trump.

By Dave Zirin

Jerusalem’s most successful soccer team, Beitar Jerusalem, has announced—in celebration of the US embassy relocation to Jerusalem and assumedly in triumph following the massacre of 60 Palestinians in Gaza who were protesting the move—that they are now naming themselves after Donald Trump. In a message posted on their Facebook page, the soccer club wrote, “For 70 years has Jerusalem been awaiting international recognition, until President Donald Trump, in a courageous move, recognized Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel.”

If there were ever two entities that deserve each other, it is Beitar Jerusalem and Donald Trump. Just as Trump has a 45-year documented past of racism, the latest chapter being his statement that undocumented immigrants are “animals” (no, he wasn’t just referring to MS-13), Beitar Jerusalem shares a similar history and similar rhetoric. They are known internationally less for their on-field success than their anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hiring practices and fan supporters who engage in racist violence.

It was in the 1990s when this club, whose supporters had always rooted themselves in the hard-right, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim politics of “revisionism,” formed ”hooligan” clubs modeled after the violent skinhead soccer fan formations in Western Europe. (Their admiration for groups that were openly sympathetic to Nazi tells a story all its own.)

It was also in the 1990s when the these “fan clubs” particularly the one most known for racist violence, called La Familia, adopted the slogan and chant, “Death to the Arabs.” Their abuse of Arabs and Muslims was not confined to players on other teams. The club signed black, Muslim Nigerian defender Ibrahim Ndala in 2004. As Samirian Mishra wrote on the Football in Paradise blog, Ndala “left the club after just five games because of the torrent of abuse he received from his own fans.”

Mishra quotes Ndala saying,

“I left Betar because the fans abused me…. It was a bitter experience for me. They sang to me ‘son of a bitch,’ ‘Arab, go home.’ In Nigeria, I did not experience this kind of behaviour in my life, and it happened to me only in Beitar, and from the country, I came from, the rivalry was neither political nor ethnic, and because I was a Muslim I could not play Beitar.”

When the team, in 2013, signed two Muslim players, Zaur Sadayev and Dzhabrail Kadiyev, their “fans” set fire to a team office and Sadayev was met with boos and fan walk-outs when he scored a goal. When a fan favorite, captain and goalkeeper Ariel Harush, put his arm around Sadayev and Kadiyev on the field, in a show of support, he became an object of scorn. When Harush spoke out against racism and posted messages of solidarity toward Sadayev and Kadiyev, he was threatened with violence. This continued for several years, and Harush was booed every time he touched the ball. Both Muslim players left after the end of the season. Harush eventually was driven from the team as well.

Fans also chanted anti-Arab chants at Naala, Sadayev, and Kadiyev, which was bizarre, since none were Arab and the club refuses to sign Arab players. This is why Newsweek wrote about the team with the sub-headline, “Jerusalem’s favorite football team has hiring policies reminiscent of Apartheid and Jim Crow.”

Then there was the infamous moment in March of 2012 when hundreds of Beitar “fans” rushed a West Jerusalem mall, chanting “Death to Arabs,” and assaulted the Palestinian custodians who were there to clean up their trash. Mohammed Yusef, one of the cleaners, called it “a mass lynching attempt.” The headline in Haaretz was, “Hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem fans beat up Arab workers in mall; no arrests.”

This is the team now named after the president of the United States of America. I reached out to human-rights attorney and assistant professor at George Mason University Noura Erakat for her response to the conjoining of Beitar Jerusalem and Donald Trump. She said,

“I think it’s quite fitting for a racist soccer team to give homage to a man who encapsulates what Israel has embodied under the cover of liberalism, namely a self-righteous and violent goal of establishing a racial and religious supremacy. This is not just about his embassy move, this is about a shared—and destructive—vision for the world.”

We have seen in other countries the ways that soccer-fan clubs can easily become shock troops of ethnic cleansing. This is Beitar Jerusalem, and they are getting further inspiration from the actions and rhetoric of the president of the United States. They deserve each other, but neither the Palestinian people nor the people of this country deserve either of them.

1 Comment

KNEE JERK REACTIONS ON THE FOOTBALL FIELD

September 25, 2017 at 10:46 (Activism, Corrupt Politics, DesertPeace Exclusive, Sports)

It started with Colin Kaepernik‘s lone protest …. here is where we are at now!

Steelers will not report to the field for the National Anthem

And protest they did!

To display unity in light of President Donald Trump’s recent comments, the Pittsburgh Steelers stayed in their locker room when the national anthem was played Sunday at Soldier Field in Chicago. The Bears locked arms on their sideline.

Related Images …..

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Trump Just Endorsed A Boycott Of The NFL

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Above images courtesy of ‘The Other 98%’

Two related articles …. MUST READS! (Click on links)

The Fragile, Toxic Masculinity of Donald Trump

His comments about NFL players reveal just how divisive and narcissistic the president really is.

By Dave Zirin

For the NFL, It Was ‘Choose Your Side Sunday’

Donald Trump thought targeting NFL players with his racialized venom would be smart politics. He was wrong.

By Dave Zirin

3 Comments

JESSE JACKSON: DISSENT IS A PATRIOTIC TRADITION

September 6, 2017 at 11:52 (Activism, Dissent, Sports)

Kaepernick stands in a proud history of African-American athletes who have used their prominence to protest racism at home and unjust wars abroad. They have chosen to speak out at the height of their powers and in their prime money-making years. Often they have paid a high price personally, in their careers, their finances, their stature. And yet in the end, their sacrifice helped make this country better.

Muhammad Ali opposed the Vietnam War and was prosecuted for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces, stripped of his title and barred from fighting. He lost some of the best years of his boxing life, but his protest helped build the antiwar movement that eventually brought that tragic and misbegotten war to an end.

