Maradona as a champion of Palestinian cause

According to this, Diego Armando Maradona is now a new cheerleader of the Palestinian cause: "I am the number one fan of the Palestinian people."

Good, I would say: Palestinians could do with a worthy champion of their cause. And Maradona is known to go the few extra steps in support of a cause:

One could even protest that Maradona makes a few steps too many, but it's all in a good cause, isn't it? Besides, he has a strong argument in favor of his views:

Soccer legend says supports Palestinian cause because he grew up on 'struggle and standing against injustice'.

That one for sure. Diego Armando Maradona has fought against quite a few causes of injustice during his lifetime. Like that cause that gained a glorious victory for his team* and the glorious title "Hand of God"** for himself:

Or the cause of fighting his predilection for fine dining:

And we shall not forget his glorious battle with the bottle:

Nor the bloody fight against his tendency to sniff-sniff and snort-snort various controlled substances.

Of course, under the circumstances, one should be lenient with the case in hand and forget the fact that the man is a convicted thief who still owes close to 30 million Euro to Italian tax authorities. Although, of course, the mentioned amount should be adjusted owing to Italian taxmen alertness that left poor Diego without his two Rolexes and, a bit later, his precious earrings.

But, surely, no matter what his detractors say, we'll always remember him as a peerless ball player first of all and above all.

Er... upon second thought, it will probably be better for Palestinian people if they could take another look at this champion of their cause. Just to make sure.

Update: After all, my warning to Palestinians wasn't really needed. The man is a raving Zionist:

It's the third time that Maradona and the team come to the Wall before the World Cup finals.

Yeah... now everything must be clear even to Hamas.

And hat tip to Citizen Wald.

(*) In the interest of full disclosure: the author of this post is a fervent fan of Brazilian national football team. That besides being a member of the Elders' organization. To widen the scope of that disclosure, it should be mentioned that the sudden sympathy to Palestinians Maradona decided to display may have a lot to do with his new job as a coach at Dubai's Al-Wasl team.

(**) Some prefer to call it "Hand Job of God"...