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Citing human rights concerns, Michael Bennett to skip Israel visit
espn.com ^ | February 10, 2017 | ESPN.com news services

Posted on 02/11/2017 5:12:24 PM PST by John W

Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett has withdrawn from a group of NFL players planning to visit Israel next week.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.

"I was not aware ... 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,'" Bennett wrote. "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."

(Excerpt) Read more at espn.com ...


TOPICS: Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 02/11/2017 5:12:24 PM PST by John W
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To: John W

And the NFL continues its downward slide.


2 posted on 02/11/2017 5:15:34 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: John W

Criminally stupid.


3 posted on 02/11/2017 5:16:17 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Je Suis Pepe)
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To: John W

LOOZA


4 posted on 02/11/2017 5:19:49 PM PST by acapesket (all happy now?)
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To: John W

Ahole idiot.


5 posted on 02/11/2017 5:22:03 PM PST by faithhopecharity ("Politicans are not born, they're excreted." -- Marcus Tillius Cicero)
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To: John W

Yaaaaaawn.


6 posted on 02/11/2017 5:23:18 PM PST by wardamneagle
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To: John W

Yawn
Go help the trans Jordanians.
Find out why corrie pancaked


7 posted on 02/11/2017 5:33:09 PM PST by South Dakota (We need a real independent investigation of Bill/Hillary and Obama's actions)
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To: John W

“...so I can see how the Palestinians, who have called this land home for thousands of years, live their lives....”

I’ve personally been to Israel and seen the palestinian side for myself.
Just go to the worst Detroit slums, multiply by 10 what you see there, and you’ll have a petty darb good idea of just how trashy the palestinians are.


8 posted on 02/11/2017 6:06:14 PM PST by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.)
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To: John W

This clown (Michael Bennett) should have gotten a trophy just for his ignorance of history.

There has never been a coherent “Palestinian people”. Not never.

Many of those who proclaim to be such are recent immigrants from the Arabian peninsula to the region of Israel and Jordon (including the old British Mandate of Palestine, the Ottoman Empire and the even older Roman Province of Palestine).

The Hebrew people have been, by demonstrative archaeological evidence (which is growing every month now) to have been on the named biblical lands for over 2,000-3,000 years or more (Read Josephus if you want at least one good eyewitness account of the Jews in Israel).

Recent archaeological findings (both from previously collected but not sorted materials, esp. from the Temple Mount area, and from new digs),have proven the existence of the Hebrew/Jewish people in Jerusalem, nearby hills and lands possibly even at Maggida itself, going back thousands of years.

There is NO trace of a people called the Palestinians, and when they tell you that they have been there for thousands of years, ask them for original documents/seals/scrolls/tablets, etc. that prove that they even existed. Also ask them for a copy of their history books and early newspapers from “Palestine”. They can’t produce them because they don’t exist. Nothing from before 1948 in extremis.

Remember, thousands of Arabs flooded into the Turkish Ottoman Empire territory of “Palestine” in the late 1800’s after an earlier wave of Europeans Jews migrated there and began to reclaim the land from the sand/mosquitoes and turned them into productive growing areas (where many Arabs were hired as workers). Mark Twain and even Winston Churchill wrote about this in their books about their travels there.

If a football player doesn’t want to go to the White House or to Israel, so be it. Our option is NOT TO BUY anything they endorse and to let their teams, the eunuch-led NFL, and businesses who sponsor these idiots that we won’t buy their products either.

I’m tired of ignorant black athletes who make pronouncements without doing their historical homework. If they want to show their ignorance about history and the real world, let them.

I, for one, will not finance their stupidity.

By the way, didn’t most football players get college degrees, or am I just being picky about what they did for 4 years?

I studies, got a college degree, three varsity letters, and an MVP trophy from Jessie Owens, one of the all-great athletes in the US/world, and a gentleman too. Owens had more class in his shoestring than many of these overpaid, self-inflated egoistic clowns have or will have in their whole existence.

There is a great difference in being “a gentleman and a scholar” and an athlete who doesn’t know anything about the real world.


9 posted on 02/11/2017 6:08:42 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

These Bennett brothers are a pair of real losers. His brother Martellus decided to show he can be an ass too, by refusing the Patriots team visit to the White House.


10 posted on 02/11/2017 6:14:00 PM PST by Chauncey Gardiner
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To: Chauncey Gardiner

Chauncy: Just thinking. If we renamed the White House the Black House, would the Bennett Brothers visit it? Hey wacky comedian Dick Gregory did just that during the 1969 Counter-Inaugural demonstrations against Nixon.

I was an acquaintance of his white female assistant in DC (she of great tallness and wide Afro, but not a bad person).

In fact, I still have an invitation to protest at the Black House, January 1969.

Ah, those were the days. Got to see and hear leftist folksinger Phil Ochs perform (have a great color photo of him in the great tent on the mall).

Today’s protestors have no class.


11 posted on 02/11/2017 6:19:37 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: John W

Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here’s what he said:

” The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?


BTW, Mr. ignorant football player. There has already been a “two state solution”. It was called Israel & Trans-Jordan.


12 posted on 02/11/2017 7:09:24 PM PST by ChildOfThe60s ("If you can remember the 60s........you weren't really there")
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To: John W

The NFL and the clowns who go their to play with balls are greatly overrated.


13 posted on 02/11/2017 7:39:04 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (As long as tyranny exists, the Constitution and Bill of Right will never be "outdated" or "obsolete")
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To: John W

The guy is an idiot.


14 posted on 02/11/2017 8:05:30 PM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or reeducation camp?)
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