Colin Kaepernick’s Protest is Part of a Patriotic Tradition

by JESSE JACKSON

Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, is being blackballed — itself a revealing phrase — from the National Football League with the collusion of the all-white owners. He is ostracized because a year ago he exercised his First Amendment right to free speech by taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem.

Kaepernick isn’t hooked on drugs. He isn’t a felon. He hasn’t brutalized women. He is treated as a pariah because he protested the continued oppression “of black people and people of color.” He wanted, he said, to make people “realize what’s going on in this country. … There are a lot of things going on that are unjust, people aren’t being held accountable for, and that’s something that needs to change.” Born in Milwaukee, Wis., one of the most racially segregated cities in America, Kaepernick is particularly concerned about police brutality and the shocking police shootings of unarmed African Americans.

Surely his cause is just. Tens of thousands have joined peaceful demonstrations against police brutality in cities across the country. That movement, led by Black Lives Matter, put the issue of our institutionalized criminal injustice system back on the national agenda. Under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department reached agreements with dozens of police departments to change police training and tactics. There was bipartisan agreement to change racially discriminatory sentencing practices.

Kaepernick’s protest was nonviolent and dignified. The San Francisco 49ers, the NFL and President Obama all agreed that it was a protected act of free speech.

Yet the owners of the NFL and their front offices have ostracized Kaepernick. No follower of the sport would question his skill level. There are 64 quarterbacks on NFL teams, many of whom can’t hold a candle to Kaepernick. He’s ranked as the 17th best quarterback in the league. When he came back from injury last year, he started the last 11 games, racking up a 90.7 QB rating, with 16 touchdowns running and passing and only four interceptions, while playing on a team sorely lacking in talent. That rating was better than stars like Cam Newton, Philip Rivers and Eli Manning, among others.

Sports writers report that Kaepernick is loathed by the white owners and front offices, some of whom denounce him as unpatriotic. But what Kaepernick did — a dignified, nonviolent protest to raise awareness of a true and just cause — is the height of patriotism. It is the essence of democratic citizenship.

Others claim Kaepernick is excluded because he would be divisive, and teams have to be run with military discipline. But, our military has learned to succeed with people of all races, genders, sexual preferences and political perspectives. Almost 70 percent of the players on NFL teams are African American. For most of them, Kaepernick’s protests are not as divisive as Tom Brady’s open support of Donald Trump. Last year, Kaepernick’s teammates voted to give him the annual award for “inspirational and courageous play.”

No, Kaepernick is being treated as a pariah by the private club of white owners who are terrified of controversy. They clean up big time from public subsidies — tax breaks, public contributions to stadiums, television contracts — and they tremble at anything that might disrupt the gravy train. They want to make an example of Kaepernick as a way of teaching the rest of the players a lesson, hoping to keep plantation-like control of their players.

Kaepernick stands in a proud history of African-American athletes who have used their prominence to protest racism at home and unjust wars abroad. They have chosen to speak out at the height of their powers and in their prime money-making years. Often they have paid a high price personally, in their careers, their finances, their stature. And yet in the end, their sacrifice helped make this country better.

Muhammad Ali opposed the Vietnam War and was prosecuted for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces, stripped of his title and barred from fighting. He lost some of the best years of his boxing life, but his protest helped build the antiwar movement that eventually brought that tragic and misbegotten war to an end.

Curt Flood, an all-star centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, refused to be bought and sold “like a slave.” His protest and litigation cost him much of his career, but it broke open the owners’ control of players, opened the way to free agency and transformed baseball.

Jackie Robinson broke open the racial barrier in baseball. He endured seasons of racial insult, on and off the field. His remarkable skill and character transformed baseball, and helped spur the civil rights movement. He joined Dr. King in the demonstrations for civil rights. In his autobiography, “I Never Had It Made,” published just before his death, he related his own feelings about the national anthem, as it played at the beginning of his first World Series game:

“There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper … a symbolic hero to my people. … The band struck up the National Anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the National Anthem poured from the stands. Perhaps, it was, but then again….

“As I write this 20 years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”

Colin Kaepernick stands in a proud tradition. For choosing to speak out, he has been shut out. The collusion of the owners not only violates antitrust laws; it tramples basic constitutional protections. The NFL owners should be called to account, not Kaepernick.

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ANOTHER ACT OF SOLIDARITY ON THE SPORT’S FIELD

August 31, 2016 at 13:43 (Activism, Civil Rights, Racism, Sports)

It is inspiring to see an athlete who cares more about the world than their own ambitions. And it is stunning that so many people are saying that an NFL player this thoughtful and selfless is somehow a “bad” role model, in a league so rife with scandal from the owner’s box to the locker room.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick answers questions at a news conference on Friday, August 26, 2016. (AP Photo / Ben Margot)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick answers questions at a news conference on Friday, August 26, 2016. (AP Photo / Ben Margot)

America Needs to Listen to What Colin Kaepernick Is Actually Trying to Say

Too many people are talking about patriotism and etiquette instead of reckoning with the substance of his critique.

By Dave Zirin

There has been a lot of analysis—both thoughtful and noxious—of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit down during the national anthem in the past few days. Unfortunately, there has been less conversation about the politics behind his action.

Instead of reckoning with the substance of his critique, much of the media coverage has fostered an abstract discussion about patriotism and etiquette—centering the question of whether he has the “right” to protest rather than examining what it is he’s trying to say.

As Charles Modiano breaks down brilliantly, this is the wrong approach:

Colin Kaepernick’s deliberate act of protest to sit out the national anthem caught the nation’s attention, and this initial sentence framed most media headlines: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.” But the meat of Kaepernick’s cause actually came two sentences later: “There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Hold it right there: “Getting away with murder.” That is the story.

Kaepernick makes it clear that his action was connected to the movement against police violence. But a closer examination of his 18-minute press avail on Sunday reveals even more about his motivations and thinking. The transcript itself contains the most effective defense against the legions trying to distort or delegitimize his actions.

