Jordan soccer brawl highlights Palestinians' feelings of deprivation in the country

Haaretz ^ | 12/14/10 | Zvi Bar'el

[Nachum]

A soccer match played Friday between the Jordanian league's Al-Faisaly and Al-Wihdat ended in a 1:0 victory for Al-Wihdat. The real news, though, wasn't the score, but the skirmish that broke out, in which 250 fans and policemen were injured, after the wire fence that separates the spectators from the field collapsed. This wasn't just a clash between fans accompanied by stone-throwing, broken bones and arrests. It was a political battle pitting the Al-Wihdat fans, mostly of Palestinian descent, against the Al-Faisaly fans, mostly of Jordanian origin.

This is not the first time a soccer match between these two teams has turned into civil war. In July 2009, police stopped a game in Zarqa because the Al-Faisaly fans began cursing not only the Palestinian players but even Queen Rania and the heirs to the throne who happen to be Palestinian. That event, barely reported in the Jordanian media because of strict censorship rules, was of particular interest to the U.S. embassy in Amman, which expressed its concerns in a cable to the State Department. The dispatch was published by WikiLeaks last week.

[Darteaus94025]

They add so much to a host country.

It’s only racism that prevents them from being recruited for residency in other countries.

/s

[sheik yerbouty]

The Jordanians should dump them with the Fraudis..