Muslim football teams are planning a tournament for the New Year’s weekend in Irvine.

And the names they’ve chosen for their teams, in an era when sports team names are constantly scrutinized for political correctness, are unbelievably incendiary: Taking the Intifada to the Football Field.

“Who cares? Why are people so sensitive?” said Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, a professor at Georgetown University. “Intifada is something that Muslims and Palestinians all approve of. It means just get off my back. [Ed. note: yes, get off my back, kafir, and let me kill some Jews!]

“Is the only way we accept [Muslims] is if we devalue their faith?”

Interesting that this Georgetown University professor seems to be saying that jihad and holy war are part of the Muslim faith.

“A lot of the kids on our team are from Palestinian origin,” said Tarek Shawky, Intifada’s 29-year-old captain and quarterback. “We are in solidarity with people in the uprising. It’s about human rights and basic freedoms.”

“I think they should be more sensitive and show respect to other people’s sensitivities,” said Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County and a national Muslim leader. “The words themselves do not have bad meanings , but people associate them with what’s going on in the world around them.”

But others say Palestinian fighters in the Intifada are terrorists and shouldn’t be glorified. Another provocative name, “Mujahideen,” means “holy warrior,” and is associated with a variety of Islamic resistance movements, including two on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist groups.

“What exactly are they honoring here?” asked Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “The continued targeting of innocent women and children by homicide bombers deserves to be condemned across the board. It’s deeply, deeply disturbing.”

Here’s the web site for Muslim Football, with teams named:

Intifada
Saracens
Soldiers of Allah

… and most outrageous of all …
Mujahideen

But remember, jihad supporters in the American Muslim community are just a teensy tiny minority of extremists.