Responding to reporters, Kaepernick demonstrated a methodical and, whether you agree or disagree, ideologically consistent rationale for sitting out the anthem. Kaepernick is appalled by police brutality, which he sees as an expression of bipartisan, government-sanctioned violence. He wants to use his platform to raise awareness and is willing to risk his job to do it. He is, as ESPN columnist Bomani Jones put it, “asking for justice, not peace.”

In the presser, Kaepernick said:

These aren’t new situations. This isn’t new ground. There are things that have gone on in this country for years and years and have never been addressed, and they need to be. There’s a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality. There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That’s not right. That’s not right by anyone’s standards.

When asked if he would continue to sit during the anthem, he answered,

Yes. I’ll continue to sit. I’m going to continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed. To me, this is something that has to change. When there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.

He was immediately asked if this stance meant he was anti-military, and he responded:

I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. That’s not happening. People are dying in vain because this country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up, as far as giving freedom and justice, liberty to everybody. That’s something that’s not happening. I’ve seen videos, I’ve seen circumstances where men and women that have been in the military have come back and been treated unjustly by the country they have fought for, and have been murdered by the country they fought for, on our land. That’s not right.

One of the more outrageous–and offensive—arguments from the sports commentariat is that because Kaepernick is biracial and was raised by white parents in a middle-class suburb, he could not understand “oppression.” This charge has been almost uniformly made by white, right-wing sportswriters. Kaepernick was asked if he “personally” felt oppressed, and he said:

There have been situations where I feel like I’ve been ill-treated, yes. This stand wasn’t for me. This stand wasn’t because I feel like I’m being put down in any kind of way. This is because I’m seeing things happen to people that don’t have a voice, people that don’t have a platform to talk and have their voices heard, and affect change. So I’m in the position where I can do that, and I’m going to do that for people that can’t.

This isn’t for looks. This isn’t for publicity or anything like that. This is for people that don’t have the voice. And this is for people that are being oppressed and need to have equal opportunities to be successful, to provide for families and not live in poor circumstances.

Kaepernick also told his own story of being black in the United States:

I’ve had times where one of my roommates was moving out of the house in college, and because we were the only black people in that neighborhood, the cops got called and we had guns drawn on us. Came in the house, without knocking, guns drawn on my teammates and roommates. So I have experienced this. People close to me have experienced this. This isn’t something that’s a one-off case here or a one-off case there. This has become habitual. This has become a habit. So this is something that needs to be addressed.

Another argument some have made is that, while Kaepernick’s message is fine, his actions are not. That not standing for the flag is the “wrong way” to do things. Again, he had a thought-out response:

I don’t understand how it’s the wrong way. To me, this is a freedom that we’re allowed in this country. And going back to the military, it’s a freedom that men and women that have fought for this country have given me this opportunity by contributions they have made. So I don’t see it as going about it the wrong way. This is something that has to be said, it has to be brought to the forefront of everyone’s attention, and when that’s done, I think people can realize what the situation is and then really [e]ffect change.… And the fact that it has blown up like this, I think it’s a good thing. It brings awareness. Everybody knows what’s going on and this sheds more light on it. Now I think people are really talking about it, having conversations about how to make change. What’s really going on in this country. And we can move forward.

Kaepernick was asked about concern that he would be seen as indicting all police and again, in a focused manner, brought it back to a political argument about how broken our system of policing has become. “There is police brutality,” he said.

People of color have been targeted by police. So that’s a large part of it and they’re government officials. They are put in place by the government. So that’s something that this country has to change. There’s things we can do to hold them more accountable. Make those standards higher. You have people that practice law and are lawyers and go to school for eight years, but you can become a cop in six months and don’t have to have the same amount of training as a cosmetologist. That’s insane. Someone that’s holding a curling iron has more education and more training than people that have a gun and are going out on the street to protect us.

He was asked whether this was because it was an election year, which is its own statement about how we view politics in this country: something to practice for a few months every four years.

It wasn’t a timing thing, it wasn’t something that was planned, but I think the two presidential candidates that we currently have also represent the issues that we have in this country right now. You have Hillary [Clinton], who has called black teens or black kids super predators. You have Donald Trump, who is openly racist. We have a presidential candidate (Clinton) who has deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me. If that was any other person, you’d be in prison. So what is this country really standing for?

Lastly, Kaepernick was asked whether he was concerned about getting cut and said, “I don’t know. But if I do, I know I did what’s right. And I can live with that at the end of the day.”

It is inspiring to see an athlete who cares more about the world than their own ambitions. And it is stunning that so many people are saying that an NFL player this thoughtful and selfless is somehow a “bad” role model, in a league so rife with scandal from the owner’s box to the locker room.

It is also pathetic that so many in the sports media, who a few months ago were praising the legacy of Muhammad Ali, are coming down so ferociously on Colin Kaepernick. As if sports and politics can mix only in the past tense, and racism is something that can only be discussed as a historical question. People can choose to agree or disagree with Kaepernick’s analysis or arguments, but they should deal with the actuality of what he is risking his career to bring into the light.

1 Comment

#Celtics ~~ THE SAGA CONTINUES

August 25, 2016 at 12:34 (International Solidarity, Israel's Shame, Palestine, Sports)

Glasgow Celtic fans have launched a fundraiser to match any fine that Europe’s ruling football body, UEFA, will give the Scottish club for an expression of Palestine solidarity at a recent game against the Israeli team Hapoel Beer Sheva.

UEFA has announced that it has opened disciplinary proceedings against Celtic for display of an “illicit banner.” The “illicit banner” is a reference to Palestinian flags waved by Celtic supporters last week.

