Bonus: It paints Israel in a positive light.

“Flying Pig” bonus: It is from the New York Times

This city is one of Israel’s smallest, a hardscrabble place with a population of 23,000 that is less than two miles from the Lebanese border and through the decades has repeatedly found itself caught in the crossfire of Arab-Israeli strife

In 1974, Kiryat Shmona was the scene of a terrorist attack in which 18 Israelis, many of them children, were killed. Rockets have clobbered the town during cross-border fighting. Underground shelters are as familiar to the city as traffic lights. And jobs can be scarce.

Yet somehow, Kiryat Shmona’s professional soccer team has become the runaway leader of Israel’s top league, has captured a separate tournament that concluded this week and has begun to turn perceptions of this often-beleaguered community upside down.

For now, the king of soccer in this country is a team that plays in a 5,500-seat stadium, has a diverse 23-man roster that includes six Israeli Arabs and is still adjusting to the curiosity it is creating.

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The team’s rise can largely be traced to one man — Izzy Sheratzky, a millionaire from Tel Aviv who made his money in Global Positioning System devices that help track stolen cars and who founded the club 10 years ago.

Sheratzky, a native Israeli, began investing heavily in Kiryat Shmona after being moved by images of its being pounded by Katyusha rockets 13 years ago. Eventually, he decided to buy two local clubs and merge them with a dream of taking his new team to the highest level of European soccer.

“In 1999, I saw the wars and the Katyushas and many bombs,” he said in an interview last Saturday an hour before his team took the field. “Many people left Kiryat Shmona. The situation was very bad. There was no work and there was the bombs. I decided to take care of Kiryat Shmona and to help them.”

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It will try to do so with a combination of journeyman players, young prospects, a handful of foreigners — including a 27-year-old Argentine-American midfielder, — and, perhaps most significantly, a mixture of Israeli Arabs and Jews.

“For us, this is very important,” Edri said of the roster’s makeup. “With football you can do peace, the Arab and Israeli living together.

Read the whole thing.

Exhibit A:

Cassius Clay’s triumphant comeback victory Monday night in Atlanta, after 43 months away from the boxing ring on draft-evasion charges, brought not only his fists but his pro-Arab views back to national and international attention. Asked by a New York Times reporter after the fight about a subsequent contest with heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, Clay replied: “To those who might want it, the fight will come. All those Jewish promoters–they’ll see that it comes off.” The reporter said the athlete smiled as he said it. Boxing insiders remarked today that Clay was insulting “the guys who went to bat for him”–specifically Harry Markson, the boxing director of Madison Square Garden in New York, and Sam Massell, the mayor of Atlanta. Observers noted that Clay, who prefers to be known by his Muslim name as Muhammad Ali, has a long record of sympathy to Arab causes, expressed in part by his spending his second honeymoon several years ago on a tour of Arab nations and being photographed with Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was recalled, in this connection, that on the death of President Nasser the Muslim newspaper, “Muhammad Speaks,” front-page a warm tribute to the departed Arab by the sect’s leader, Elijah Muhammad.

Exhibit B:

Muhammad Ali, who says he is retiring from the ring to spread the faith of Islam, is losing no time throwing right hooks at Zionism. He told a press conference in Beirut, at the start of a tour of the Middle East, that “the United States is the stronghold of Zionism and imperialism.” On a visit later to two Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon, the former heavy-weight boxing champion was quoted by a guerrilla news agency as saying: “In my name and the name of all Muslims in America, I declare support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland and oust the Zionist invaders.” Ali told newsmen that after retiring from the ring he will devote his life to preaching the Moslem faith, beginning by establishing a mosque in Las Vegas. Uncharacteristically modest, he added: “I am no longer the greatest. Allah is.”

Exhibit C:

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mohammed Ali charged Zionists “control” America and the world, according to an interview reported in a leading publication in India, the text of which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained.

