A Just Like That Story

The Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry,

“Go to the banks of the great grey-green,

greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees,

and find out.”

 - Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories: The Elephant’s Child

Just like that, Shlomo warned me ominously, an Intifada – an uprising – could erupt. Which is why he is making phone calls to neighboring Bedouins to rally them in favor of Tali Omer, who is running in the upcoming elections for the regional council of Misgav, which abuts Sakhnin. She believes in the importance of cultivating good relations with Sakhnin and Arabs in general, which is not to be taken for granted considering that Zvika Gringold is also in the running. Thirty fours years after battling Syrians to keep them from taking hold of the Golan Heights, Gringold is still fighting to keep the area free – free of Arabs, that is. These days his enemies are Ahmed and Fitna Zbidat, a couple who would like to move from Sakhnin to the neighboring communal settlement of Rakefet. To do so they have to first be accepted by the members of Rakefet, though, and they haven’t fared any better than the previous 50 Arab families who over the past 25 years have sought to move to Jewish communal settlements and have all been rejected on the nebulous grounds of “social incompatibility”. Gringold perceives them as a provocative threat to the Zionist enterprise up north, and he had no qualms over using those exact words on national television a few months ago.

While Gringold is building fences to keep Arabs out – the kind of fences that do not make good neighbors – Shlomo is arranging to visit with Bedouins in their own homes. It seems only fitting that Shlomo builds doors for a living. If only his car had more than two, it would be easier for Waleed and Hassan to get in and out, but they’re happy – as am I – just to get a ride to Sakhnin’s game against Maccabi Petach Tikva. Shlomo, for his part, is happy to have a chance to drill into two of Sakhnin’s youngest and most ardent fans the importance of behaving well in the stands and refraining from violence. For the past three years Shlomo has been a fixture at Sakhnin’s games, home and away, doing his best to stem the tidal wave of violence, preaching to fans who sing in chorus but are no choir. Still, Shlomo takes great pride in having succeeded at removing the profane growths from the vocabulary of the dimpled Luai, who is a leader among Sakhnin’s fans and also something of a mentor to Waleed and Hassan. This is his holy grail, and he’s in it for the long haul. Long, too, is the way to Petach Tikva on a Saturday night, and so Waleed and Hassan’s slow education begins.

 

***

 

You may recall that a few weeks ago Sakhnin traveled to Shkhunat Hatikva, the Neighborhood of Hope, where their fans were abused by the local supporters and their players were treated no better, suffering their only loss this year, 0-3 to Bnei Yehuda. The Neighborhood of Hope was built over a century ago by Christian American settlers who built a farm there, while the Stable is the soccer stadium of Petach Tikva, which was the first Jewish settlement, its name denoting a Doorway to Hope. It appears that where Jews (and Christians) are inspired to hope, Sakhnin tends not to do very well.

 

But that’s not why they arrived at the Stable already agitated. They felt slighted because theirs was the only league game not broadcast on television, even though they were ranked second in the league. And they were angry because the police had offered to help Netanya defray the costs of securing its game against Beitar Jerusalem, only two months after refusing to similarly reach out to Sakhnin. Fuming, Sakhnin chairman Mazen Ganaim vowed to demand answers – and justice – from the chairman of the Israeli Soccer Federation, Avi Luzon.

 

And so it didn’t help matters that Maccabi Petach Tikva is run by Amos Luzon, Avi’s brother and another member of Israeli soccer’s first family. Nor did it make Ganaim feel any better when the referee, just coming off a lengthy suspension for incompetence, allowed two controversial Petach Tikva goals scored near the end of a tense game. All it takes is one idiot to burn down a forest, national park signs warn, and apparently it takes all of two blown calls to set the Stable ablaze. For the intensely sensitive Sakhnin, it’s an exceedingly fine line; once crossed, all hell breaks loose.

 

Ganaim uncharacteristically lost his temper, accusing Luzon of intimidating the referee at halftime, claiming that the whole situation was taken straight out of the Middle Ages, which was surprisingly accurate - in medieval soccer, entire towns would play against each other with the bloated bladder of a pig. The scene unfolding at Petach Tikva’s Stable was no less chaotic. The referee sent off Sakhnin’s American, Leo Krupnik, for suggesting that he might as well have worn Petach Tikva’s shirt to the game, which was more subtle than what Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of parliament and Sakhnin fan, said to him. Meanwhile, a Petach Tikva player spit at a Sakhninian and incited a brawl among the players. When they weren’t breaking it up, members of the Ganaim and Luzon clans engaged in their own brouhaha. Matters got so far out of hand that the assistant referee had to call a policeman over to rescue him from the wrath of Sakhnin’s… security officer. Presumably, the assistant referee was not afraid, unlike the elephant’s child, of being spanked.

 

It seemed that the two horses, one white and one chestnut, were the best behaved spectators at the Stable. With players’ and management’s admonitions regarding violence ringing particularly hollow, Sakhnin’s furious fans were more than happy to join the fray. An avalanche of humanity descended upon the fences – the fences that do make good neighbors – as their former belongings rained down on the field. Just like that, Shlomo was off to the races, hot in pursuit, anxious to make peace.

 

And so I was left alone, brandishing pen and paper, which one suspicious fan perceived as particularly threatening. “What are you writing?” he demanded of me. I explained, introduced myself and extended a friendly hand. It remained suspended in mid-air. It’s a good thing he didn’t bite.

 

The fans now began to spill out onto the unsuspecting streets, their anger in tow. I bumped into Shula, another one of Sakhnin’s Jewish fans, an elderly lady from the center of the country who rarely misses a game and was anointed by Ganaim the team’s number one fan. She was shaking, not from the cold – as I was, and she later called to remind me to bring a coat next time – but rather with fury. Accosted by Arabs who couldn’t imagine she was on their side, this grandmother with a torn ligament in her leg was ready to throw a haymaker of her own.

 

I managed to catch up to Shlomo, too. He had just caught up to his glasses, which he lost when he was thrown to the ground. He had no more success straightening them out than he did making peace. But while his sight may have been temporarily impaired, his foresight proved chilling. Just like that, he had said. Or was it Just So?

 

Highlights – or, rather, lowlights – of the game: http://www.sport5.co.il/articles.aspx?folderid=912&docid=28508&lang=HE

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