Fans hold up Palestine flags during Glasgow Celtic’s match against an Israeli football team on 17 August. (Russell Cheyne/ Reuters)

Fans hold up Palestine flags during Glasgow Celtic’s match against an Israeli football team on 17 August. (Russell Cheyne/ Reuters)

 

Celtic fans defy threat by hugging Palestine tighter

Liam O’Hare

Glasgow Celtic fans have launched a fundraiser to match any fine that Europe’s ruling football body, UEFA, will give the Scottish club for an expression of Palestine solidarity at a recent game against the Israeli team Hapoel Beer Sheva.

UEFA has announced that it has opened disciplinary proceedings against Celtic for display of an “illicit banner.” The “illicit banner” is a reference to Palestinian flags waved by Celtic supporters last week.

The fundraising campaign has been set up by the Green Brigade, a Celtic fan group, which has pledged to put part of the money towards setting up and sustaining a youth soccer team in the occupied West Bank.

Another part of the proceeds will go to the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, MAP.

The Green Brigade “ultras” were largely behind a solidarity action at a Champions League against Hapoel Beer Sheva match in Celtic Park, the Glasgow club’s home ground, last week. Celtic won the game by five goals to two.

Supporting Palestine

The money raised by the Green Brigade will not actually go towards paying any fine imposed by UEFA. Rather, it will be used to support projects in Palestine.

Green Brigade has described UEFA’s disciplinary proceedings as “petty and politically partisan.”

It set the objective of raising £15,000 (about $20,000) to form and sustain a football team, Aida Celtic, based in Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp.

The target of £15,000 is based on a previous fine UEFA handed out to the club after another display of Palestine solidarity in 2014.

By Monday, the Green Brigade had already raised more than three times the initial £15,000 target, according to the fundraising page.

Celtic fans have previously raised funds for Aida camp. A youth delegation from the camp toured Scotland earlier this summer.

The only football pitch in the camp was built by the Lajee Cultural Center in Aida. Its coordinator, Salah Ajarma, has welcomed the initiative and pledged to call the team Aida Celtic in recognition of the show of support from Celtic fans.

“It will mean so much to our young people to be part of an official team, to have boots and strips and to represent the camp wearing the colors of our friends,” Ajarma was quoted as saying by the Green Brigade group. “Aida Celtic will be a source of pride for all in Aida.”

The funds raised will provide equipment, team uniforms and cover travel costs to allow the camp to enter a team in the Bethlehem Youth League. It will also pay for an annual Aida Celtic football tournament of teams from refugee camps across the West Bank.

Sense of history

UEFA bans the display of symbols deemed political at football games.

Celtic has strong connections to the Irish community in Glasgow. The repeated displays of solidarity reflect the affinity between Irish people and Palestinians as both have experienced colonization and occupation.

“There is a strong sense of history among that community, even though it’s now third, fourth and fifth generation Irish,” Scottish historian Tom Devine told Al Jazeera. “The situation in Palestine is a classic example of land that is being taken from people who lived there for generations. It chimes in with the course of Irish history.”

In a statement following last week’s game, the Green Brigade explained that its action sought to challenge the normalization of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

“From our work with grassroots Palestinian groups in the West Bank and the refugee camps of Bethlehem, we know the positive impact international solidarity has on those living in the open prisons of the occupied territories,” the Green Brigade stated.

“We also know that their suffering cannot be ignored by the international community and last night’s actions also sought to raise awareness of the boycott, divest, sanctions (BDS) campaign which seeks to challenge the normalization of the Israeli occupation.”

Since the action last week the story has gone viral on social media with Palestinians using the hashtag #thankscelticfans to show their appreciation for the display.

In Ramallah, the crest of the club was projected onto a building over the weekend.

Celtic will play the return tie in Israel on Tuesday.

2 Comments

TOON OF TODAY ~~ CELTICS MATCH THE FINE FOR PALESTINE

August 23, 2016 at 11:18 (Activism, Associate Post, Cartoons, International Solidarity, Palestine, Sports)

Image by Carlos Latuff

Match the Fine for Palestine

Match the Fine for Palestine

#matchthefineforpalestine

We, the Green Brigade, are the passionate Ultra fans of Celtic Football Club, Scotland’s most famous and successful football team. At the Champions League match with Hapoel Beer Sheva on 17 August 2016, the Green Brigade and fans throughout Celtic Park flew the flag for Palestine. This act of solidarity has earned our club respect and acclaim throughout the world. It has also attracted a disciplinary charge from UEFA, which deems the Palestinian flag to be an ‘illicit banner’

In response to this petty and politically partisan act by European football’s governing body, we are determined to make a positive contribution to the game and today launch a campaign to #matchthefineforpalestine. We aim to raise £75,000 which will be split equally between Medical Aid Palestine (MAP) and the Lajee Centre, a Palestinian cultural centre in Aida Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem. From our members’ experiences as volunteers in Palestine we know the huge importance of both organisations’ work and have developed close contacts with them.

MAP is a UK-based charity which delivers health and medical care to Palestinians worst affected by conflict, occupation and displacement. Working in partnership with local health care providers and hospitals, MAP provides vital public health and emergency response services. This includes training and funding a team of Palestinian surgeons and medics to treat and operate on those affected by the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip.

MAP has publicly thanked the Celtic support and all who have donated for their support. You can read their statement and find out more about their incredible work on their website: http://www.map-uk.org/home/homepage (their statement is available here:http://www.map-uk.org/news/archive/post/43…r-palestinians).
All funds raised for Medical Aid Palestine will go to mending broken limbs in Gaza and other vitally important projects in the Occupied Territories and Palestinian refugee camps.

Aida is one of 19 refugee camps in the West Bank and has for 66 years played temporary home to Palestinians forcibly expelled from their homes in Hebron and Jerusalem. Its residents live in the shadow of Israel’s apartheid wall, cut off from social and economic opportunities by the wall and neighbouring illegal settlements and military checkpoints.

For the young people of Aida, the Lajee Centre in the heart of the camp offers hope and an escape from the realities of life under Israeli occupation. Its programme of arts, culture and sporting activities are a lifeline for its impoverished and oppressed people.

