IRVINE, Calif. - It was planned as a way to bring young athletes together for a weekend of fun, but when participants in the Muslim Football tournament started naming their teams Intifada, Soldiers of Allah and Mujahideen, Jewish leaders took offense.
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"What exactly are they honoring here?" asked Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights organization. "The continued targeting of innocent women and children by homicide bombers deserves to be condemned across the board. It’s deeply, deeply disturbing."
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"A lot of the kids on our team are from Palestinian origin," said Tarek Shawky, Intifada’s 29-year-old captain and quarterback. "We are in solidarity with people in the uprising. It’s about human rights and basic freedoms."
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