Playing for Gaza

US sport columnist Dave Zirin on the significance of 2 of Africa’s leading footballers– first Egyptian international Mohamed Aboutrika (club team: Ahl-Ahly) and more recently Malian star Frederic Kanoute (he is 2008 African Footballer of the Year)–publicly displaying their solidarity with the people of Palestine:

“Israel hasn’t helped itself … by making sports a target in the war. On 9 January, the IDF bombed Gaza’s Palestine National Stadium. The stadium was also the head of the Palestinian Football Association. The structure was built in 2005 partially with funds from Fifa. The facility will now need to be rebuilt again (in 2006 it was also bombed). It was meant to be a symbol of a Palestinian state, something that united the West Bank and Gaza as an expression of unity. Now it is rubble.”

Here.

* BTW, for more context on the War on Gaza, I can recommend these: Mark Steel, Justin Podur, Joseph Massad, Eric Alterman and Sarah Roy, to mention a few,. Watch as Jon Stewart takes apart the nonsense of US media and political consensus on Israel’s actions. Even Muammar Qaddafi makes sense. There’s also some music to download.