Dying to put on the Gaza away strip

[Green Sleeves]

Interested to hear bouncers thoughts on this (from today's Sunday Herald):

Dying to put on the Gaza away strip
By Tom Shields

ISRAEL AND Palestine are neighbours in the same troubled patch of land in the Middle East. But their status and fortunes as footballing nations could not be more different.

Israel play England on Saturday in a Euro 2008 qualifier in the glamorous setting of the new Wembley. A Palestine under-19 side should have been on a lower profile visit to north-west England playing youth teams from Blackburn Rovers, Tranmere and Chester.

The tour was cancelled after the British consul in Jerusalem refused to grant visas, citing the suspicion that some of the young players, mostly from poverty-stricken Gaza, might abscond and try to remain in Britain.

Being denied the right to leave their country to fulfil fixtures is not a new experience for Palestinian footballers. The Israeli military who control entry and exit from Gaza and the West Bank regularly detain members of the Palestine national team and prevent them from travelling.

The Palestine squad were unable to get to Singapore last November for an Asian Cup qualifying match. As full members of FIFA, Palestine were able to protest to the football authorities about the imprisonment of their players in their own country. The Asian Football Confederation noted the Palestinian complaint but awarded three points for the unplayed match to Singapore.

In a cruel catch-22, the Palestine team are hindered from leaving and are also banned from playing in their own country for security reasons. They have not played a match at home since 1995. Which, to look on the bright side, means they have been undefeated on their own soil for 12 years.

A Palestinian businessman who sponsors the national team, says: "It may seem strange to be concerned about football in a country where travel restrictions and occupation by the Israeli forces makes it difficult to earn a living, feed your kids, or be able to get to hospital when you are sick.

"But football is a passion in Palestine. You will see children kicking a ball about in the rubble of bomb sites. This passion for football symbolises our passion for life. If they manage to kill off our national football team, they will kill off our hope.

"We constantly appeal to FIFA to let our team take its place in the football world. But FIFA say they are not involved in politics. They pass our concerns on to the Israeli FA. But nothing is ever done about Israel's oppression of Palestinian football."

Worse than the draconian travel restrictions is the ever-present threat from bomb and bullet to those who play football at any level in Palestine. In March last year, the Palestine FA's stadium in Gaza was hit by an Israeli missile, obliterating the centre circle.

A Palestinian supporter says: "The attack on Palestine's stadium came only days after the announcement that, after a run of good results, Palestine was the most improved team in that month's FIFA world rankings. This may not have been a coincidence."

The concept of a bomb leaving a crater the size of a football pitch is often an all-too-accurate description in the Palestinian occupied territories.

FIFA was spurred into action after the bombing of the stadium in Gaza. Their officials complained to the Israeli government but, since they insist they have to remain outside politics, merely asked if the military would mind not attacking football grounds in future.

The years of conflict, as Palestinians fight against occupation and Israel responds with its ferocious war machine, have been littered with tragic football-related events.

Two small examples. Three teenagers were shot dead when they went too close to an Israeli army lookout tower to retrieve the ball they had been kicking about.

Fifteen children were wounded when a tank fired two shells into their makeshift football field. The shells were flechette rounds which contain thousands of small metal darts.

The flechette explodes in the air and the tiny darts scatter over an area twice the size of a football pitch.

In the midst of all the violence, efforts are being made to use football as a bridge between Arabs and Israelis. As part of a peace project this summer, 1000 young Arab and Jewish footballers came together for their own world cup.

Football for Peace (F4P for short), a British body, has been organising football matches between mixed teams of Jewish and Arab young people in Galilee. For their tournament in March this year F4P were provided with football strips by various British clubs.

Thus a bunch of kids from Arab and Jewish villages in northern Israel forgot their differences and became Gretna for the day. Sadly, Gretna did not manage to defeat Manchester United.

If there is hope, it resides with these young people. Adults, meanwhile, continue to sow despair. Extremists on both sides flourish, perpetuating division.

FIFA makes a big deal of its campaign against racism. UEFA claims to be uncompromising on sectarianism.

But neither FIFA nor UEFA, of which the Israeli FA is a member, seem inclined to do anything about the apartheid that the state of Israel is using to subjugate Palestinian football.

