Iran outraged at late Palestinian friendly cancellation

[RaginG Inferno]

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/palestinian-soccer-iran-outrage.html

Palestine's behaviour is disgraceful. The next time we face them, we should teach them a lesson along these lines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSMtSdVy7CU

The lesson to be learnt from this episode is simple: We should not face Arab teams in friendlies. They are unreliable and poor opposition. We should play teams like Japan, Sweden, Greece, Armenia, Russia, Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria.

[Abtin]

Once again you see this team with these names, not scoring the entire first half against PALESTINE, until a short little guy takes matters into own hands and makes hell of a pass. Yet, he's not in the squad..

[RaginG Inferno]

Khalatbari has saved us on numerous occasions. Against Russia, against Uzbekistan...Queiroz's memory must have lapsed.

[sarbaz]

Baba jan the so called "brother Arab nations" like Palestine ,lebanon,Iraq and Syria don't give a shit about Iran
They only like the billions of $$$ we give them every year
Even now they will side with other Arabs against us
That's a fact

[aenima_8]

"Gulf-Iranian proxy war spills onto the soccer pitch

A Saudi-led proxy war against Iran playing out in Syria and Iraq has expanded onto the soccer pitch with a last minute decision by the Palestinian national team to cancel a friendly against Iran. The cancellation officially on technical grounds came barely two weeks before Iran meets two of its Gulf nemeses, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in politically loaded matches during the Asian Cup in Australia. It also highlights internal divisions among the Palestinians as Hamas, the Islamist group in control of Gaza, seeks to patch up its differences with Iran.

Iranian suspicion that the Palestinian cancellation four days before the friendly was scheduled to take place is rooted in close ties between the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and conservative Gulf states as well as Mr. Abbas's deteriorating relations with Hamas. Iranian officials and soccer analysts doubt the cancellation had anything to do with soccer.

The officials and analysts noted that the Palestinian squad had recently trained and played matches in the UAE and Saudi Arabia whose relations with Iran have long been strained. The two Gulf states alongside Bahrain believe that Iran has sought to fuel discontent in their countries and is responsible for the popular uprising in Bahrain that was brutally suppressed in 2011 as well as unrest in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich, predominantly Shiite Muslim Eastern Province.

Saudi Arabia whose puritan Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is inherently anti-Shiite has poured billions of dollars into becoming a dominant force in Muslim communities across the globe since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Saudi responses to the popular revolts that have swept the Arab world in recent years and sparked a brutal civil war in Syria as well as to the crisis in Iraq and the rise of jihadist groups like the Islamic State, which controls a swath of Iraq and Syria, have been characterized by their anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian overtones. To be sure, the Islamic State is no less sectarian with its murderous campaigns against Shiites and other religious minorities.

The Saudi responses reflect the fact that the kingdom's ruling family cloaks itself in the mantle of Islam to justify its absolute power that is becoming increasingly harsh in its crackdown on domestic sent. A Saudi court in recent days referred to a court that deals with terrorism cases two women arrested a month ago for violating a ban on women driving. Saudi rulers see any alternative form of Islamic government, particularly ones that involve popular legitimization through elections like Iran or the rise in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood with the election in 2012 of Mohammed Morsi, as a direct threat. Mr. Morsi was toppled a year later in a Saudi and UAE-backed military coup.

In a letter to his Iranian counterpart, Palestine Football Association (PFA) secretary general Abd Al-Majid Hujjah said his squad had just returned from a visit to China and was preparing for next month's Asian Cup in Australia and therefore was unable to travel to Iran. Mr. Hujjah stressed Palestine's brotherly relations with Iran and expressed hope that the countries' teams would have a future opportunity to meet.

The PFA, locked into a campaign to get Israel suspended by world soccer body FIFA for alleged obstruction of the development of Palestinian football that is part of a broader effort to squeeze Israel within international organizations, needs Gulf support. Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat was quoted by Israeli media as saying that the United Nations Security Council could vote within days on a resolution that would call on Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory by 2017. After years of failed mediation efforts, FIFA this month warned that Israel could be sanctioned if it failed to ensure the free movement of Palestinian players.

The Palestinian cancellation of the Iranian match came not only at a sensitive moment in Palestinian diplomacy but also at a time that efforts to bridge the divide between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are faltering further. Hamas charged that the authority's security forces had this week arrested 14 of its operatives on the West Bank.

