With the Super Bowl done and gone, it’s going to be a long offseason for pro football fans. For a growing, vocal and unhappy band of leftist brothers, the offseason can’t last long enough.
Now some NFL players are linking arms with Palestinians in opposition to Israel. All these activists ought to make it official and form a political action committee.
Over the weekend, ESPN.com News Services reported:
Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett has withdrawn from a group of NFL players planning to visit Israel next week.
Writing about his decision in posts on Twitter and Instagram on Friday night, Bennett said he was concerned that the goodwill tour, which is sponsored by the Israeli government, would be viewed as showing preference to Israel over Palestine.
Bennett, the brother of the New England Patriots’ Martellus Bennett, who is boycotting the team’s visit to President Trump at the White House, wrote:
Dear World,
I was scheduled to make a visit to Israel with fellow NFL players. I was excited to see this remarkable and historic part of the world with my own eyes. I was not aware, until reading this article about the trip in the Times of Israel, that my itinerary was being constructed by the Israeli government for the purposes of making me, in the words of a government official, an “influencer and opinion-former” who would then be “an ambassador of good will,” I will not be used in such a manner. When I do go to Israel – and I do plan to go – it will be to see not only Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza so I can see how the Palestinians, who have called this land home for thousands of years, live their lives.
One of my heroes has always been Muhammed Ali. I know that Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people, visiting refugee camps, going to rallies, and always willing to be a “voice for the voiceless.” I want to be a “voice for the voiceless,” and I cannot do that by going on this kind of a trip to Israel.
I know that this will anger some people and inspire others. But please know that I did this not for you, but to be in accord with my own values and my own conscience. Like 1968 Olympian John Carlos always says, “There is no partial commitment to justice. You are either in or you’re out.” Well, I’m in.
Sincerely,
Michael Bennett
Justin Forsett, a running back with the Denver Broncos, is also boycotting the Israel trip. And there may be more, because an open letter in The Nation has called on other players to "consider the political ramifications of a propaganda trip organized by the Israeli government that aims to prevent players from seeing the experience of Palestinians living under military occupation."
As luck would have it, the boycotting NFLers now have time to join The Nation’s trip to Cuba, organized by the Cuban government and chaperoned by a communist sympathizing academic (and which the average Cuban would have to work 25 years to be able to afford.)
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Here's where things get even more radical. That open letter appearing on The Nation’s website was signed by “luminaries such as Angela Davis and Alice Walker as well as athlete-activists such as John Carlos and Craig Hodges, and organizations including Jewish Voice for Peace and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.” Their letter mentions a connection between Black Lives Matter and Palestinians.
Angela Davis is a 1960s radical who was a leader of the Communist Party USA and had ties to the Black Panther Party. She was charged and acquitted in connection with a 1970 take-over of a court room in Marin County, California, where four people were killed. She is exhibit A as an example of 1960s radicals who became college professors, having served on the faculty at the University of California, Davis. She also spoke at the women’s march in Washington last month.
Carlos won the bronze medal in the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. But he and teammate Tommie Smith were sent home in disgrace by the U.S. Olympic Committee for their black power salute on the victory stand during the playing of the national anthem. They were Colin Kaepernick before the quarterback was even born.
The letter appearing in The Nation included these passages:
We have been especially inspired by you using your celebrity to shed light about and support various struggles including Black Lives Matter. The decision by Martellus Bennett to boycott the upcoming Patriots team visit to the White House following the Super Bowl win is especially brave and sends a clear message that one must take a stand against racism and oppression.
We would ask that you reconsider attending. These trips bringing celebrities to Israel are part of a larger “Brand Israel” campaign to help the Israeli government normalize and whitewash its ongoing denial of Palestinian rights.
What Palestinians face due to Israeli policies is familiar to black and brown communities in the United States and vice versa. That is why when activists in Ferguson were facing tear gas by police while organizing to demand justice for Mike Brown during the summer of 2014, Palestinian activists were tweeting them advice about how to deal with its effects and people in Ferguson were holding up signs in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli bombs in Gaza.
The letter also says this is a time when President Trump and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are working together to implement their “right-wing racist agendas.”
Neither of the two NFL players planning to stay home from Israel or the signers of the letter appearing in The Nation mention anything about atrocities enacted by Palestinian terrorists on Israelis.
It seems the activism of professional athletes is growing by the week. So many issues. So little time. What’s next the next big cause for left-wing NFL activists to take up? LaRaza? Planned Parenthood? Greenpeace? Free Mumia? Stay tuned.