[BurbankHibee]

Boo-fucking-hoo. This is the same mob that sent a bunch of murdering thugs to the Olympic village to kill Israeli athletes.

[Euskal Hibernia]

Originally Posted by BurbankHibee

Boo-fucking-hoo. This is the same mob that sent a bunch of murdering thugs to the Olympic village to kill Israeli athletes.

The under 19 football team did that? Before they were even born? What evil criminal minds those Palestinian teenagers possess. Hopefully preventing them participating in sport will soon show them the error of their ways.

[Nefu]

Originally Posted by BurbankHibee

Boo-fucking-hoo. This is the same mob that sent a bunch of murdering thugs to the Olympic village to kill Israeli athletes.

Just yer Donald where you are born eh ,how about a bit o roll reversal take you from the sunny-side of the street and them up to there arse in bullets bombs and shit .
Thought the whole idea of sport ,football in this instance was to see how well you could do in competition against your fellow competitors break down barriers that sort of thing ,shake hands at the end whether you won or lost and try and improve your performance for the next time you seem to think because kids from Palestine want to play football,a political atrocity committed by Black September in 1972 they should bare the brunt for what other people are guilty of ,or is the Jew ,Arab bit just another bit o land with goalposts that you don't think they should have .Or always keep the bastards down syndrome.
As for FIFA and UEFA ,well the bigger the football status in your country the better the chance of getting decisions your way a bit like Celtic and The Huns hear remember the last world cup all the referees with instructions to clamp down on fouls diving etc 1st or 2nd game guy from Togo commits a stupid tackle and as per the new instructions by the governing body is dually sent off, days later Brazilian does the same thing and commits in my eyes a more dangerous and cynical foul but walks away without a booking ,as I said some rules for the big teams other rules for the wee ones.
Talking of wee ones is every child from every country going to be lambasted and never let forget the atrocities committed by there parents Grand parents great grand parents if thats the case then we truly are fucked ,boo fucking hoo what a cynical **** you are every one should get a chance, I would bet which ever country you come from I don't know but where ,there will be something under your stone that you wont get pillared for the rest of your days imagine this ,that 35 years ago some other Palestinians committed a horrendous and inhuman atrocity at The Olympic Games and I'm not permitted to play football because of it, seems to be your theory twat .
Don't want to go down the who's right who's wrong argument they have been doing that since day one and they are no closer now than they ever were but a wee game o fitba might make there world a better place for them to live in , or dont you think they should have a better world .

[gun ainm]

Originally Posted by BurbankHibee

Boo-fucking-hoo. This is the same mob that sent a bunch of murdering thugs to the Olympic village to kill Israeli athletes.

FFS - whats that got to do with the U-19 palestinian football team? for you their nationality makes the complicit in terrorism!? fwiw the article (although I dont think its very well written) does highlight the desperate situation the palestinians have to put up with on a day to day basis, its all too familiar really but the international community does not have the commitment to put real pressure on israel and resolve the situation - I can largely blame you presumabley burbank (as a septic)?

[SG7nil]

Originally Posted by Green Sleeves

Interested to hear bouncers thoughts on this (from today's Sunday Herald):

Football for Peace (F4P for short), a British body, has been organising football matches between mixed teams of Jewish and Arab young people in Galilee. For their tournament in March this year F4P were provided with football strips by various British clubs.

Thus a bunch of kids from Arab and Jewish villages in northern Israel forgot their differences and became Gretna for the day. Sadly, Gretna did not manage to defeat Manchester United.

If there is hope, it resides with these young people. Adults, meanwhile, continue to sow despair. Extremists on both sides flourish, perpetuating division.

FIFA makes a big deal of its campaign against racism. UEFA claims to be uncompromising on sectarianism.

But neither FIFA nor UEFA, of which the Israeli FA is a member, seem inclined to do anything about the apartheid that the state of Israel is using to subjugate Palestinian football.

FFS these are some of the most oppressed people on the face of the planet... and what football strips do they have 'randomly' assigned to them? Gretna !! Christ on a bike! their feelings of self worth must have been low before.. but kit them out as Gretna and let a team in Man Utd strips turn them over and no doubt you'll have them at such a low ebb that they'll all be happy to strap bombs on and wander into Israel... they may not be very good, but you think they'd have given them a decent set of strips to wear.. like Hibs maybe?

