Sevilla striker Kanoute lifted his jersey to reveal a Palestinian shirt yesterday when he scored a goal.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/08012009/58/la-liga-kanoute-makes-palestine-statement.html

I am not much of a soccer fan and I had never heard of the man before reading the above comment, but I am a Kanoute fan now.

http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/

This may be before your time Dave, but a sports team had to abandon the field of play, or rather never made it onto the field, because of political protesters on July 25, 1981, when the Springboks, the national rugby team of South Africa, were touring New Zealand. About 350 people protesting apartheid in South Africa got onto the field and stood close together for about an hour, until the match was cancelled.

Fredi Kanoute is a star player. He's skillful, an entertainer and very cool. Top stars like him risk their career and star status bringing politics to the field - so even more kudos to him. He has a lot of fans who follow him.

Also, I havent the link right now, but in the Enlgish FA cup competition last week, a team went out in Palestine Shirts.

Hmm, ya think if there was a team of Arab country nationals playing in Israel the game would be stopped because of violent Jewish fans? (Which, by the way, happens ALL the time in the Euroleagues, mostly from Spanish and Italian nationals making racist gestures and conducting violent acts like throwing firecrackers at players of African and South American origin).

Maybe not. Chad Ford's article on "Playing for Peace"
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=playingforpeace

But yeah, Zirin, keep sticking up for the rocket-launching "oppressed", so much so that you say screw the rules of play on the court when it suits your political purposes. If everyone thought like progressives there would be hardly any international competition.

I'll leave you with an article by very-left wing and pro-Palestinion writer Amira Hass on what Hamas does to the opposition (OFF the playing field):

"Hamas Executes Collaborators And Restricts Fatah Movement"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053825.html

Thank God Obama is not as impractical as you Leftists, hence he chose Emanuel and Clinton to tackle this situation. But I guess he was forced to by the neo-cons, right? I look forward to your article about the inauguration; it will be interesting to see how you spin the fact that the basketball playing President-elect is fundamentally more *conservative* than all of the heads of government in Europe and Canada.

it is wrong to glorify the support of any one side in a war, as dave is doing in this piece. especially if you have a super power - israel - oppressing any group of people AND, a terrorist organization - hamas - refusing to stop being terrorists and oppressing their own people.

and do so in sport is even worse as sport should be an opportunity to celebrate the humanity of all people and the ability of people of any background to come together and share in a game.

dave, please work harder at looking at sport as an opportunity to bring different people together, rather than sport as a vehicle for the oppressed.

Its not a great thing to take your anger out on a sports team that has nothing to do with anything. But Big Props to the fans in Turkey for letting their political and humanitarian beliefs shine through their love of sports.

and big ups to Kanoute, who aside from being a decent person (so it seems) is also a phenomenal soccer player. One of the best forwards in the world.

The thing is though, you want humanitarianism to influence sports and vice versa, but not nationalism. You wouldn't want these protests to turn into a Dynamo Zagreb v Partizan game...

while I share your outrage regarding Israel's militarism in Gaza

let's also recall that Turkey occupies a significant portion of Kurdistan "given" to them after world war one by the europeans, especially France and Britain, and Turkey is even more destructive of the lives, land, culture, and communities of the Kurds than Israel is of the Palestinians in Gaza.

so it's hypocritical of Turks, as it is of the citizens of any occupying power, including those of us here in the US, to decry only Israel and not themselves and their allies.

so in addition to both of us saying Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank

please join me in saying

Turkey out of Kurdistan,

China out of East Turkestan [Uighurstan] and out of Tibet

Russia out of Buratiya and the rest of occupied Siberia and out of Chechenya,

Sudan out of Darfur

France out of Corsica,

Indonesia out of Aceh

India and Pakistan both our of Kashmir

Spain out of Euskadi [aka Basque region]

Ethiopia out of Somalia


and many many others


and especially USA out of all our occupied areas and overseas bases.

Hi,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, jskilliz. I wonder, though, why condemning Israel's violence is construed by you as support for Hamas? Can one not condemn state murder without being assumed to support muggings?
Can one not sypmpathize with Palestinians who are suffering without being lumped in with so-called terrorists?
Knee-jerk rersponses on ideological lines--you accuse Dave of this but your post is a prime example.
Thanks,
Ryan

Another thing about Kanoute: he could have played for the French national team but chose to play for Mali to show African solidarity.

We need more athletes like this...

Sports and politics have been bedfellows for many
years. I was first aware of this relationship in the
late 50's and early 60's with the head of the U.S.
Olympic Committee chairman of that era. I feel
that athletes as well as other citizens of the world
have a right to voice their political believes without
being chastised for it. Politicians have used sports
to make a point and they are not chastised for it.