Squeezed by pressure from both Israel and Egypt in the wake of this summer's destructive war with Israel, Hamas sent a delegation to Tehran earlier this month to repair relations ruptured by the Sunni Muslim Islamist militia's refusal to back the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A renewal of ties would not only complicate Hamas' relations with the authority but would also serve Iran's argument that it is the Gulf states rather than the Islamic Republic that is fuelling sectarianism in the Middle East.

PFA President Jibril Rajoub, who a year ago became the first representative of Mr. Abbas to visit Tehran in years, has urged Hamas to break its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood - a demand that is in line with Saudi Arabia and the UAE who have outlawed the group as a terrorist organization. Mr. Rajoub's visit focused on efforts to lift a Syrian siege of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus and win Iranian support for Mr. Abbas' UN efforts.

A deputy secretary of the central committee of Mr. Abbas' Al Fatah movement and former head of Palestinian security, Mr. Rajoub needs to reassure Gulf states who worry about the fact that he has close personal ties to Hamas leaders should he want to succeed Mr. Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Abbas has suggested on a number of occasions that he wishes to retire.

The Authority and Mr. Rajoub are walking a tightrope. Cancellation of the match against Iran will earn them brownie points in the Gulf but not contribute to relations with Iran, which has suggested that it would abide by any decision the Palestinians take with regard to Israel.

"The match against Palestine was agreed upon on October 3. The Palestinians had 80 days but said they were not coming just four days before the match. This is neither legal nor professional... In the worst of cases, this constitutes regional collusion with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia," charged Mehdi Rostampour, a well-known Iranian soccer analyst, in a posting on his Facebook page."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-dorsey/gulf-iranian-proxy-war-sp_b_6383900.html

[Cataphract]

Nigerians did the same to us because of the alleged Iranian agents in their country. They were punished by FIFA. However, the PERSIAN gulf arabs will probably cover the expenses. Thats probably a lessln to not play arab teams.

[hzv]

they did so on purpose to try and sabotage our preparations and thus asian cup campaign. this is not the first time arab teams cancel last second on us what i dont understand is why do we keep making the same mistakes? u.a.e did the same, Egypt, iraq...have all done it. we truly are gullible if we think these arab nations will favor us over saudis just because we are shia and they are shia or because we give them millions i guarantee you saudis give them more money as well.

[Taz]

Love the politics of our group with the three gulf states. I'll still cheer on Palestine in their efforts as the biggest minnows, even if they purposely cancelled, but a victory against every each and every one of those filthy conniving little shits from the gulf will be so very sweet, particularly Qatar who seem to have ideas way above their station.

[Soosk]

It will be really fun watching team meli beat these arabs. I only wish there was a way that all 3 of these Persian gulf arab countries could be eliminated in the group stage.

[khodam]

MF's! And then every asshole IRI wearing a shitty Palestinian scarf around their stupid necks. These wisels abandon us on every chance they get. Don't you remember they sided with Iraq during the war?

[Bi-honar]

In case you're wondering about the real reasons why the Palestinians cancelled the game:

Iran Ready to Support Process of Arming West Bank: IRGC Official

[TheBoss]

Hopefully Japan will give them an ass kicking that they will never forget.

[sarbaz]

I say this again and again and again

For some of you young people here let me tell you a story

I was 17 years old when i was in the Iran-Iraq war and I saw with my own eyes when we beat the Iraqui army in many operatioons like Karbala,Fatholl mobin,Kheibar,and Val Fajr 7 and 8 that i was a part of when we took the Al-Faw peninsula and cut off Iraq completly from the persian gulf and this was a shock defeat and Iran's most impressive win in the war besides freeing Khormanshahr in 1982 and capturing Iraq's oil rich
area of Majnoon half iselands, in getting 100s of thousands of POWs tghousand and tousand of them were from other arab nations who were helping Saddam beating the Ajam persians.

So this is nothing new
expect in a few occasions all the arab nations of the middleast and north africa will back each other in a war rather than the Iran and Iranians.

They are affraid of us and our power in all areas and will do anything they can to see us suffer.

[pres80]

blessing in disguise, could have seriously injured one of our players. that would not have been unheard of when playing super weak teams. Remember France vs China tackle on cisse?

[KC McElroy]

Love the politics of our group with the three gulf states. I'll still cheer on Palestine in their efforts as the biggest minnows, even if they purposely cancelled, but a victory against every each and every one of those filthy conniving little shits from the gulf will be so very sweet, particularly Qatar who seem to have ideas way above their station.

What gulf are you talking about?