If you are concerned about peace in the middle east and seek
security for Israel when the entire neighborhood is in turmoil, if you want to
avoid a needless war with Iran, (a war
which we will not win), and if you are looking for someone with great
negotiating skills and experience in understanding the needs and point of view
of the other, someone with knowledge of the region and its history, someone
known for diplomacy, then, where do you turn?
Of course, you call on professional football players. Who better
to understand what it is like to be
ordinary people trying to survive in an oppressive situation than those who
grew up and continue to live in what the news media calls a “culture of
entitlement?”
That’s why Robert Kraft, ultra Zionist, and owner of the New
England Patriots led a delegation of 20 former National Football League players
to Israel
where they met with Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister wanted an
opportunity to explain to them why Obama’s effort to avoid a war with Iran is a dumb
move. It’s not that Netanyahu himself seeks a war with Iran where
Israel would have to pay the price in lives and money, he is clear in
proclaiming that he wants the United States to go to war with Iran. So, he
chose the bright minds of the NFL to make his case. He put it in terms that
even they could understand. Call it football diplomacy.
“I lead my life according to the four F’s – at least
phonetically,” Kraft is often reported as having said; “family, faith, football
and philanthropy. This trip has
connected all those dots for me.”
Some one needs to ask, which of these “dots” includes the
right of Jews to steal land from Palestinians, kidnap and imprison their
children, take their water, blow up their homes and lock them up behind cement
barrows and barbed wire fences? Which of his four F’s justifies the past and
on-going war crimes committed by Israel every day?
Kraft also chooses to live by a few other “F” words, such as
the word foolish, or even fantasy. Or what about fiction? It’s make believe to think that a team of
football players could have a better grasp of how to deal with Iran than President
Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Mr. Kraft needs another “F" word to connect his dots. It’s the word fairness.
Football is an entertaining game, but when it gets involved
in foreign affairs, which causes so much pain to so many people, it is no
longer amusing. Mr. Kraft should stick
to something he knows something about for when he gets into defending Israel , he has
fumbled and somebody needs to blow the whistle on him.
When I read that wealthy professional football players are recruited
to influence US policy in
the Middle East , the best “F” word to describe
me is flabbergasted with an equal measure of fear.
William Sloane Coffin said it well. “If what you think is
right causes some one else to suffer, there is something wrong with what you
think is right.”
July 13, 2015
[1] Philip
Weiss, Patriots’ Owner Brings 20 NFL
veterans to Netanyahu who calls them to block Obama’s Iran
Outstanding!
ReplyDelete(Posted by Disrnr)