Ali had been in India and in Africa as President Carter’s special emissary to obtain support for the Carter Administration’s boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow this summer as part of the United States response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In the bi-weekly, “India Today,” dated Feb. 1-15, Ali spoke of Zionists when asked about the “militant revival” of Islam in Iran, and the holding of “your countrymen hostage.” Ali, saying that “those people in Iran are fanatics,” and that “the other Moslems in the world have condemned their action,” declared “religion ain’t bad; it’s people who are bad. You know the entire power structure is Zionist. They control America; they control the world. They are really against the Islam religion. So whenever a Muslim does something wrong, they blames the religion.”

An Associated Press dispatch, reporting Ali’s remarks about Zionism, quoted him as saying that he did not remember talking about Zionists.

Exhibit D:

The 700-odd Shiite Moslem prisoners in the Atlit detention camp have a real champion. He is Muhammad Ali, who held the world heavyweight boxing title from 1964-67 and 1974-78.

Ali arrived in Israel today “to arrange for the freeing of the Muslim brothers imprisoned by Israel.” He said he would be discussing the release of “all 700 brothers” with the “very highest level in the country.”

But Israeli officials have politely declined to enter the ring. Israel does not intend to negotiate through boxing champion Muhammad Ali but will welcome him warmly as a private guest, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.

He said certain preparations have been made to make Ali’s stay in the country as pleasant as possible but did not elaborate. The former champ is expected to be received by Deputy Foreign Minister Ronnie Milo, a Likud MK, but no other official meetings have been scheduled for him.

Asked at the airport if he would also try to obtain the release of the American hostages held by Shiites in Beirut, Ali replied, “I didn’t come here for that.”

On the other hand…

Muhammad Ali may come to Israel for a visit, the world heavyweight boxing champion said in a telephone conversation with a film agent who is distributing the motion picture dealing with Ali’s life. “I Am the Greatest of All.” Ali said he has many friends and followers in Israel and may conic here after visiting Khartoum and Istanbul in a few months

And..

“We’re here to honor a short Jew,” said “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander to open a gag-filled evening with a serious purpose.

The vertically challenged honoree was Hollywood star Billy Crystal, who, surrounded by fellow Hollywood stars and close to 900 fans, accepted the National Scopus Award of the American Friends of the Hebrew University.

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In a long, applause-filled evening, the biggest hands went to three participants: Helen Greenfield, Crystal’s mother, who gave the Motzi, the blessing of the bread, over a giant-sized challah; boxing great Muhammad Ali, Crystal’s personal hero, who served as honorary chairman of the event; and Kirk Douglas, the veteran actor and former Scopus recipient, recently slowed by a stroke, who conferred the Scopus Award on Crystal.

He also thought it a good idea to show it off on Facebook.

They’ll lay up baskets, lay your women, and execute their well laid plans..before reporting back to Mossad headquarters!

Hezbollah’s mouthpiece Al-Manar TV aired a report criticizing Lebanese authorities for allowing eight foreign basketball players who had previously played in Israel to play for teams in Lebanon. One of the players, Sam Hoskin, plays for Lebanon’s national team. Hoskin, an American, previously played for Israeli basketball club Hapoel Galil-Elyon.

Abd el-Malek Sachriya, who heads an organization promoting legislation aimed at boycotting Israel, told Al-Manar’s website that Lebanese authorities are responsible for the “scandal” in which Hoskin was allowed to become a citizen of the Arab country.

He said Lebanon was “half-asleep” and wondered “how can it be that eight players who have played in the Zionist entity come to play in Lebanon – and one of them is even granted citizenship – without anyone knowing who they really are?”

Sachriya said he would meet the Lebanese sports minister next week to discuss the matter. “Any player who entered the Zionist entity and came to Lebanon must be expelled immediately,” he said.

“Players who came from Israel may have been recruited by Mossad – this is a danger to national security,” Sachriya continued. “As we know, the enemy uses all the means at its disposal to achieve its goals and harm the Lebanese resistance.”