[egb_hibs]

for once I must take the sandalista position here B. it's untenable to attribute collective guilt as you do. at the very least, as the selkie argues, if you do that, you need to do it consistently.

it's also ironic as doing this is aping the anti-semitic guff of the, ahem, 'anti-zionists', who i expect you would oppose.

that said, i can see why the article is a red rag to a bull - this little snippet being a typical example of the blanket 'anti-zionism' that dominates social-democrat controlled media channels, from the beeb to the graun: "The years of conflict, as Palestinians fight against occupation and Israel responds with its ferocious war machine"

it's a brilliant example of the form though, I have to say, I mean, what a marvel of compression - in less than a sentence, the following is achieved:

- palestinian position established as a noble 'fight' (an adjectiveless one to boot - or perhaps they really do not prosecute it in a 'ferocious' way, only jews, sorry 'zionists' being ferocious by nature)

- dehumanisation of the israelis - where palestinians are describe as people, the state of israel, deploys a machine in response

- strong inference of disproportionately from israeli side

- evokation of every kind of david and goliath, little guy vs behemoth myth

Not bad, not bad.

Black marks however for framing israeli action as a 'response' of any kind. I grant it facilitates sentence construction and the aforementioned compression, but that's no excuse. time for this hapless journo to be erased from the ministry of truth methinks.


but anyway, back to the point - provocation notwithstanding yer oot of order Burbank.

[BurbankHibee]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

for once I must take the sandalista position here B. it's untenable to attribute collective guilt as you do. at the very least, as the selkie argues, if you do that, you need to do it consistently.

it's also ironic as doing this is aping the anti-semitic guff of the, ahem, 'anti-zionists', who i expect you would oppose.

that said, i can see why the article is a red rag to a bull - this little snippet being a typical example of the blanket 'anti-zionism' that dominates social-democrat controlled media channels, from the beeb to the graun: "The years of conflict, as Palestinians fight against occupation and Israel responds with its ferocious war machine"

it's a brilliant example of the form though, I have to say, I mean, what a marvel of compression - in less than a sentence, the following is achieved:

- palestinian position established as a noble 'fight' (an adjectiveless one to boot - or perhaps they really do not prosecute it in a 'ferocious' way, only jews, sorry 'zionists' being ferocious by nature)

- dehumanisation of the israelis - where palestinians are describe as people, the state of israel, deploys a machine in response

- strong inference of disproportionately from israeli side

- evokation of every kind of david and goliath, little guy vs behemoth myth

Not bad, not bad.

Black marks however for framing israeli action as a 'response' of any kind. I grant it facilitates sentence construction and the aforementioned compression, but that's no excuse. time for this hapless journo to be erased from the ministry of truth methinks.


but anyway, back to the point - provocation notwithstanding yer oot of order Burbank.

As you say, red rag to a bull. You highlight the points I was too lazy to bring forth. A one side puff piece. Their "passion for life" (and football) only surpassed by their passion for self detonating in Pizza parlors frequented by jews. Too bad the football team can't travel. Suck it up.

[BurbankHibee]

Originally Posted by Euskal Hibernia

The under 19 football team did that? Before they were even born? What evil criminal minds those Palestinian teenagers possess. Hopefully preventing them participating in sport will soon show them the error of their ways.

No, Palestinians did it and they never let up.

A Palestinian rocket narrowly missed a crowded kindergarten in southern Israel today, prompting warnings that the Jewish state will hit back hard if the constant stream of missiles from the Gaza Strip does not stop.

Islamic Jihad, one of the most extreme of Palestinian factions, said it fired the rocket that landed next to a day care centre in Sderot where 15 toddlers were playing. None was hurt, but terrified mothers rushed to the scene to rush their infants to shelter. In total, seven rockets slammed into the area.

Islamist militants in Gaza fire crude, unguided rockets at Sderot almost every day, although few cause serious damage or injury. However, Israeli officials have warned that a particularly bloody attack, such as a direct hit on a kindergarten, could trigger a full scale invasion of the Gaza Strip to stem the daily volleys

The Times

[Green Sleeves]

Originally Posted by BurbankHibee

Boo-fucking-hoo. This is the same mob that sent a bunch of murdering thugs to the Olympic village to kill Israeli athletes.

So by that logic we should treat every person in America as a terrorist and murderer because of what the US govt and military did in Iraq and Afghanistan? The entire American nation should be treated as international terrorists?

