World Cup qualifier: France gets a hand in win over Ireland
By Matthew Clark | 11.18.09
Quelle scandale!
It’s not easy to get an Irishman to sympathize with the collective pain of the British, but French soccer star Thierry Henry may have done just that.
In a move reminiscent of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God,” in which he helped his team beat England in the 1986 World Cup by punching the ball over the English goalkeeper and into the net, Mr. Henry has edged his country into this June’s World Cup finals.
Henry’s hand ball, deep into overtime, allowed him to tap the ball to teammate William Gallas, who headed it in for a goal, dashing the Green Army’s hopes of a trip to South Africa.
The referee missed the clear penalty and the goal stood despite Irish protests. The second-leg playoff ended a few short minutes later 1-1, which was enough to squeak France through to the finals, since it won the first leg in Ireland earlier this week.
Although Henry’s moment of weakness will instantly be placed among the top moments of trickery in international soccer history, it will not be enough to challenge Mr. Maradona’s as the gold standard of soccer cheating. (When Maradona was questioned about his hand ball back in 1986, he said it was “el mano de Dios” – “the hand of God” – and the phrase is still enough to turn reserved English cheeks red with rage.)
But now Irish fans have a taste of how their historical enemies across the Irish Sea feel after having a high-stakes game on the world’s biggest stage come down to one indisputable moment of deceit.
As the tricoleurs fluttered in packed seats of the Stade de France in Paris and cameras settled on a banner that read “Mandela, here we come,” Irish fans everywhere must have found it hard to swallow.
And as the sports shows repeat the clip of Henry handling the ball over and over in the coming hours and days, the Frenchman will surely be climbing the charts of Ireland’s least favorite people.
Will the golden boy’s image takes a hit in the rest of the soccer world? We’ll have to wait and see.
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Sarah Palin urges Israel settlement expansion, attacks Barack Obama
By Dan Murphy | 11.18.09
Former Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been something of a news generating machine of late, thanks to the publicity tour for her recently released memoir, “Going Rogue.”
Whether a minor public spat with Levi Johnston (father of her grandson), her appearance with daytime talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, describing Katie Couric’s interview style as “badgering,” or describing Newsweek’s photo choice for a recent cover on her as “sexist,” she’s been able to cause gallons of ink to be spilled over almost all of her comings and goings (this news organizations is a guilty as anyone).
But while most of her comments and coverage have been about personalities, or campaign styles, or whether she was comfortable with her $150,000 wardrobe during the presidential campaign, she is also beginning to provide glimpses into her policy beliefs, as supporters continue to urge her to run for the Republican nomination and challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.
Her latest bombshell: to effectively call for an end to 40 years of official government policy on Israel in an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters. In teasers the network is releasing before the interview airs tonight, ABC quotes Gov. Palin as saying Obama is wrong to oppose settlement expansion, an ongoing issue that is dimming the chances for progress on peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin said. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”
While her assertion that more and more Jews will be “flocking” to Israel soon is dubious (the immigration of US Jews to Israel hit an 18-year low in 2007 while the Palestinian population in the area is growing at faster rate than the Jewish one), her wholehearted support for settlement expansion on land Israel seized in 1967 is an outlier. The West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered to be illegally occupied by the UN and most world governments . Direct support for settlements would be a stunning departure for the US.
The administrations of Presidents Nixon, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Clinton all considered the annexation of land seized in 1967 illegal. President Ronald Reagan took a position that some might be legal, but opposed their expansion. Prior to becoming president, as the US ambassador to the UN, George H.W. Bush called the settlements illegal. His son, President George W. Bush, thought natural growth for existing settlements was fine, but was opposed to new ones.
Her comments are drawing criticism from editorial writers and Israeli peace groups. “It turns out that we’ve got it all wrong in the Middle East,” writes Dallas Morning News editorial writer Tod Robberson. “Despite the fact that every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter has recognized the damage done by Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank, Sarah Palin says the solution is simply to butt out…. Stay tuned for her solution to global warming: Burn more coal.”