Last year, the Centre built Aida’s only football pitch. Residents had previously played on recreation ground that has now been stolen by the wall. Within months of opening, the new pitch was severely damaged by tear gas canisters fired onto it by the Israeli military. It is now protected by metal netting.

Funds raised will provide a much needed boost to this fantastic project and will allow the Lajee Centre to extend its arts, dance and football programmes. As a token of their appreciation, the Centre have committed to setting up and sustaining the camp’s first ever football club and to name it Aida Celtic.

Aida Celtic will enter the Bethlehem Youth League at the start of 2017 and will host a tournament for teams from all of the West Bank’s refugee camps in Spring next year. Your generosity will also allow the Centre to buy a minibus for use in transporting Aida Celtic to matches and its other groups around Palestine.

Salah Ajarma, the Lajee Centre’s Coordinator told us the importance Aida Celtic will have for residents of the camp: “it will mean so much to our young people to be part of an official team, to have boots and strips and to represent the camp wearing the colours of our friends. Aida Celtic will be a source of pride for all in Aida”.

You can hear more from Aida’s young people and the volunteers at the Lajee Centre here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdm09DOieHc

We have been overwhelmed by the early response to this appeal and have set a new target of £75,000. Any money raised above this sum will continue to be split on an equal basis between MAP and the Lajee Centre, and will go some way to mending the broken limbs and damaged lives of the displaced and deprived people of Palestine.

At the end of the fundraising drive we will present representatives of both organisations with a cheque for their share in Glasgow.

Let’s #matchthefineforpalestine and show the footballing establishment the true spirit of the game.

3 Comments

OLYMPIC IMAGES ~~ ISRAEL’S PRIVATE GAMES

August 22, 2016 at 15:01 (Boycott Israel, Corrupt Politics, Israel, Palestine, Sports)

While is  celebrating closing ceremony Israel continues the murdering games of airstrikes

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A new milestone: BDS at the Olympics

Nada Elia
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Islam El Shehaby refuses to shake Or Sasson's hand. (Photo: Getty images)

Islam El Shehaby refuses to shake Or Sasson’s hand. (Photo: Getty images)

“I have no problem with Jewish people or any other religion or different beliefs. But for personal reasons, you can’t ask me to shake the hand of anyone from this state, especially in front of the whole world.” These words, spoken by an individual who has just engaged in a gesture of support for the Palestinian people, are a standard response to the accusation of anti-Semitism which is routinely hurled at pro-justice activists.

The necessary distinction made between the “Jewish people” and the Israeli state is one Israel itself seeks to erase, as it strives to deflect all criticism of its policies, blaming it on anti-Jewish hatred instead. As such, these words do not in themselves establish new grounds, but a new approach to solidarity. Yet as Egyptian judoka Islam El-Shehaby uttered them last week in Brazil, they signified a new milestone: the sports boycott had arrived at the 2016 Olympic Games.

“Shaking the hand of your opponent is not an obligation written in the judo rules. It happens between friends and he’s not my friend,” El Shehaby explained, in the fallout from his action, which resulted in his dismissal from the games, for “poor sportsmanship.”

One day before El-Shehaby’s refusal to shake the hand of the Israeli Olympian he had just competed with, another judoka, Saudi Joud Fahmy, had withdrawn from the competition, in order not to have to compete against an Israeli athlete, should she win and advance to the next round.

And yet two days earlier, the Lebanese team had refused to let Israeli athletes ride on the same bus that had picked them up first, on its way to the opening ceremony. The Lebanese athletes persistently blocked the door, preventing the Israelis from getting onto the bus. As a result, the International Olympic Committee had to send in a separate bus for the Israelis.

While the Olympics are without a doubt an athletic competition, they are also, and to an equal degree, about the countries that send these athletes to the games. At the end of the day, and at the end of the games, we have a countdown of medals by country. And even as the Games are said to be about nations coming together, they are really yet another venue for pitting nations against each other. When any athlete competes, their country and their country’s flag is displayed as prominently as their own name. The winner’s national anthem is played during the medal ceremony, and all are expected to show their respect to that country. It is no surprise that the formidable gold medalist Gabby Douglas has been pilloried by her compatriots for her refusal to place her hand on her heart during the US national anthem, (even though she was otherwise very respectful), and one of the most iconic political images in Olympics history remains the raised Black Power fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

Of course then, the snubbing by Lebanese, Egyptian, and Saudi athletes of members of the Israeli delegation is a political act. And of course, Israel has complained that these athletes “are bringing their respective countries’ ongoing conflict with Israel to the Rio games.”

The actions of these athletes are in keeping with the Palestinian call for global solidarity in the form of BDS, including the sports boycott of Israel. A sports boycott is an individual gesture with the greater immediate negative consequences suffered by the person engaging in it, as they will likely be disqualified from further competition. Yet the Arab athletes who refused to normalize with the Israelis have been criticized as violating “etiquette” and “the Olympic spirit.” Which drives one to wonder, is this yet another venue where Israeli exceptionalism wins, as the violent, racist state is left off the hook, not held accountable for its assault on Palestinian athletes?

Over the recent years, Israel has prevented Olympics-bound Palestinian team chiefs from leaving the country. It had restricted their freedom of movement, making it basically impossible for them to practice in adequate facilities, and it has shot at the ankles of Palestinian soccer players. Where was the criticism when these crimes were committed? Two years ago, an international campaign to ban Israel from FIFA, because of its human rights violations, had failed to pressure the international organization into censoring that country.

When no official organization is willing to hold Israel accountable, individuals can do so. The snubbing by some athletes of the Israeli delegation is a noble gesture in a political arena, and it is incumbent on us to appreciate it for what it is: a refusal to normalize with a country that bombs young boys playing on the beach, prevents young swimmers from reaching a pool, and prohibits Olympic hopefuls in Gaza from training with their compatriots in the West Bank. We then can surely appreciate the exquisite irony of the separate buses at the Olympic village for the delegation from a country that builds separate roads for its Jewish citizens, transporting them to their Jewish settlements in illegally occupied territories.

