MELBOURNE – On a wintry Saturday night in Sydney’s western suburbs, less than 48
hours after a terrorist attack near Eilat sparked a fresh wave of violence at
home, a combined Israeli-Palestinian team participating in the Australian rules
football International Cup took out their anger on their unfortunate Chinese
opponents, belting them both physically and on the scoreboard.
Wearing
black armbands to signify their opposition to all types of violence, the Peace
Team ended a run of three consecutive losses with a 96-7 victory over China –
the equivalent of a five- or six-goal win in soccer. But more notable was their
willingness to stand up for one another; when an Israeli player received a
deliberate push in the back during the third quarter, several teammates rushed
in to defend him, initiating a brief scuffle with their smaller Chinese
opponents.
Off the field the 24 players didn’t shy away from discussing
politics, although it never turned violent, head coach Kevin Nafte told The
Jerusalem Post. Nonetheless concerned at the effect that events 15,000
kilometers away could have on the team, Nafte told them the day before the game
against China that it would only bring them closer together.
“The guys
were fantastic,” he said later. “We smashed them [China]. The guys had to
get it out on the field. A lot of the guys, they were thinking about it,
they were feeling it.”
Four days after the China victory, the team
encountered France in Melbourne. The game was played in a carnival-like
atmosphere; busloads of school children from Jewish day schools attended, as did
several former footballers, including one of the all-time greats – Ron
Barassi.
Barassi, 75, who won 10 premierships as a player and coach in a
career spanning four decades in the Australian Football League and its
predecessor the Victorian Football League, told the Post the Peace Team was a
source of inspiration for everyone.
“It shows you what sort of message
sport can send, particularly this one, the Peace Team. The name itself is
magic,” he said, before being drowned out by cheers from the small but lively
crowd.
Barassi said he identified strongly with the Peace Team because
his father, Ron Sr., also a champion footballer, was killed in action in Tobruk
in World War II when Ron Jr. was just a small boy.
“I feel very deeply
about the need for peace. I mean, I would go to war myself if something was
being done to me or to my friends or my country – we all feel like that – but at
the same time the Peace Team really rings a great bell with me. And to hear some
of these players from either side of the so-called fence talk, to hear these
guys in their early 20s, they should be teaching the guys in their 50s and 60s,
who make the decisions, that war is stupid.”
Martin Flanagan, a columnist
for Melbourne broadsheet The Age, said the team had come a long way both on and
off the field since its only previous appearance at the International Cup in
2008.
“This is a game that’s rough, it’s a game of hurly-burly, you never
know where you’re going to get hit from, and that’s what distinguishes it from
rugby. That takes a lot of getting used to, and they are definitely a harder
side than the one we saw three years ago,” Flanagan said.
He added that
regardless of the impact the team makes in the Middle East, “they’ve certainly
had an effect on Australians, a lot of people are into it.”
This includes
umbrella bodies for the Jewish and Muslim communities, who, despite the
often-tense relationship between them, both hosted numerous events for the Peace
Team during the tournament.
Flanagan continued, “It shouldn’t surprise us
in this country that very few Israelis have sat down and talked with
Palestinians, because very few Australians have ever sat down and talked with
Aboriginal people.
“It’s the same thing: When people don’t sit down and
talk they only know one another through the media, and if Australia is any model
to go on, the loudest and most prominent voices here are people... who have
never sat down and talked to an Aboriginal person. So they speak out of
prejudice, and they speak out of fear, and they speak out of resentment, and
that has enormous consequences. It’s all about actually having
dialogue.”
Flanagan expressed amazement that the team had stuck together
through the renewal of violence between Israelis and Palestinians a week
earlier, saying there were a number of times during the tournament that he
thought, “That’s it, it won’t get up and going again.”
“But it never
actually stops,” he said. “They just keep getting it going again. They don’t
fear one another, they know one another. And you’ve got to see them sing and
dance together. When they sing and dance together you see what they’ve
got... They sing and dance better than they play footy.”
On the
field, the Peace Team eventually went down 35-29 to France after mounting a late
comeback.
Immediately afterward, the players were addressed by their
game-day coach, five-time premiership player Robert “Dipper”
DiPierdomenico.
Dipper, who famously played out Hawthorn’s 1989 Victorian
Football League grand final victory over Geelong with a punctured lung, repeated
to his charges what he told them at the start of the tournament – that all they
should want from people is respect.
“You’ve got my bloody respect, I know
that, and you’ve got everybody’s here too,” he told them.
They clearly
had the respect of their French opponents, who after celebrating victory with
boisterous renditions of “Frere Jacques” and “La Marsellaise,” formed a guard of
honor on the field for the Peace Team players to run through.
The final
game against India ended 57-20 to the Peace Team’s advantage, placing it third
in the tournament’s second division. Although the contest was over by
three-quarter time, it was apparent how much the game meant to the players as
they argued among themselves at the break about how to bury their opponents. By
the end the mood was more positive, with the entire playing group and staff
gathering in a circle to sing “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu” (“Peace will come upon
us”) in three languages, before grabbing Dipper and hoisting him in the
air.
Afterward, defender Tamir Goldberg said the whole experience had
exceeded his expectations.
“I thought we’d come to play football,
whatever, have a good time. But I feel that we became so close, you can see that
on the field when everybody’s jumping and hugging,” the 24-year-old Herzliya
resident said.
“We got to a point on the trip where we’re not fighting
about politics anymore, [but instead] bickering about who gets to sleep in what
bed, the type of thing you argue about with friends, not with an
enemy.”
Teammate Saeed Barhom was the only Israeli Arab player, meaning –
in the words of the teenager from Ein Rafa, west of Jerusalem – he was in the
unique position of not being able to identify fully with either the Israelis or
the Palestinians.
He was left with similar impressions to Goldberg’s,
saying, “When we arrived here, we felt that we had to show all the people here
who had heard about us that this is not just talk, that it’s real, that we’re
doing it, playing together, doing everything for peace... And we proved
that.”
Both players expressed hope that the group would stay together.
That could become a reality, thanks in part to the decision by the Australian
Football League to contribute funding to keep the Peace Team going.