American-Israeli peace activist Noam Shelef, writing at the website of Americans for Peace Now, writes: “Those of us who care about Israel and peace cannot afford to simply dismiss Palin’s comments. Palin’s statements are likely to become the new conservative line of attack against President Obama’s efforts to bring peace to Israel. Gov. Palin may not be aware of it, but every American president in the past 40 years — Republican and Democrat alike — has opposed West Bank settlements. They have done so because settlement expansion is bad for American national security interests and because they have cared about Israel’s well-being.”
Writing on Foreign Policy magazine’s blog Blake Hounshell writes the “settlements are hugely problematic for peace” and that her position amounts to “supporting an Israeli policy that all serious people understand to be deeply corrosive to the prospects for peace and to Israel itself.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street (a pro-Israel lobbying group in DC that favors a negotiated peace settlement), said in a press release that “Palin’s pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel, the lives of those actually living the conflict, and the fundamental American interest in achieving a two-state solution in the near term.”
Gov. Palin has not said yet if she will challenge for the 2012 Republican nomination, and she has shown some recent flexibility on her views on American foreign policy, so there’s no guarantee this will be her position if she decides to get back out on the campaign trail. But for the moment she’s also urging Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan.
“We need essentially a surge strategy in Afghanistan, so that we can win in Afghanistan,” Palin told Walters. “And that means more resources, more troops there. It frustrates me and frightens me and many Americans that President Obama is dithering around with the decision in Afghanistan.”
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West Bank: Al Jazeera loses love over Palestinian national anthem parody
By Ilene R. Prusher | 11.18.09
• A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK – Palestinians closely identified with Fatah – the mainstream faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the leading force of the Palestinian Authority (PA) – have long since fallen out of love with Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel based in Qatar. The channel, Fatah officials charge, often tilts toward Hamas.
But on a recent program that focused on how miserably divided Palestinian society is, Al Jazeera broadcast a scathing parody of the Palestinian national anthem, “Mawtini,” meaning “My Homeland.”
The lyrics include:
Catastrophe, hypocrisy, calamity!
Oppressors, cunning people who lack sincerity, you are controlling my homeland.
I see you suffocated, constricted, mouth folded.
Reconciliation will not appear in the form of unity….
Each party wants to satisfy the enemy, and neither cares about mosque or country.
All they care about is humiliating their people.
All they care about is the dollar, the dinar, and their properties and real-estate projects….
Palestinians are outraged, and several mainstream Palestinian newspapers have run editorials demanding an apology. Dr. Ghassan Khatib, the head of the Palestinian Information Centre in Ramallah, says the anger goes beyond Fatah.
“This is the first time that people other than Fatah members are criticizing Al Jazeera for its behavior. This is a responsible satellite channel that should not be insulting the Palestinian national anthem,” says Dr. Khatib. “The media should play a neutral role, and this was not neutral.”
Walid Omari, the head of Al Jazeera’s offices that cover the Palestinian territories and Israel, defends the station’s programming.
“We did not invent the reworded national anthem. It had been on YouTube for 10 days and our colleague, Ghassan Bin Jaddo, who hosted the discussion program … did not mean to insult the Palestinian people,” he says. “If the PA and Fatah are so angry with the issue of the national anthem,” he adds, “they should be working on the reconciliation rather than wasting their time on
attacking Al Jazeera, which is only a medium.”
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World Cup: Ireland vs. France has boys in green seeking miracle
By Dan Murphy | 11.18.09
On a day of a sudden-death playoff – amid high security – between Egypt and Algeria for Africa’s last spot at the 2010 World Cup, the match between Ireland and France for one of Europe’s last tickets to South Africa should be a reminder of the positive emotions and drama that the world’s most popular sport can stir.
Paris’s Stade de France promises to be rocking on Wednesday at kickoff (2:30 pm Eastern time) with about 60,000 supporters of Les Bleus and up to 15,000 traveling Irish fans.
Just as with an earlier Algeria-Egypt match, played Saturday, the stakes for today’s match in Paris could not be higher, with the national prestige of participation in the cup balanced against four years of what-might-have-beens. But unlike that Egypt-Algeria match, which was played after Egyptian fans assaulted Algerian players before the game, security and soccer officials are hoping for the right kind of passion to be on display in Paris.