While the Olympics athletes were competing in Rio, another game was being played halfway around the world with an overt political message as well: we will not be cowered into “civility” towards an apartheid state. In Glasgow, Scotland, fans of Scotland’s Celtic FC had organized an event to “Fly the Flag for Palestine, for Celtic, for Justice,” during a game against the Israeli team Hapoel Beer Sheva.  The Facebook page of the event is clear about its understanding of the political reality of Israel, as the organizers explain that the display of flags would be to “invoke our democratic rights to display our opposition to Israeli apartheid, settler-colonialism and countless massacres of the Palestinian people.”

The fans had been warned by UEFA that they could face fines or the closing down of part of their stadium if they flew the Palestinian flag. But, as John Wight writes, “Celtic supporters are typically among the most politically aware and conscious of any demographic in society. For them Celtic is more than just another football club it is a political and social institution, one that has always stood and must continue to stand for justice in the face of injustice, racism, oppression, and against apartheid wherever and whenever it arises.”

Around the world, the Palestinian flag—almost like the kuffiyeh—has taken on a dimension beyond nationalism to signify progressive politics, a collective stand against systemic violence, and anti-colonialism everywhere. And as the game began, Palestinian flags appeared everywhere in the stands. A sea of Palestinian flags greeted the Israeli team in defiance of UEFA rules, and at the risk of the Celtic FC being penalized. Yes, flying the flag was without a doubt an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people. But it was also a rejection of the system behind the oppression of the Palestinian people; a rejection of apartheid, colonialism and racism. The display of hundreds of Palestinian flags at the Celtic FC game showed an understanding of shared experiences of discrimination, disenfranchisement, dispossession, and a rejection of the Zionist narrative. Every flag that flew in that stadium ripped at Israel’s projection of normalcy and its paper-thin veneer of “democracy.” And the media carried the news around the globe, amplifying the gesture.

Beyond the boycott of consumer products in grocery stores, BDS has so far dealt a major blow to Israel’s image. Artists continue to cancel scheduled concerts in Tel Aviv, academic associations are voting to boycott complicit Israeli institutions, churches are screening their portfolios to divest from companies that profit from Israel’s illegal practices, and the recent events in Scotland and at the 2016 Olympics are the principled athletes’ way of saying: we do not normalize with the representatives of a pariah state. Before these gestures get spun into anti-Semitic incidents by Zionist hasbara, it is incumbent upon BDS activists and organizers to explain the context of the snubbing, the defiance, and the refusal to engage in “good sportsmanship” with a country that violates the most basic human rights of an entire people.

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IN PHOTOS ~~ PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY IN THE FOOTBALL STADIUM

August 18, 2016 at 15:45 (International Solidarity, Palestine, Sports, zionist harassment)

Celtic fans were warned not to raise the Palestine flag when they played an Israeli team. So they raised a thousand flags.

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Celtic fans ignore threats of fine and show support for Palestine as they play the Israeli team Beer Sheva.

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Carlos Latuff commented on the above ….

I dunno much about the Celtics, but this demonstration deserves all my respect.

7 Comments

IN TOONS ~~ WELCOME TO RIO

August 7, 2016 at 08:01 (Associate Post, Brazil, Cartoons, Corrupt Politics, Sports)

Images by Carlos Latuff (Direct from Rio)

The Police welcome protesters

The Police welcome protesters

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Brazil wins its first medal in the Olympics for shooting...Black and poor people!

Brazil wins its first medal in the Olympics for shooting…Black and poor people!

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President Michel Temer lights the torch

President Michel Temer lights the torch

And the real winner is ……

Let's get the Olympics started!!!

Let’s get the Olympics started!!!

 

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ISRAEL AND PALESTINE AGREE: KEEP POLITICS OUT OF SOCCER

May 12, 2015 at 11:54 (Israel, Palestine, Sports)

“Keep sports and politics separate” morphs into code for ‘just shut up and play.”

Palestinian national soccer team players. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Palestinian national soccer team players. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Israel and Palestine Agree: Keep Politics Out of Soccer

Dave Zirin

We have before us a point of agreement between Netanyahu’s Israel and the militarily vivisected area of land at times referred to as the Palestinian territories: the idea that sports and politics should not mix. Tragically—not unlike words such as “life,” “liberty,” and that whole “pursuing happiness” thing—the phrase means far less as it journeys from abstraction to reality. Israeli Football Association Chairman Ofer Eini and Chief Executive Rotem Kamer traveled to Zurich, Switzerland, last week to meet with reptilian FIFA chief (and self-described women’s soccer “godfather”) Sepp Blatter. Their mission? To change a meeting agenda item. The Palestinian Football Authority is scheduled to propose having Israel banned as a FIFA member country at the May 29 meeting of the organization’s global congress. Eini and Kamer want to get that proposal and all debate on the subject removed, with Eini describing the vote as “a flagrant move that seeks to mix politics with sport—something that is completely contrary to FIFA’s vision.” (For brevity’s sake, we will leave aside unpacking how “not mixing politics with sport” has about as much in common with “FIFA’s vision” as a KFC bucket of extra crispy has with “PETA’s vision.”)

Then there is Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Authority. Rajoub says that he is pushing this proposal for the same reason that Israel is trying to prevent it from coming forward. “What I am trying to do is separate completely football and politics,” said Rajoub in an interview with Middle East Eye. “Sport is a tool to bridge gaps, to build bridges with all people all over the world.”

