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Editorial

Can Sports Spark Dialog?

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ports once

more proved you can
bridge the grand abyss of indoc-
trination, suspicion and even
outright hatred. A soccer game featuring
Palestinian and Israeli kids took place in
the West Bank, near Hebron, in December.
What we call soccer, of course, is known
as football (not to be confused with North
American football) in the Middle East.
And none other than Al-Hayat Alladida,
the official daily newspaper of the
Palestinian Authority (P.A.), whose Fatah
party governs the West Bank, described the
game as "friendly." Ordinarily, that's not a
description worth jumping with glee for.
But in this case, given the angst, disgust
and fear that many Palestinian and Israeli
adults hold toward each other, "friendly"
is a cautiously notable term. We hope it
echoes more in the same context of kids'
sports. The future of Israeli-Palestinian
relations hinges in large part on how
today's kids view one another against the
anti-Zionist backdrop that West Bank par-
ents, schools, music videos, TV programs
and news outlets have thrown up along the
Israel border.
Notably, each of the two soccer teams
included Palestinian and Israeli players
— a historic moment in the unnerving
struggle between Arabs and Jews.
The game was organized with the

reports, "the death
and funeral of a 'mar-
tyr' is referred to as
a wedding and he is
considered a 'groom'
who marries the 'vir-
gins of Paradise."
Revolting as that
is, Palestinians of
both genders who
have killed Israelis or
helped others to do so,
and who are locked
in Israeli prisons,
also are embraced as
heroes of Palestinian
society.
What's more, for
this past November's
sixth annual com-
memoration of
Yasser Arafat's death, P.A. TV opted to
rebroadcast video clips of Palestinian kids'
messages in reverence toward the late
Palestine Liberation Organization founder
— including the recurring P.A. libel that
the Jews poisoned him and that "martyr-
dom" is the highest reward.
The P.A. not only has succeeded in
teaching kids to hate and demonize Jews,
but also in adopting the values of hatred,
violence and martyrdom.

Still, we shouldn't discount the potential
importance of that mixed soccer match.
If the innocence and imagination of those
hate-free kids can be parlayed into contin-
ued interplay of the uninfected kind, maybe
— just maybe — Israeli and Palestinian
leaders somehow can find some common
ground to spur renewal of peace talks.
Both sides lose if they can't learn some-
thing about positive dialog from the aura
of cross-border youth sports.

plished." The Caliph held Hussein's head
was Safiyya, a Jewish survivor from
on his desk for a month to show the
that massacre. In 628 C.E., Muhammad
people what will happen to whoever
signed a peace agreement with the
thinks about rebellion.
infidels of Mecca for 10 years; but he
In c. 690 C.E., in a Friday
violated it after two years,
sermon, al-Hajjaj ibn Yousuf,
conquered Mecca and killed
the Sunni governor of Kufa,
those who resisted him.
a Shi'i city in southern Iraq,
The first two Caliphs,
compared the heads of Kufa's
Abu Bakr and Umar, waged
people
with ripe fruits that are
bloody wars against some
ready
to
be harvested — and
tribes that left Islam after
actually
treated
them accord-
the death of Muhammad,
ing
to
this
metaphor.
forcing them to return to
Throughout history, the
Islam. The rift between the
sword
of jihad forced millions
Sunni and Shi'i Islam was
Morde
chai
in
Asia,
Africa and Europe to
accompanied by bloody
Ked ar
embrace Islam; and a Muslim
violence: In 680 C.E., the
Spec ial
who dares to leave Islam
army of the second Omayyad
Comme ntary
is declared as apostate and
caliph, Yazeed, killed the
his destiny is one — death.
grandson of Muhammad,
According to the Shari'a law, a thief's
Hussein bin Ali, and some 100 of his
hand should be amputated, a wife who
followers near the city of Karbala in
disobeys her husband can be beaten and
southern Iraq. Hussein was decapitated
a woman who behaves in too permissive
and his head was brought to Damascus
manner is flogged in public. The Taliban
in order to prove that "mission accom-

regime in Afghanistan was execut-
ing women who were suspected to be
witches by a shot in their head, in pub-
lic. Homosexuals in Iran are hung up;
and around 300 people are decapitated
in Saudi Arabia annually.
Every year, millions of Muslim girls
in Egypt, Sudan and other African
states undergo female genital mutilation
because their parents believe that Islam
requires it. Non-Muslim Africans per-
form it for other reasons.
Christians all over the Arab world suf-
fer from persecution by Islamists: Copts
in Egypt, Assyriacs in Iraq, Maronites
in Lebanon and Christian Palestinians
in Gaza and the West Bank suffer from
their Muslim neighbors only because
they are Christians.
Muslims are ordered to wage jihad
against the infidels until they convert
to Islam; and the Mujahid, the Jihad
combatant, is generously rewarded in
heaven, married to 72 virgins who are
young, beautiful, clean and obedient.

support of the "Football-Our Common
Denominator" project, funded by the
European Union (ordinarily no friend of
Israel), in collaboration with the Israeli
Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer club.
The action is a significant example of
how sports can be used to promote coex-
istence. It stands in sharp contrast to the
many sporting events that the P.A. names
after Palestinian terrorists, including Dalal
Mughrabi, the 19-year-old Beirut woman
whose bus hijacking killed more Israelis
than any other Palestinian terror attack.
Soccer tournaments and a sports team
are just a few of the myriad of places and
events named for this Lebanese terror-
ist, whose Palestinian squad sailed from
Lebanon and landed on a beach between
Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American
photojournalist, hijacked a bus and com-
mandeered another. The 1978 siege left 38
Israelis dead, including 13 children.
The multitude of such naming hon-
ors of terrorists certainly minimizes the
long-term multicultural effect of the Dec.
10 soccer match, the account of which
was shared with the West by Israel-based
Palestinian Media Watch.
Then there's the matter of dying as a
martyr for Allah" — becoming a shahid
— which remains a source of pride for
Palestinian families. "Often," the PMW

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THE JEWISH
STATE 6 EA,
DEMONIC, AND
THEY KLL
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www.drybonesblog.som

The Religion Of Peace

M

any — Muslims and non-
Muslims alike — claim that
Islam is the religion of peace,
since it is connected to Salam, or peace.
Islam actually means Submission, hope-
fully peaceful, to the orders of Allah as
formulated in the Koran, in the Hadith
(the oral tradition) and in the Shari'a
(Islamic law).
The Koran states that "no compul-
sion in the religion" (Chapter 2 Verse
255), and most Muslims are not violent;
they are peaceful people who live their
life normatively. However, when we
trace the Islamic history since the days
of Muhammad until today, we cannot
escape the impression that Islam and
violence were — in too many cases —
two sides of the same coin. In 626 C.E.,
Muhammad and his army slaughtered
some 600 Jewish men of the Kurayza
clan since they refused to embrace
Islam. Their wives and children were
captured, enslaved and forced to become
Muslims. One of Muhammad's wives

Religion on page 26

February 3 2011

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