I cant buy into that. We cant go around putting the blame for what the American government and their military did on every ordinary American. Same rules for Palestinians.

[Euskal Hibernia]

Originally Posted by BurbankHibee

No, Palestinians did it and they never let up.



The Times

and Israel did this:

Ten die as Israeli tank shells unarmed crowd
From Ian MacKinnon in Rafah
THE US issued a rare rebuke to Israel last night after at least ten Palestinians, including children, were killed and more than fifty wounded when a tank fired into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators.

“It is a tragic incident,” Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said. “I believe the activities of the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza in recent days have caused a problem and have worsened the situation and I think made it more difficult for us to move forward and get back into the peace process.”

In another sign of the Bush Administration’s displeasure at Israel, the US abstained in a vote on a UN Security Council resolution condemning the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The resolution, also calling on Israel to stop the demolition of houses at the Rafah refugee camp, was carried unopposed.

The latest violence erupted as a crowd of more than a thousand Palestinians, with schoolchildren in the lead, headed for Tel al-Sultan, an area of Rafah in the Gaza Strip that is sealed off from the rest of the town. Witnesses said they were raked with machinegun and sniper fire before a tank shell landed in the midst of the front ranks.

Two more tank rounds followed in quick succession as an Apache helicopter surveyed the scene from above. Those who fled, their clothes smeared with blood of the dead and dying, said that many of the fatally injured were decapitated or torn apart.

The steps to Rafah’s tiny 40-bed hospital ran with the blood of the wounded after they were ferried across town in ambulances, taxis with their doors open to accommodate the prostrate victims and even donkey carts. Three of the dead were aged below 18.

Crowds of anxious parents besieged the hospital’s gates desperate for news of their children. But after blocking roads to Rafah for three days the Israeli military allowed ambulances carrying the wounded to travel to Gaza, Khan Younis and the nearby Jewish settlement of Morag.

The Israeli Army expressed sorrow over the “very grave” incident, but denied that it had targeted the crowd.

It said the Apache helicopter hovering above had fired a missile into a deserted area as a warning. But as the crowd, which the army said had gunmen among it, continued to advance, the tank had fired its machinegun at an empty building, followed by four shells at the structure.

“It is possible that the casualties were a result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure,” the statement added. “The details of the incident continue to be investigated.”

The deadly strike ratcheted up feelings in an already tense situation after Israeli troops conducting house-to-house searches in Tel al-Sultan killed twenty people on Tuesday, most of them civilians.

In the morning five dead, two of them teenage boys, were taken to the hospital amid a steady stream of wounded. Thirty-one people have died since the incursion into Rafah began.

Witnesses among the protesters, who denied there were gunmen in their ranks, said they had been marching along Beach Road in Rafah, which runs parallel to the Egyptian border on the periphery of the refugee camp.

Incensed by the worsening conditions inside Tel al-Sultan the protesters had answered calls from mosque loudspeakers to vent their fury. They were also angry about an Israeli round-up of all males over 16, about 2,000 in total, who were ordered to report to the local al-Maria school.

A line of ambulances, which had all morning taken the dead and wounded from Israeli sniper attacks to hospital, straddled the road. The cordon marked the point beyond which the Israeli curfew of the area began.

But as the front rows of marchers, chanting “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) reached the ambulances, they heard the tank open up with its machinegun. The first shell landed in the midst of the crowd, followed by several more rounds moments later.

“We’d gone to protest because the people of Tel al-Sultan have no food, no water,” said Mardi Mahadi Abu Hassna, 22, who was four rows from the front and saw a friend, Ala Sheikh Eid, killed before him. “We’d heard people were being rounded up.”

Saleh Ahmed, 37, another protester, said: “It was a peaceful demonstration. There were no armed people. The atmosphere encouraged the children, especially the very young, to go to the front. The first shell did most damage. We were all knocked to the ground.

“I saw people torn to pieces. Six had their heads cut off by the blast. Others had lost arms and legs. Most were children.”

Among the children killed yesterday was Saber Abu Libdeh, 13, shot in the back when he ventured out of his home in search of water after the family’s tank ran dry during a power cut.

The Israeli Army says this latest incursion into the Gaza Strip, one of the biggest for several years, is to search for tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt.

