An American soccer star playing for Palestine

An American soccer starplaying for Palestine - At six foot five, with his shock ofblonde hair shaved into a fat Mohawk andtalking in a languid Georgian drawl, OmarJarun looks like he was once part of an all-conquering college basketball team.But the 26-year-old American doesn't playbasketball. Or at least not well. "I playedrecreational basketball for one season," hetold CNN."People told me I should try it because ofmy height. But I wasn't any good at it."Instead life had a different path for Jarun,one that would take him far from his nativePeachtree City, Georgia.On Sunday he will line up as a defender forthe Palestinian national soccer team as theytake on Afghanistan in a match that, just oneyear on from the World Cup final in SouthAfrica, represents one of the first stepstowards qualification for the nexttournament in Brazil in 2014.Besides being Palestine's first World Cupmatch on home soil, Sunday's encounter willhave extra significance for Jarun. It will bethe first time he has ever set foot in theWest Bank and he plans to visit his ancestraltown of Tulkarem.His team traveled for 24 hours to be able toplay their first match against Afghanistan.The game was moved from Kabul to the tinyaluminum smelting town of Tursunzade insouthern Tajikistan -- a few miles from theUzbek and Afghan border -- for fear ofviolence in Afghanistan.Palestine won 2-0 and now have a goodchance of qualifying for the second roundwhere they would play Thailand.The return match, to be held Sunday inRamallah, will also be a landmark:Palestine's first ever World Cup match onhome soil."My dad taught me to play the game. Hewould always take me and my brother outand we would always play around the backyard," Jarun says."I kicked football in high school, and I wasactually pretty good at it. They wanted meto pursue it in college but I didn't reallywant to. I wanted to play with a team, Ireally wanted to play soccer."Jarun's remarkable story began in Kuwait.Along with his sister, his American motherand Palestinian father, he fled the country in1990 when Saddam Hussein's forces invadedthe kingdom and sparked the first Gulf War."I remember bombs going off. Missilesshooting off near the apartment. Iremember grabbing my bear, me and mysister running to my dad's bedroom andsaying: 'What's going on?'" he recalled."The next morning my dad would come inshaking from the bombs going off. Becausewe are American, my mom managed to getthe entire family in to the U.S. We lefteverything behind. My parents had nothing."Growing up, Jarun soon discovered his lovefor soccer, playing for AFC Lightning, thesame youth team that nurtured U.S.internationals Clint Mathis and RicardoClark.His Arab heritage was seldom an issue, hesays, but he noticed a change after 9/11."By looking at me, I look like a white boy,"he laughed. "You don't get judgedimmediately like my father does. Like anArab. He gets judged right away. But youlook at me and you don't think I'm Arab."Before 9/11 there were no problems,really. I had always established myself as anAmerican from the Middle East. After 9/11 itwas very difficult. My dad would tell me: 'Becareful what you say.' I would get double,tripled-checked at the airport. You know it'sfor safety for the country, so I don't havemany complaints about it."After stints playing for the AtlantaSilverbacks, Vancouver Whitecaps and thenin the Polish league, Jarun returned to theU.S. and joined F.C. Tampa Bay in America'ssecond tier league. But by now he hadbecome an international footballer.A scout from the Palestinian FootballFederation discovered him while on a tourlooking for professional players from thePalestinian diaspora that might qualify toplay for the national team."At the time, when I thought of the nationalteam I thought I could play for the U.S.national team at some point but I neverreally got the opportunity, so I took thisone. I really had no idea I'd be in thePalestinian national team," he said."I knew it wasn't going to be the best set-up, I knew it wouldn't be particularlyprofessional. But I could do my part. Ididn't know what I could do for thePalestinian people apart from play football.So when they told me I could play for thePalestinian national team I said yes."Many will be surprised that Palestine evenhas a national team. In 1998 FIFA, worldfootball's governing body, recognizedPalestine, making it one of the fewinternational bodies to place it alongsideother nation states.But following the outbreak of the secondintifada in 2000, and the imposition ofrestrictions for residents of the West Bankby the Israelis, the local league wascancelled and national team players wereprevented from traveling abroad to fulfiltheir fixtures.When qualification for the 2006 World Cupbegan, so many players were preventedfrom leaving Gaza and the West Bank thatonly nine could start against Uzbekistan in amatch in Doha, Qatar.Today the team is a patchwork ofbureaucracy. They fly on seven different setsof papers that make moving through everyborder, be it Jordanian, Israeli or Tajik, atough task.One, Roberto Bishara, plays for Palestino inthe Chilean first division, a team set up byPalestinian immigrants. Three others areIsraeli Arabs who have played in Israel'sfirst division while most of the rest play inJordan or for teams in the newlyprofessional West Bank Premier League.The coach, Mousa Bezaz and his assistantare French Algerian; eight players and thegoalkeeper coach are from Gaza, which iscontrolled by the militant Palestinianmovement Hamas and in many ways cut offfrom the outside world. Others have an EastJerusalem ID, a separate identity reservedfor those Palestinians who live in the dividedcity or have family there.Gaza-born players who now play in the WestBank have recently been refused re-entrywhen trying to come home via Jordan.Arguably the team's best player, defenderAbdel Latif Bahdari, was repeatedly refusedpermission to leave Gaza through Egypt dueto a ban on visas for men aged between 18and 40. By the time he finally got out it wastoo late for him to make the team.Jarun recalls first meeting his teammates."Their first impressions were: 'Who the hellis this guy? How the hell is this guyPalestinian?' But they welcomed me in like Iwas one of the brothers. It wasn't like I wasan outsider. No one was judging each other."They could tell I had good intentions forthe team. Being an American I can explainto people in America what was going on intheir county."Jarun believes victory on Sunday will do farmore than send Palestine into the nextround."I think the match is huge man. Sport bringscountries together and I don't know a betterway for the world to know about Palestineapart from this soccer team," he explained."Coming from outside, I feel that this issuch a big step for this country. We canshow that the Palestinians are normalpeople." An American soccer starplaying for Palestine