JERUSALEM - "No Arabs, No Goals," crowed MP Ahmed Tibi as a second Arab-Israeli footballer smashed the ball into the back of the net, saving Israel's World Cup prospects for a second time in less than a week.
Aping the slogan beloved of Jewish extremists, "No Arabs, no terror attacks", midfielders Abbas Suan and Walid Badier are heros in Israel's heavily discriminated Arab community after their prowess kept football burning bright.
Suan and Badier scored match-tying goals in back-to-back qualifier matches against Ireland and France in Tel Aviv on Saturday and Wednesday, keeping Israeli hopes alive for the 2006 German World Cup.
Overjoyed with Badier's feats in Wednesday night's crucial match against France, Tibi telephoned a journalist from Israel's right-wing Maariv newspaper.
The rag thought Tibi's slogan pertinent enough to reprint as its headline.
"All week he had been dreaming about how Abbas Suan and Walid Badier would save the homeland," sneared a Maariv editorialist.
Israeli by nationality, Palestinians at heart, Israel's 1.2 million Arabs, descendants of those who remained on their land after the Jewish state was created in 1948, are treated as second class citizens.
"My expression, 'No Arabs, No Goals', is my answer to the racists in Israel. These two goals have had more impact than all the political pontificating," Tibi told AFP.
"The fact that these two Arab players made more than 40,000 spectators in the stadium leap for joy deals a heavy blow to all the extremists in Israel. I'm sure it annoyed some officials in Israel," he added.
"Happily, Avigdor Lieberman's transfer plan was not implemented last week, otherwise Israel would have lost both matches," Tibi mocked.
The extremist right-wing Lieberman, a former cabinet minister, advocated the deportation of all Arab Israelis to the Palestinian territories.
Ironic then, that Badier equalised against France as Arabs marked Land Day, which commemorates the killings of six Arab Israelis in clashes with security forces when the government decided to expropriate Arab land in 1976.
"Like Abbas Suan against Ireland, Walid Badier saved the Israeli side against France," triumphed the Arab-Israeli newspaper Al-Ittihad.
By each socketing the ball to the back of the net, "Suan and Badier kept the Israeli team on course to the World (Cup) and gave it hope".
Suan told AFP he hoped that the exploits of Arab players could better strengthen peaceful coexistance between Arabs and Jews in Israel.
"I hope we can achieve what politics cannot: through football narrow the divide between Arabs and Jews in Israel," he told AFP.
"For the first time in the history of Israel, Jews and Arabs are united behind the same cause," said the captain of team Sakhnin, which last year became the first Arab-Israeli side to win the Israeli Cup.
But if he dreams of playing for Israel in the World Cup, he hopes the feats of Arab players will help to end the racist diatribe against Sakhnin that has disgraced Israeli stadiums.
For Sakhnin chairman Mazen Ghanayem, the three Arab players on the national team are "our ambassadors" to the world.
"Thanks to them, the world knows 18 percent of the population of Israel are Arabs who work as they should but don't have their rights," he told AFP.

04/02/2005 13:25 GMT