Ghana Vs. Palestine

From CNN.com:
"Ghana officials apologized on Monday after defender John Paintsil waved an Israeli flag to celebrate their 2-0 World Cup win against the Czech Republic. Team spokesman Randy Abbey said it was important to point out that the Ghanaian FA was not trying to take sides in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Paintsil plays for Hapoel Tel Aviv and had wanted to acknowledge the Israeli fans who had travelled to Germany to support him, Abbey said. "He is obviously unaware of the implications of what he did. He's unaware of international politics. We apologise to anybody who was offended and we promise that it will never happen again. "He did not act out of malice for the Arab people or in support of Israel. He was naive... we don't need to punish him.""

Ignoring for a moment the obvious fact that he's playing for an Israeli team, waving an Israeli flag apparently means one is taking sides in the Paletine/Israel conflict? Showing any kind of affection or patriotism towards Israel is construed as being anti-Palestine? How ridiculous is that??? I suppose it's just another indication of how volitile the situation is and how quickly other nations can be pulled into the fight. A sign of the time perhaps...?

I wonder, if he had pulled out a Canadian flag, would he be accused of supporting Canada in its softwood lumber dispute with the US?