Sun of Sakhnin: Sports and violence

"Pardon my ignorance", the inevitable question always begins, when people first hear where I live, "but is Sakhnin safe?" The tone they employ would seem to imply that Sakhnin is in Iraq or Afghanistan. Which, incidentally, is understandable, given that there are signs here pointing the way to Kabul, a nearby village. Seriously though, the apologetic question is easily understood - at least by me, since it was my first inquiry, too. The answer was affirmative - Sakhnin is safe, I was told, its people are warm and friendly and not at all dangerous. Just be prepared, I was forewarned, to deal with the prevailing suspicion that accompanies every Jew who seeks out Arabs, namely that he is either from the Mossad or the IRS. 

I am neither, of course: after three years in the army, I haven't the slightest interest in any topic remotely related to national security; and, likewise, the IRS hasn't the slightest interest in me or in the meager income on which I subsist, which is not nearly substantial enough to be taxed. Yet while I pose no threat to them, living here is not an experience entirely bereft of hazards.

The Israeli army never planted any mines in Sakhnin, but walking its streets can be no less dangerous than taking a stroll through the many mine-infested areas in the north of Israel - you can never be too careful. The locals are dangerous, in a way, too, though not for the reason you might expect. I've found that they're less likely to hurt me as to be hurt by me, which has turned out to be a much stickier predicament. I always thought of myself as quite polite, but as with the traffic here - one must be on guard at all times.

I would expound on these dangers and others, and I will, but it seems hypocritical to debate the question of Sakhnin's safety at a time when sports fans could only wish sports events were as secure. Israeli sports are a beach with no breakers, and waves of violence have come crashing down on them mercilessly. First, fascist factions have taken Beitar Jerusalem's fans hostage - Israel's most popular team - making the most of a national television audience as a stage for broadcasting their reprehensible propaganda en masse. Next, a grenade was hurled onto a basketball court in Jerusalem, blowing up a guard's hand. Finally, a handball game was cut short because of fans storming the court.

Which raises the question - who knew anybody cared about handball, let alone that much? The answer, of course, is that no one does. Certainly not Beitar's fascists or the grenade-hurling petty criminal or the handball mob; they're sports fans only to the extent that sports events are a convenient outlet for their violence. The violence running rampant through Israeli sports is merely an outgrowth of the violence that plagues Israeli society. There's something ironic, then, in that the most popular profession of choice - or lack thereof - of down-and-out young Arabs is working as guards at sports events. To paraphrase the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Jews attack Jews and Arabs save them from each other.

And so it was similarly fitting that it was Bnei Sakhnin, Israel's lone premier Arab team, that came to Jerusalem on November 21,2007, along with their northern neighbors, Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, to visit the Holocaust Museum and save face for the embattled world of Israeli sports. It was the brainchild of Kiryat Shmona's admirably socially-aware owner, Izzy Sheratsky, who earlier this year arranged that both teams would visit different prisons in the area and play exhibition matches against their denizens. The purpose of this visit, he explained to the players assembled before him, was to witness firsthand the tragic repercussions of racism.

Meanwhile, Sakhnin was setting a wonderful example not only for its fans, but also for the rest of a country torn between sects which are each caught up in their own suffering, demonstrating how to show empathy for another people's suffering.

Never mind that a museum is not a professional athlete's home field. Some of them were clearly disoriented, perhaps under the impression that they were in Pamplona, Spain. That, in any case, was the impression some left - that of bulls rampaging through a china shop. But Spain is not only the site of the gory running of the bulls, but also of the glory of a Jewish golden age in the Middle Ages which was facilitated by Muslim rulers. ("How Islam Saved the Jews" is the title of an article penned by a prominent academic - well, my uncle). In that same vein, the tour of the museum wrapped up with a special exhibition of Albanian Muslims who, compelled by their code of honor of Besa, endangered themselves in order to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Still, while some struggled to maintain their composure, others showed respect and interest. The guide, for one, was not only pleased at the end of the tour - but impressed. "They soaked up everything I said", she gushed, adding that she was surprised that there was no antagonism on their part. On the contrary, she was touched by the team's sensitivity.

It's a sensitivity rooted in their diverse makeup. As Sheratsky proudly put it while speaking to the players, a mishmash of Israeli Jews, Arabs and Druse as well as foreigners from Congo, Colombia, Poland, Armenia and the US - both teams are family. Never was that more poignant than on a bus ride to a game against Bnei Yehudah just over a month ago. Rumbling down the highway as the setting sun was swallowed up by a purple haze, preparations for breaking the Ramadan fast were in high gear. Armenian striker Ilia Yavorian was handing out spaghetti, and Sa'id the journalist was passing around dates. If everyone would play, everyone could eat, regardless of whether they were fasting or not. The different smells and diverse tongues and distinct looks and disparate backgrounds all blurred and dissolved into one for fifty-some players and coaches and other hangers-on, united only by soccer and food.

And then they got off the bus and entered a stadium set in the middle of the cruelly-misnamed Neighborhood of Hope (Shchunat HaTikva). In the Neighborhood of Hope there is no hope, only shameless racism, which on this day was directed at a smattering of Sakhnin fans. Bnei Yehudah's fans hardly corner the market on racism, though. Just a few weeks later it was fans of Sakhnin who were spewing their own indistinguishable brand of brazen racism in the direction of a minority of Jewish fans in Herzliya, a city named after the man who foresaw the State of Israel. Curiously, no one is willing to speak about the reactionary Arab racism, but of course Sakhnin's fans play a part in the problem of violence in Israeli sports.

Nonetheless, far from being dangerous, Sakhnin is of great significance and importance to Israeli soccer, and, by extension, Israeli society, too. If violence and racism in sports mirror Israeli society on the whole, Sakhnin is the one holding up the mirror.