Rajoub wants Israel sanctioned because he believes that the travel restrictions and checkpoints, imposed by the Israeli government on the Palestinian Territories—not to mention the militarized separation of the West Bank and Gaza—has made the development of Palestinian soccer nearly impossible (this despite theirrecent historic qualification for the 2015 Asian Cup). Rajoub also plans on citing the detention and mistreatment of Palestinian national players by the Israeli Defense Forces, as well as the recent comments by Beitar Jerusalem coach Guy Levi, who said on the radio last month that their team would “never” sign an Arab player.

“The Israelis are enjoying the status afforded by being part of FIFA, while depriving a neighbouring administration of their rights to play football,” said Rajoub. “For years we have asked confederations in Asia and Europe to interfere and stop the suffering of Palestinian footballers…. When that didn’t work, we decided to go directly to FIFA’s general assembly.”

The PA would need 75 percent of the 209 global associations, which is unlikely, but if it passes, Israel, in the words of Kamer, would see “all its international activities…come to a halt,” It would also be an isolating public relations nightmare for Netanyahu’s already beleaguered government. Just as the prime minister has been trying to get the stink of a highly racialized re-election campaign off his body, he has been under fire for the treatment by Israeli troops of Ethiopian Jews staging their own unprecedented #BlackLivesMatter protests against state violence. Israel and Netanyahu have also been waging a furious public relations campaign against the accusations of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that they are an apartheid country not unlike South Africa. If FIFA suspends Israel, it would become the first country banned by the soccer federation since—yikes!—apartheid South Africa.

Both sides want to keep sports and politics separate, which makes this a fascinating look at what people mean when they make that kind of a plea. In sports it is very common to hear this sentiment from owners, media, and fans but it is rarely if ever used to critique the hyper-militarization of sporting events or the use of public funds to build stadiums (or, in a recently exposed synthesis, the use of public funds to celebrate the military). In other words, it is not sports and politics that they want to keep separate but sports and a certain kind of politics. “Keep sports and politics separate” morphs into code for ‘just shut up and play.'”

In this case, the Israeli Football Association is saying, “Do not use sports as a way to argue for statehood. Sports is not the place for that kind of rhetoric.” The Palestinian FA is saying, “We can’t compete because the politics of the Israeli occupation makes developing soccer a near-impossibility.” This is a very tough argument for the Israeli FA to win. If sports and politics were truly kept separate, then the Palestinian Football Authority would be able to travel freely, receive foreign visitors, and enter international tournaments without the fear of not being able to show up. As I’ve argued here many times, attacking the ability of Palestinian soccer to develop is also about attacking fun, play, and hope. While the Palestinian FA has facts on their side, no observer expects them to win 75 percent of the vote. But if Blatter even prevents this from even being raised on May 29, it would be an ugly gesture from an ugly individual. FIFA is hardly a moral force in this world, but soccer certainly can be. It is the closest thing we have to a united global obsession that links every country. FIFA’s sole organizational obligation is to make sure that everyone has a chance to play. What worries Netanyahu is that discussing this issue in soccer then becomes like pulling a thread on a sweater. If soccer is warped by occupation, then what about education, healthcare, or basic staples of civil society? That’s a question the Israeli FA is now scrambling to see unasked.

 

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70 YEARS AFTER THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ SOME ISRAELIS STILL HAVE ‘RESPECT’ FOR RACISM

April 16, 2015 at 09:53 (Extremism, Irony, Israel, Palestine, Racism, Sports) 

Never Again! ~~ Unless They Are Palestinians!! 
(Click on underlined link)
Does the number mean anything today? (FROM)

Does the number mean anything today? (FROM)

The coach of Israel’s Beitar Jerusalem football team has said that he won’t bring on an Arab player out of respect for his club’s racist fans.

Players for Beitar Jerusalem, seen in yellow and black jerseys at a recent match against Maccabi Haifa, won’t have an Arab teammate any time soon, coach promises. (Henk Vogel/Flickr)

Players for Beitar Jerusalem, seen in yellow and black jerseys at a recent match against Maccabi Haifa, won’t have an Arab teammate any time soon, coach promises. (Henk Vogel/Flickr)

No Arab players need apply to Israeli football team, coach says

The coach of Israel’s Beitar Jerusalem football team has said that he won’t bring on an Arab player out of respect for his club’s racist fans.

“I don’t think it’s the right time. It would cause tensions and create much greater damage,” Guy Levi told Israel’s 102FM radio, according to Ynet.

Levi said that he didn’t think there were any Palestinian citizens of Israel who would play for his team.

“Even if there were a player who fit in professionally, I would not bring him in,” Levi said, “because it would create unnecessary tensions.”

While racism is endemic in Israeli football, Beitar is particularly notorious for the violence and hatred of its fans who have habitually rampaged in the streets chanting “Death to the Arabs” and anti-Muslim slurs.

Asked if he didn’t think bringing in an Arab player would help change the racist culture of the fans, Levi replied: “Let the education minister change the culture and not ask us to change the culture of a people that is centuries old.”

Levi said his job was to “coach the team, not to educate anyone.”

He then praised the club’s fans, which he called by their nickname “La Familia”: “I met La Familia recently, excellent people and fantastic fans. I respect the people who support my team.”

Six Israelis arrested for last summer’s abduction and lynching of Palestinian teenagerMuhammad Abu Khudair in eastern occupied Jerusalem were all reportedly members of “La Familia,” and would therefore have regularly been exposed to racist incitement.

Appeasing racists

In 2013, Beitar managers angered fans by bringing on two Muslim players from Chechnya.

Club manager Eli Cohen tried to calm them at the time by saying that “There’s a difference … between a European Muslim and an Arab Muslim.”

Ahmed Tibi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of Israel’s parliament, condemned Levi’s statements.

“This is the kind of thing that encourages racism and hatred in Israeli society in general and in Israeli football in particular,” Tibi said.

Tibi noted that the international football federation FIFA would take a keen interest as it already monitors racism in the Israeli league.

