Can sports bring together an ethnically divided populace? Clint Eastwood thinks so (see Invictus), as do the athletes of Israel’s Sakhnin United team, the first predominantly Arab-populated squad to win the coveted Israeli Cup. But the longer this profile of the mixed Muslim-Jewish crew follows players over the course of a difficult season, the more it establishes the difficulty of burdening one team to serve as a national symbol of reconciliation—and how hard it is to break free from triumph-of-the-underdog clichs with even the best of intentions.—Andrew Schenker
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