Some 250 people were injured in violence after a soccer match in the Jordanian capital of Amman, officials said. The incident began in the final minutes of a game between the Bedouin-backed al-Feisali team and the Palestinian-based al-Wehdat squad, when fans in the upper decks of the stadium began throwing bottles down into the crowd Friday night, the BBC said.Why did they throw missiles?
Well, here's the Al-Jazeera report:
But it is Jamal Halaby, of the Associated Press, who provides us the reality:
...There is a long history of violence between supporters of the two teams, stemming in part from the decades of tension with Jordan's large Palestinian population, which includes an estimated 1.8 million refugees displaced after Israel's 1948 creation and their descendants. Most of Faisali's players and fans are from native Jordanian Bedouin tribes. Most of Wehdat's players and fans are Palestinian.
Although most of Jordan's Palestinians - excluding natives of the Gaza Strip - carry Jordanian passports and enjoy citizenship rights unmatched by other Arab host governments, many of them complain that they are barred from taking up security and army posts or holding other top positions in the Jordanian government.
Native Jordanians feel the Palestinian refugees have no allegiance to the country.
In a match last year between the same teams, Faisali fans chanted slogans deriding the Palestinian origin of King Abdullah II's wife, Queen Rania, and their son Crown Prince Hussein - an episode that even got a mention in one of the U.S. diplomatic memos released by the WikiLeaks website.
No allegiance? Hello, that resonates with Avigdor Lieberman's platform.
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