Between the Hammer and the Anvil

“I am an Arab Muslim. He is Jewish. He is… Brazilian. There is no religion, there are no Arabs, no Jews, and there are no foreigners. We are one family, all the way.” When the Arab Israeli team Bnei Sakhnin won the 2004 state cup—the first Arab team to do so—midfielder Abbas Suan was beside himself with joy. As he saw it, he and his teammates embodied the one-world ideal that football (soccer) so often represents. This ideal seems nearer when your team wins, of course. And when this motley team, the most successful Arab Israeli team ever, was winning, it inspired many variations of hope.

After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United begins with that most thrilling win. In the stadium and on the streets, fans cheer, players embrace, and team president Mazen Ghanayem makes the point that the team’s significance extends beyond its season’s stats or changing standing in the Premier League. “Shimon Peres said it,” Mazen says, “We need a new Middle East. I think this is a new Middle East.” That Middle East is focused on soccer matches rather than missile strikes, win-loss records rather than body counts. Bnei Sakhnin serves in Christopher Browne’s documentary as an emblem of that possible world.

As such, the team is both actual and aspirational. The film follows the team’s efforts to live up to expectations once it improbably wins the cup, competing in the 2005 season with other, better-funded and more famous teams, teams with longer records of winning and teams with more international respect. The film looks at the many contradictions and ironies signified by Bnei Sakhnin, beginning with its location in the hillside city of Sakhnin, Israel. Hometown hero Abbas Suan notes that of the 23,000 residents, “Most are ordinary employees and workers.” Mostly Muslim Arabs, with a substantial Christian minority, the population daily faces the difficulties of being Arabic and living in Israel.

These have to do with expectations and desires, limits and stereotypes: as United Nations translator and Sakhnin resident Kimal Khalaili says, “When you say, ‘I’m Israeli,’ automatically they think of you as a Jew.” The camera cuts from his weather face to a marketplace, buyers and sellers who could be anyone: “There is a sense of confusion about our belong,” he continues, “Obviously, we feel both Palestinian and Israeli.” Mazen Ghanayem elaborates, “We are always placed between the hammer and the anvil. What I am saying is our own state has neglected us and our Palestinian brothers have been in a war with our own state. And we have a problem.”

As the film shows, political and international conflicts frequently shape perceptions of the team. Just after the national cup, Jewish coach Eyal Lachman extols the team’s symbolic and material benefits: “I think we have a big luck that we have Sakhnin,” he says, “Because without Sakhnin, we have nothing to push a good relationship between the Jewish and the Arabic inside the country.” His team represents an ideal harmony, individuals working together without concern for backgrounds and histories. When you win, he smiles, “Everybody make you feel like something in between Ronaldino and Pele.” Politicians “pay attention,” he adds, as the film shows Shimon Peres himself stopping by to be photographed wit the team.

The film follows the team’s progress through a season, with montages that show players boarding the bus, playing games, and then breaking down their accumulating losses in locker rooms. Almost immediately, Lachman’s authority is challenged. Critics wonder whether he can manage the diversity of players, if he’s having trouble coaching “the foreigners” or “the Muslims.” Bnei Sakhnin fans express their dismay in terms explicitly reflecting their own backgrounds, their racism and fear. One fan tells an interviewer, “It’s not going to help Abbas Suan even if he scores 17 goals. He is garbage, after all, because he is an Arab.”

Interviews with Safa Suan (identified here as “Teacher, wife of Abbas”) indicate her understanding of the pressures on her husband. When he scores a goal for the national Israeli team and a squad of reporters and photographers arrives in their home, she repeats what she’s expected to say (“Maybe thousands of women would wish to have a husband like Abbas”), while also recognizing that the media’s good will—and even Abbas’ own celebrity—depend on his team winning.

The film offers one perspective from the “media,” in the form of local TV reporter Waji Abboud.  His own preparations at the Neptune Studios show his attention to detail as well as why he identifies with the team: his operation is even more poorly funded than Bnei Sakhnin: he applies his own makeup, decides on the color of his ties and suits, and gets himself to each game. He observes the team’s precarious position in Premier League as losses mount over the season. “Everyone knows we have no resources, nothing,” he says. “If the team drops out of the Premier League, it would be considered a catastrophe in the Arab sector, and it would take months to recover from it.”

It’s a lot of symbolic weight to bear. While sports triumphs and emblematic teams can surely be inspirational—the Miracle on Ice, the Springboks of Invictus—Browne’s documentary reminds us that the political or social contexts for those teams are not always copacetic. But, After the Cup argues, such complications don’t make Bnei Sakhnin’s hard work any less admirable.