Tony Blair issued a strong condemnation of Israel’s military actions in Gaza over recent days. He said: “We entirely understand the concerns of Israel about acts of terrorism, but what happened (yesterday) was unacceptable and wrong.”

The Times

Now, we can pull out atrocities on both sides til the coos come hame but tarring everybody with the same brush based on where they were born is absurd. Not all Palestinians are suicide bombers just as not all Israeli's gun down kids in the street.

[egb_hibs]

chechnya
china
large swathes of africa
north korea
the odd hell hole in central asia


what have they got in common?

at least two things, perhaps three.

one, for sure, oodles worse than palestine.

two, a fraction of the opprobrium reserved for palestine.

three, don't involve yids.

[Euskal Hibernia]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

chechnya
china
large swathes of africa
north korea
the odd hell hole in central asia


what have they got in common?

at least two things, perhaps three.

one, for sure, oodles worse than palestine.

two, a fraction of the opprobrium reserved for palestine.

three, don't involve yids.

four, the US isn't interested in them.

(opprobrium: good word - i learn something new every day)

[gun ainm]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

for once I must take the sandalista position here B. it's untenable to attribute collective guilt as you do. at the very least, as the selkie argues, if you do that, you need to do it consistently.

it's also ironic as doing this is aping the anti-semitic guff of the, ahem, 'anti-zionists', who i expect you would oppose.

that said, i can see why the article is a red rag to a bull - this little snippet being a typical example of the blanket 'anti-zionism' that dominates social-democrat controlled media channels, from the beeb to the graun: "The years of conflict, as Palestinians fight against occupation and Israel responds with its ferocious war machine"

it's a brilliant example of the form though, I have to say, I mean, what a marvel of compression - in less than a sentence, the following is achieved:

- palestinian position established as a noble 'fight' (an adjectiveless one to boot - or perhaps they really do not prosecute it in a 'ferocious' way, only jews, sorry 'zionists' being ferocious by nature)

- dehumanisation of the israelis - where palestinians are describe as people, the state of israel, deploys a machine in response

- strong inference of disproportionately from israeli side

- evokation of every kind of david and goliath, little guy vs behemoth myth

Not bad, not bad.

Black marks however for framing israeli action as a 'response' of any kind. I grant it facilitates sentence construction and the aforementioned compression, but that's no excuse. time for this hapless journo to be erased from the ministry of truth methinks.


but anyway, back to the point - provocation notwithstanding yer oot of order Burbank.

not sure I appreciate the link between an anti-zionist perspective and anti-semetism - you're quite the Sunday Herald journalist

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by theselkie

not sure I appreciate the link between an anti-zionist perspective and anti-semetism - you're quite the Sunday Herald journalist

seems to me that all this 'zionist' business is a euphemism inherited by the left from the far right. it has long being used as a 'polite' metaphor for anti-semitism along with other more opaque efforts such as 'international bankers' and 'new york lawyers'. and it is deployed by both factions to heap utterly disproportionate blame on the jews versus numerous other nations involved in far worse situations than the palestinian one. not to mention the 'zog' pish - re-expressed in leftish circles as 'cabals of influential zionists'.

it's really quite shameful. and it's no wonder the jews feel essentially alone.

ps is 'sunday herald' a forward or backward step from 'daily mail'?

[Gareth]

I'm afraid thats utter pish. To conflate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism is at best lazy and at worst willfully ignorant. By rents were once zionists and lived in the Holy land for 20 years before leaving in disgust and become very much anti-zionists. Does that mean they then became anti-semitic, of just jew hating jews?

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Gareth

I'm afraid thats utter pish. To conflate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism is at best lazy and at worst willfully ignorant. By rents were once zionists and lived in the Holy land for 20 years before leaving in disgust and become very much anti-zionists. Does that mean they then became anti-semitic, of just jew hating jews?

i've given my reasons gareth and i stand by them. what's wrong with just saying 'israelis'?

[Gareth]

Because people like you and others who wish to limply bigotry as a way to discredit oppositionalism more generally would then just conflate anti-Israeli with anti-semitism. In any case the Zionist project of nation building is what created Israel as a deliberate Jewish state. the state itself is much like others, the kind of 'imagined community', it was the theory that stoof behind it and has fed it ever since that is and has been the problem