Among the players mentioned in the report were ex-Macabbi Tel Aviv forward Rodney Buford; Alpha Bangoura, who played for Givat Shmuel; former Ramat Hasharon player Derek Trevor; John Thomas (what a great name for a basketballer – Aussie Dave) and Tony Dawson, who was Israel’s leading scorer during the 1991-92 season when he played for Betar Tel Aviv.

Dickie Sliverstein adds: Thanks for beating me to my post, you moral pygmy.

Looks like we got a new recruit.

Let me guess: Zionist Death Ref^TM?

In a matter of seconds, a victory celebration of a game-winning soccer goal turned into a crime punishable by a public lashing for two Iranian soccer stars.

Mohammad Nosrati and Sheys Rezaei, who played with the Tehran club “Persepolis,”  jumped on a pile of their teammates following the goal Saturday at the Sardar Jangal Stadium in Rasht, a town to the northwest of Tehran. But then the players engaged in what Iranian authorities called  “immoral acts,” as Nosrati groped Rezaei’s butt as Rezaei balanced in the air.

Now, members of parliament, sports officials and judges have called for punishment for Nosrati and Rezaei, according to the Fars News Agency.

Iran’s football federation  suspended both players and fined them nearly $40,000 each, Fars reported. But public officials have tried to take it further, calling for the players to end their careers forever.

In a matter of seconds, a victory celebration of a game-winning soccer goal turned into a crime punishable by a public lashing for two Iranian soccer stars.

Mohammad Nosrati and Sheys Rezaei, who played with the Tehran club “Persepolis,”  jumped on a pile of their teammates following the goal Saturday at the Sardar Jangal Stadium in Rasht, a town to the northwest of Tehran. But then the players engaged in what Iranian authorities called  “immoral acts,” as Nosrati groped Rezaei’s butt as Rezaei balanced in the air.

Now, members of parliament, sports officials and judges have called for punishment for Nosrati and Rezaei, according to the Fars News Agency.

Iran’s football federation  suspended both players and fined them nearly $40,000 each, Fars reported. But public officials have tried to take it further, calling for the players to end their careers forever.

A judiciary official told Fars that Nosrati and Rezaei could also face public lashings, to be carried out on the soccer field where the behavior occurred.

According to an Iranian judge, the offending action “can be considered a violation of public chastity,” the news agency reported. “The punishment of this crime is prison up to two months and 74 lashes.”

Here’s the infamous butt grope:

While I obviously don’t condone either player being punished, I think Rezaei is particularly hard done by. I mean all he did was jump up on his teammates in celebration. His butt happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time – within reach of Nosrati’s mischievous fingers. It’s not as if he painted a sign on his buttocks saying “Goose me!”

In any event, both players should realize it could be worse.

This “Jihad” banner did not appear in Gaza. Nor in Iran.

It appeared in Poland, at a soccer game.

Anti-racism groups have called on European football’s governing body UEFA to punish Polish club Legia Warsaw after fans brandished a “Jihad” banner during a Europa League match against Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv.

“This is yet another case of anti-Semitic behaviour by extremist groups active in Polish football stadiums, and it could have been predicted,” said Rafal Pankowski of the campaign group Never Again.

At the start of Thursday night’s Group C home game in Warsaw – which Legia won 3-2 – a group of fans unfurled a huge banner stretching across three blocks of a stand.

Written in Arabic-style letters, it read “Jihad Legia”. The banner was green, which is one of Legia’s colours but also that of Islamist groups.

“Some Legia fans have been known for anti-Semitic and extreme-right behaviour for years and they had a chance to express their hatred of Jews again when Legia played an Israeli team, this time adopting a pseudo-Islamist guise,” added Mr Pankowski, who runs the UEFA-backed Football Against Racism in Europe network.

Who do these Legia fans think they are? Feyenoord fans?