Bad feelings, maybe even a red card, on the pitch? More than possible. A verbal assault on the refs by the losing coach after the match? It would hardly be a World Cup qualifier without one. Violence between French and Irish fans? Much less likely.
Ireland’s traveling supporters have one of the best reputations in the world, typically singing the opposing team’s national anthem before the game
(here’s footage of the 20,000 members of the Green Army gamely trying to sing along with La Marseillaise before their last World Cup qualifier in Paris in 2004). While France’s domestic football competition has been marred by hooliganism, with supporters of big clubs like Marseilles and Paris St. Germain engaging in violence, the national team has been largely free of such violent “support.”
Part of the attraction of this match is that it pits the ever game (but usually undermanned) Irish against a French team that dominated the world game for much of the last decade, winning the European cup and the 1998 World Cup, and losing the final of the 2006 World Cup after the infamous coupe de boule (headbutt) by France icon Zinedine Zidane. Since Zidane’s retirement, France has faltered, and is currently faced with the until-recently unthinkable chance of not making it to South Africa next summer.
Ireland’s wily veteran Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni will not have to work hard to motivate his men for tonight’s match, but the odds are stacked against them.
Ireland lost the first game of this two-leg playoff at Croke Park in Dublin 1-0, and now must either win away in Paris by the same score to force overtime and a possible penalty shootout – or by two clear goals to automatically go through.
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World Cup: Algeria vs. Egypt in tense one game playoff
By Dan Murphy | 11.18.09
After eight grueling rounds of qualifying, Egypt’s national soccer team was left with a mountain to climb to snag Africa’s last spot at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The Pharaohs needed to not only beat hated rival Algeria in their home match in Cairo last weekend, but had to so by two clear goals. All Algeria had to do was park 11 players in front of their goal for 90 minutes and hope for a draw.
Egypt prevailed, and their reward was today’s mouthwatering fixture: A rematch against Algeria in a one game playoff for that coveted South Africa slot. The venue? Khartoum, Sudan, a supposedly neutral playing field.
But Sudan has a large population of Egyptians and strong cultural and trade ties with its northern neighbor Egypt. Expect Egypt to have a “home pitch” advantage.
Still, what could have been a stirring victory against the odds and a match tonight enjoyed by millions across the Middle East has been overshadowed by more evidence that no sport is better at stirring ugly nationalist passions than Pele’s “beautiful game.”
Just ahead of Saturday’s match, a gang of rock throwing Egypt supporters attacked Algeria’s team bus, leaving three Algerian players with blood streaming down their faces. Veteran Algerian forward Rafik Saifi caught part of the assault and its aftermath with shaky footage on his personal camcorder. Algeria coach Rabah Saadane blamed his team’s defeat on the assault. Dozens of Egyptian and Algerian supporters were injured in violence after the match.
Many international soccer observers were surprised that the match was even played under the circumstances, and it’s hard to imagine that a European qualifier between, say, Portugal and England would have been allowed to go forward if global stars like Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo or England’s Steven Gerrard were given bloody head-wounds by hooligans shortly before kickoff. FIFA, which styles itself the international steward of the game but is a money spinning operation thanks to World Cup revenue, has been largely silent on the violence so far.
Passions were inflamed even before the first Egypt-Algeria game, with Algerian supporters hacking and defacing the Egyptian Football Association’s website and Egyptian supporters responding with a hack of their own in turn, warning Algeria to “prepare for 11 more martyrs.”
In the wake of the defeat, Algerian fans attacked Egyptian businesses in Algiers and FIFA and security officials in Sudan, Egypt, and Algeria have been scrambling for the past four days to prevent a replay of the violence during and after a game that brings new meaning to the term “sudden death.”
Police have been dispatched in Algiers to protect the Egyptian embassy, Sudan has put 15,000 riot police on the streets of Khartoum to keep Algerian and Egyptian fans apart, and supporters in both neighbors were holding their breath for the kickoff at 12:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.
Ahead of the game, commentators were tipping Egypt to complete its comeback and return to the World Cup for the first time since 1990, when the team failed to make it out of the first round. But Algeria is, if anything, even hungrier, having failed to quality for the cup since 1986.
