Soccer's safe, right?

Hey all! PURIM SAMEACH!! Well, the huband and I are back up north at the in-laws for Purim. It's funny, because as long as we're within the limits of Jerusalem, it's not Purim yet. The second we left, it was, and we had to haul ass to make it up here in time to get to Maggilah reading. But, that's not the funniest part. The second half of the drive up here, we were behind this truck with a huge flag waving in the back. At one of the stop lights, we were able to see that it was a Bnei Sachnin Soccer flag. That's when my husband commented that there was supposed to be a soccer being played up there this week. As most of you know by now, my in-law's Yishuv over looks Sachnin, so we can see the stadium from up there.

As we got got closer to the Yishuv, we at Tzomet Yuvalim, which almost always has absolutely no traffic. And, we're sitting there for like 10-15 minutes. After just a couple of minutes, I heard people honking and screaming behind me. It didn't take a genius to figure out that said game was being played tonight. And, it was against none other than Beitar Yerushaliam. As background for why this particular rematch was so huge, a few months ago these two teams played at Sachnin. Beitar whipped Sachnin's butt, but the Sachnin crowd was pist about some alleged call that they saw one of the refs miss. So, they stormed the field and tried to go after that ref and members of the Beitar team. The game was called, and it ended in mayhem, mostly. Well, the police were going to make sure that history did not repeat itself.

So, at this intersection that leads into Sachnin, there was a bunch of cops there. It looked like a mamash road-block. They were stopping cars and checking people out. So, we make left turn finally. Then, we go to make a right to start going up the hill to the Yishuv. But, we turn right into a cop car blocking the incoming road. There are two reasons for this. 1) About halfway up the hill, there is an off-turn onto a dirt road that leads to Sachnin. Only people who live in the Yishuvim and local Arabs know about this route, and the police were not about to let anyone sneak into Sachnin without being checked. 2) It's Purim on top of there being this game. Arabs like to do things on Jewish holidays. You know, like blow stuff up, amongst other things. Like trying to sneak into Yishuvim to blow stuff up or kill people and stuff. On Purim, there the added bonus of crazy drunk Jews that in a position to do stupid things.

So, on our way up, we were confronted by 2 cops blocking the roads, asking us where we were going. Then, where the dirt path leads to Sachnin, there were two more blues. So, we've been watching the game a little bit. With 10 minutes left before the first half was over, Beitar was up 3-0. Many of the Sachnin already started to walk out. This was on top of the fact that the busses bringing in the Beitar kids showed up 5 minutes after the game started because they were stopped at Tzomet Yuvalim for 45 minutes, so the cops could check each bus. I'm glad we came up at the time we did, or else we would have been stuck a the intersection with them.

So, what's the moral of this story?