After years of displacement thanks to America’s war and occupation, the Iraqi national football [soccer] team finally returned home to Baghdad to play a match in the Al Sha3ba Stadium.

Despite the improved security in the country, Iraq is still a nation where above-normal security precautions are needed. Armed vehicles blocked the road to the stadium and hundreds of security officers surrounded the area.

Until recently, FIFA prohibited the Iraqi national team from playing in the country due to obvious concerns. But FIFA has relented a bit by allowing this game and another Tanzania game to be played in Iraq; although a planned game with New Zealand will be played in Amman, Jordan.

When the Iraqi national team - which ranked fourth at the 2004 Athens Olympics - was looking for a competitor it found that almost all Arab national team were too fearful. With the exception of one nation: Palestine.

The Palestinians were the only Arab national team that agreed to come. Maybe because the Palestinians, like the Iraqis, are used to playing in less than secure contexts to put it lightly. In fact, because of Israel’s brutal occupation, the Palestinian national team has, in fact, never played on home soil.

The Palestinians came to Baghdad because as player Assad Abdul-Karim put it, the Iraqis are “our brothers, and we wanted to break their isolation.”

This is the spirit of the Palestinian. Their generosity and unity with their fellow Arabs.

What makes this game - which Iraq won 4-0 - more poignant is that the Iraqis Shias and the Iraqi government have been so cruel to the Palestinians living in the country.

The Palestinians have been forced out of their homes in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, the Palestinians were often favored by the late dictator in terms that they received subsidized housing and the like. Saddam treated the Palestinians in such a manner more out of cynical public relations calculations toward the fiercely pro-Palestinian Arab world rather than pure altruism.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq and occupation, the oppressed Shias under Saddam have attacked Palestinians as a substitute for venting their built-up hatred of Saddam. Palestinians have been killed, often after being brutally tortured, and most of them have been forced out of their homes. As a very small minority - Iraqi Palestinians number 30,000 - the Palestinians were defenseless.

Palestinians, lacking a passport, were made double-refugees and forced into a no-mans-land between the Iraqi-Syrian border. Huddled in tents in the sweltering desert heat, the United Nations declared these Palestinians to be the most vulnerable people in the world. It asked Arab governments to take them in. All shamefully refused. Thus far, only a handful of nations have agreed to take in Palestinians: Brazil, Chile, Iceland and Norway [there may some other nations as well].

The State Department recently announced that it will settle 1,350 Iraqi-Palestinian refugees.

And, yet, all this and the Palestinians still stand with Iraqis as “brothers.” This is the Palestinian people.