הדר שפיגל: The Berliner Zeitung picks up the story of Israeli fandom: "Every third Israeli wanted Germany to win the world championship title, according to a poll taken by the research institute Dachaf just before the match with Spain. Yossi Sarid, a columnist for Ha'aretz and a former education minister of Israel, indicates how fully the young team has changed opinions of Germany: 'Now more than ever, it's okay to root for Germany,' he writes, and poses the question: 'Who would have thought of Jews supporting Germany? … Until a few years ago, we could never have brought ourselves to do so.'" "But it's not the team's professional play that excites (Sarid) so much as the absence of national posturing. 'On Saturday,' he writes, 'as the German anthem played (before the team beat Argentina), we noticed the poker face and pursed lips of Mesut Özil (an ethnic Turkish player) and a few of his teammates. One could have expected an immediate and loud protest, a pan-German denunciation. Yet nobody opened his mouth or jeered. What has happened lately to these lions, these pure-bred, blond-haired, blue-eyed Germans? Where is their national honor?' Sarid's answer: 'It has disappeared along with the bone-chilling days of Deutschland über alles.'" |