August 19 – After a week of turmoil with Israeli clubs and fans in European club competition qualifying rounds, Israeli fans have continued their banner protests at domestic games.
Be’er Sheva fans in their Toto Cup semi final game against Hapoel Tel Aviv unfurled a banner that equated UEFA with Hamas and called for the destruction of both.
‘Two things that must be destroyed – UEFA and Hamas!’, read the banner.
The banner is a response to UEFA’s own call for a stop to the indiscriminate killing of innocent children and civilians in war zones.
At the UEFA Super Cup final UEFA laid out their own banner on the pitch at the team presentation – ‘Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians’. At the medals ceremony UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin was flanked by two children who were refugees from Gaza who had escaped the territory for medical treatment in Italy.
UEFA’s banner side-stepped wider political debate and didn’t identify Israel directly, saying it referred to all wars where innocent civilians were being killed, though the message to Israel was clear and Israel’s sensitive football fans are taking it personally.
Israel’s football activists and keyboard warriors have turned their anger and indignation on Europe’s governing body. At matches they protested, and offended,
Last week UEFA opened disciplinary proceedings against Israel’s Maccabi Haifa and Poland’s Rakow Czestochowa following a Conference League playoff game that saw Haifa fans unveil a banner that read ‘Murderers since 1939’ in English– a clear jibe at the Poles for the treatment of jews and the death camps of the Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.
At a game between Beitar Jerusalem and Riga in a third round qualifier for the Conference league, Rom Braslavski had a banner calling for the release of his brother Amir, currently held hostage by Hamas.
The banners reportedly read: ‘Bring back Rom’; ‘I want my brother’; and ‘The voice of my brother’s blood is calling to me from the tunnels – Bring Rom and the rest of our hostages back home’.
The incident prompted a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) to hysterically claim that UEFA and Europe generally is again “trad(ing) in the blood libel that Jews kill children.
“Uefa has said nothing about the Jewish hostages kept in barbaric captivity for almost two years, nor about the incessant attacks on Israeli civilians throughout this war from terrorists in Gaza and throughout the Middle East.
“But all of sudden, they have chosen a Spurs match – a club commonly associated with the Jewish community – to unfurl a banner reading ‘Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians’. For centuries, Europe has traded in the blood libel that Jews kill children, and clearly the trope remains as popular as ever.”
Sadly, in Gaza, Israeli military is indiscriminately killing innocent children, lots of them.
With Israel potentially teetering on the brink of suspension from world football, and their military forces having now killed more than 63,000 Gazans (a number that is overwhelmingly civilian), and displaced an estimated 90% of the population (1.9 million people), the banners will do little to help their lobbying to remain a fully-respected and participating member of football’s world order.
Though in that regard they have had the unwaivering protection of FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Whether he is swayed by his own membership or his newest BFF Donald Trump on this issue remains to be seen.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1755600955labto1755600955ofdlr1755600955owedi1755600955sni@n1755600955osloh1755600955cin.l1755600955uap1755600955
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