International pressure

FIFA and its European counterpart UEFA have long been under pressure to sanction or suspend Israel over pervasive racism.

But while other countries have suffered sanctions for racism, Israel has so far been given impunity.

Despite the pervasive racism, there are some Arab players on predominantly Jewish teams and Jewish players on predominantly Arab teams in the Israeli league.

With thanks to David Sheen for spotting this story.

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As the title of this post says, it’s only SOME Israelis that are involved …

There are many others who are not (Click on link)

IN ISRAEL ~~ A REAL PEACE PROCESS ON THE SOCCER FIELD

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IN ISRAEL ~~ A REAL PEACE PROCESS ON THE SOCCER FIELD

April 12, 2015 at 12:40 (Israel, Palestine, Peace Process, Sports)

Two soccer academies — one from the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa and the other from the Jewish neighborhood of Katamon — partnered last month to create Team of Equals, a joint team bringing together soccer enthusiasts across the national divide.

The children running slaloms through Hapoel Katamon’s soccer field in south Jerusalem would be indistinguishable from one another, were it not for the blue and white T-shirts setting apart Arab from Jew. Read more: In Jerusalem, kids get a kick out of coexistence | There IS HOPE for the future

The children running slaloms through Hapoel Katamon’s soccer field in south Jerusalem would be indistinguishable from one another, were it not for the blue and white T-shirts setting apart Arab from Jew.
There IS HOPE for the future

In Jerusalem, kids get a kick out of coexistence

Soccer can bring Arabs, Jews together rather than drive them apart, the initiators of a new binational children’s team believe

BY ELHANAN MILLER

Two soccer academies — one from the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa and the other from the Jewish neighborhood of Katamon — partnered last month to create Team of Equals, a joint team bringing together soccer enthusiasts across the national divide.

Incorporating roughly 100 children aged 9-12, the new team is supported by The New Israel Fund through its program “Kicking Out Racism and Violence.” According to a press statement released by NIF, the initiative’s goal is to “introduce Jewish children from West Jerusalem to Arab children from East Jerusalem in order to combat the division and hostility between them and advance a shared life in the city.”

Whether in Hebrew or Arabic, the children almost invariably said they rooted for Spanish club FC Barcelona and idolized its Argentinian forward Lionel Messi.

Children playing on Team of Equals practice soccer in Jerusalem, March 19, 2015 (photo credit: courtesy/Yossi Zamir)

Children playing on Team of Equals practice soccer in Jerusalem, March 19, 2015 (photo credit: courtesy/Yossi Zamir)

“I’ve been going to Hapoel Katamon soccer matches since I was three months old,” said third-grader Omri Tal-Gershkowitz, adding he liked the noise and excitement of the game. “I hope more children join so we can integrate Jews and Arabs.”

Ahmad Moussa Subhi, a sixth-grader from Beit Safafa, said he joined the team to meet new friends. He said language was no problem in communicating with his Jewish teammates, since he picked up Hebrew watching soccer and Israeli films on TV.

“I like running and the sporting spirit,” he explained.

Sixth-grader Ahmad Moussa Subhi of Beit Safafa, March 19, 2015 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel) Read more: In Jerusalem, kids get a kick out of coexistence | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-jerusalem-kids-get-a-kick-out-of-coexistence/#ixzz3X5reQNXo Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

Sixth-grader Ahmad Moussa Subhi of Beit Safafa, March 19, 2015 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)

Creating a binational team is far from simplein Israel’s capital. Beitar Jerusalem, the city’s largest team, is notorious for its fans’ anti-Arab chants. The Israeli Football Association fined the team NIS 40,000 ($10,000) in February after fans shouted racist slurs and spat in the direction of Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shemona forward Ahmad Abed during a home game in Teddy Stadium.

But Hapoel Katamon, a fan-owned club created in 2007, is meant to symbolize something completely different, said Shai Aharon, formerly the team’s star forward, who retired in 2014 to become its professional manager.

“From day one Hapoel Katamon stands for anti-racism and anti-violence,” Aharon told The Times of Israel. “All of our programs are based on mutual respect, values and community; things that are more important to us than achievements on the field.”

Team of Equals was Aharon’s brainchild, born following an arson attack against a bilingual school in Jerusalem last November.

“The attack stressed the sense that something must be done, some sort of corrective experience,” Aharon said. For him, nothing could be more natural than getting the Katamon children to play with “the children across the street.”

“Everyone will tell you that violence in sports is ugly and bad; the question is what can be done to solve the problem. The trick is to be part of the solution,” he said. “All we want to do, on our turf, is to make soccer like any other kind of leisure activity, like cinema or the theater, one you can take your wife and children to and feel comfortable.”

Itzik Shanan, director of communications at the New Israel Fund, said his organization has been working to combat racism in soccer for over a decade, both by monitoring matches and writing reports on racist incidents, and by initiating educational activities such as Kicking Out Racism and Violence. NIF’s partnership with Hapoel Katamon has been ongoing for over three years, he noted, boosted by the club’s outlook on equality and partnership as values.

“This sight is moving not only for someone working on these matters at the Fund, but also as a Jerusalemite, who lives here and wants his children to remain here,” Shanan told The Times of Israel as he watched the children practice passing. “Observe the level of cooperation, understanding and fairness taking place here.”

Children at this young age are less infused with racial and political biases than adults, allowing true teamsmanship to blossom, he added. “They come from a very genuine, innocent place. I believe that adds a lot to the potential of this collaboration,” he said.

For Salman Ammar, head of Beit Safafa’s soccer academy and a former player with Hapoel Jerusalem, endorsing the initiative was only natural. He had played in a Jewish-majority team his entire career and now sends his children to the bilingual school in Jerusalem.

“There’s nothing like sports and competitiveness to bring people together,” he said. “The idea is that Arab children and Jewish children get to know each other and realize they can live together. It’s as simple as that.”

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