Dave:

I have to agree with jskillz on this one. Even you admitted that the players on the Israeli basketball team had nothing to with Israel's actions. If the shoe were on the other foot, you would be condemning the Israeli fans.

What I don't understand is why people like you always feel the need to defend Palestine, and the conservatives always feel the need to defend Isreal. Why can't we agree that both sides have grossly abused human rights?

Daniel,

To just say "a pox on both their houses" ignores that the death toll in Palestine is approaching 1,000 while in Israel, it stands at 12. My whole family is conservative and we all think Israel is acting well beyond the bounds of what is appropriate.

Even the Red Cross has condemned Israel's actions. This isn't a war. It's a slaughter. We need to stand with the people of Gaza and demand an end to this massacre, funded by US taxpayers.

I believe that only racism - the idea that Arab and Muslim lives are somehow worth less than others - even makes this a real discussion. If any other people on earth were subject to such hardship and death, this wouldn't even be a serious discussion.

Thanks for posting those numbers mball.


and i agree with the person who wrote all occupiers out....

1. It takes ZERO courage to support the "palestinians" at the moment. It's simply the "lefty" thing to do (so was supporting Stalin, even we lefties aren't always right).

2. It's pretty disgusting to see Turks attacking Israeli (sort of) basketball players, and of course, the Israeli team is punished, and the heroic fans who would've killed them are great.

Talk about the world turned upside down.

If that's a political statement, it's a little incoherent. Is it that mob rule is really ok? Violence begets violence? How about a little nugget of truth, Hamas took power in Gaza through military force - NOT an election. So you've got Israel trying to oust a terrorist occupying force that uses civilians as human shields in the most cynical way possible.

You can disagree with the Israeli strategy, but I can't imagine any country that would tolerate being bombed for the length of time Israel has, and there is NO other country that would be as careful in trying to avoid hurting civilians (the US certainly isn't). How exactly is Israel supposed to deal with an enemy that clearly states its only goal is the total destruction of Israel and the genocide of all it's inhabitants? And you're worried killing a couple hundred civilians is disproportionate? If you hold the rest of the world to the same standard, by all means . . . but I don't think you'd sympathize if Turkish fans tried to storm the court and kill the Lakers (and you could certainly make a social justice case about as strong as the one for the "palestinians").

I'm astonished at how misinformed this comments board section has been in condemning Hamas. How sickening it was to read jskillz put quote marks on oppressed in describing a people who are confined with no electricity, running water and a waning food supply for over a year now.

I don't comprehend how Israel supporters can't see the correlation to resistance since those fierce sanctions have been implemented from Israel last year.

We live in a pretty simple-minded society when a launched rocket has about .2 or .3 chance of hitting people yet is equated with the systematic deprivation of food and medical aid to a population. Which exactly do you consider more violent of the two?

Three of those Israeli deaths of the 12 reported above were self-inflicted (I'll never use that horrid "friendly" euphemism) whereas Israel killed more Palestinians in the opening hours of the invasion. Why are people calling this a war? Doesn't a war imply both sides have armies seeking to destroy another? The disproportionate amount of force used by Israel make the idea this is a "war" incomprehensible.

And since this incident hasn't been mentioned, I must state that the day I hear of Palestine flying over Israel with a jet and bombing a UN center that held refugees is the day I defend Israel.

I like this litany --

"Turkey out of Kurdistan,

China out of East Turkestan [Uighurstan] and out of Tibet

Russia out of Buratiya and the rest of occupied Siberia and out of Chechenya,

Sudan out of Darfur

France out of Corsica,

Indonesia out of Aceh

India and Pakistan both our of Kashmir

Spain out of Euskadi [aka Basque region]

Ethiopia out of Somalia

and especially USA out of all our occupied areas and overseas bases."

-- and it makes me wonder about the sports that are about taking territory (e.g., American football). Football is, I think, America's favorite sport. And Americans sure do love to go to war, however much we might assert otherwise.

from the Washington Post:

On Jan. 4, 200,000 Turks turned out in freezing rain in Istanbul to wish death to Israel; on Jan. 7, an Israeli girls' volleyball team was attacked by a Turkish audience chanting, "Muslim policemen, bring us the Jews, so we can slaughter them."

Is this supposed to be a good thing? Is this what western liberalism is really going to bed with? It's shocking to see the level of sympathy for a group of people who's entire existence is as the opponent of every value liberals hold (tolerance, cultural understanding, peaceful coexistence, equal rights for all members of society . . . you name it, the "Palestinians" are opposed to it (and the Turks are moving towards Iran and away from NATO, so progressive, now women in Turkey have less freedom than women in Saudi Arabia)

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