Rabinfest 2007: It's not over until it's over

Yogi Berra once said, "It's not over until it's over." Well, The 12th of Marcheshvan is behind us, and the 4th of November has also passed. In spite of this, Rabinfest 2007 is still going strong, and there is no end in sight.

The latest is a ruling by the Israeli Football Association (IFA) against the Beitar Jerusalem Soccer club:

Beitar Jerusalem has been slapped with a two-match crowd ban following the behavior of Beitar's fans during a minute of silence held in the memory of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin this week.

The Israeli Football Association (IFA) delivered the sentence after having found the team guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct with severe circumstances. In addition, a suspended sentence of two additional games without supporters was handed down to the team.

George Orwell fans will love the following from the IFA ruling:

"This was a mass disruption on the part of a significant part of the supporters among Beitar fans. The number of disrupters reached into the hundreds. "The issue at heart is (respecting Rabin's memory), something considered to be a national consensus(CX: you guys got to be kidding) and an assault on it is an assault on our democratic existence(CX: you guys wouldn't recognize a democratic idea even if it slapped you in the face). Due to that consensus, the excess of those supporters shook the country, crossed every red line. This incident has nothing to do with freedom of expression."(CX: It's all about the reaction of people who are sick of having the ideas of the Rabin cult shoved down their throats.)