Jerusalem – Israeli football authorities have deducted one league point from Beitar Jerusalem and ordered the club to play a home match behind closed doors after their fans shouted anti-Arab slogans.
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Beitar, the reigning Israeli champions, will now play their next home game against Maccabi Tel Aviv on May 9 in an empty stadium.
The penalty was imposed after Beitar’s notoriously rowdy supporters chanted “death to Arabs” during a match against Maccabi Petah Tikva on April 18.
The club already have two points deducted for this season after an earlier infraction and currently lie in third place in the table, seven points behind leaders Maccabi Haifa.
It serves them right…there is no room in sports for such behavior at sporting events…hopefully they will learn and their fans will show some derech eretz
Good for them. Any statements of ANTI- builds a person into a hating and malicious individual with a lack of middos.
#4 .so what do you do with the mitzvah of ‘timcha es zeichar amalek”? #5 go back and bury your head in the sand..since when is arabs a race.
Its a crazy world in sporting events. Many times politics mixes with the sport. For example Beitar Jerusalem is a team that has a right wing ideological and sometimes Kahanist stance. One of their rivals – Beney Saknin is a arab soccer team that comes from a palestinian city. Saknin’s fan notoriously support Hamas and Hizbollah and wave their flags when the two teams square off.
Also, there are many teams in soccer that have something to do with Jews. e.g Tottenham Hotspurs are called Yid Army due to the many Jewish owners the club had. Additionally, Krakow soccer team and the Dutch Ajax have Jewish connotations since either their citizens or sports clubs had some hand in helping Jews during WWII. Many teams that have nationalist biases/fans, when oppose these team almost always yell anti-Semitic slogans.
There are even certain players who show support for particular ideologies. e.g. Fredrik Kanuote- Pro- Palestinians shirt or others doing the nazi salute.
In short, this behavior is not new and is based off of the particular ideologies of either the teams or the individual player. Whether its good or bad, its a part of the sport that I personally think should stay home.
In other words
When we chant Death to the Jews in Ramallah, we get extra points.
While technically AntiSemitism does mean hatred of all Semites, including Arabs and Jews, in our times it has come to mean hatred of Jews in particular, not Arabs anymore.
Anti-semitism was coined in the (if I remember correctly) 19th century, to justify hatred of Jews. It wasn’t that the person hated Jews, you see, it’s that Jews were Semties, and not European. Hence, anti-Semitism.
You cannot look at the literal breakdown of words to get idiomatic meanings. Red herring anyone?