Beitar Jerusalem soccer team: No more Sabbath games
In a move that's both the right thing to do and a smart business move (given the steadily increasing percentages of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem), the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team has announced that it will
no longer hold its home games on the Sabbath.
Beitar Jerusalem FC said Sunday that it had
come to an agreement with Israeli broadcasters to ensure that its home
games will only be played on Saturday night or on weekdays.
The Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday evening and ends at sunset on Saturday night.
Israel's league games are often played before
the end of the Sabbath, especially in the summer when the sun sets later
in the evening. While some religious groups have voiced concerns over
that in the past, this is the first time an Israeli team has pushed to
make a definitive move on the issue.
Beitar spokesman Oshri Dudai told The
Associated Press that the club was aiming to make it easier for the more
religious or traditional Jewish Beitar fans to attend the team's games
at Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium.
Dudai described the move as "a big
achievement," and said club owner Eli Tabib had held lengthy
negotiations with the broadcasters over the plans.
"It was not easy to reach this agreement, but we are trying it out this season," Dudai said.
A statement on the club's official website
said that "despite the economic risk, Tabib preferred to accommodate the
crowd and give more sectors of the community the option to come and
support the team."
Israel has always held sporting events on
Saturdays and Jewish holidays, apart from Yom Kippur, considered the
holiest day of the year.
I don't particularly care for soccer, but who wants to go out there with me to support their decision (after October 7, and preferably during the week rather than on Saturday night)?
Labels: Beitar Jerusalem, Sabbath observance, soccer
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, February 1.
1) Reflected attitudes
The New York Times reported, Some Fear a Soccer Team’s Racist Fans Hold a Mirror Up to Israel:
The angry, defiant exchanges that punctuated Tuesday night’s
unusually tense game here came amid intense protests by Beitar Jerusalem
supporters over the team owner’s plans to recruit two Muslim players
from Chechnya. Some young men had unfurled a banner at the previous game
declaring “Beitar pure forever,” which reminded many here of Nazi
Germany’s purging of Jews from athletics in 1933 and prompted statewide
discussion about racism on and off the field.
“People in Israel usually try to locate Beitar Jerusalem as some kind of
the more extreme fringe; this is a way to overcome the embarrassment,”
said Moshe Zimmermann, a historian at Hebrew University who specializes
in sports. “The fact is that the Israeli society on the whole is getting
more racist, or at least more ethnocentric, and this is an expression.”
Reaction to the purity banner, perhaps the most controversial in a
series of Beitar outbursts, was swift. One of the fans who made the sign
was arrested and banned from games for the season. Fifty more were
barred from Tuesday’s match, along with banners of all kinds, and the
team was fined about $13,500, amid concerns that the episode could
threaten Israel’s scheduled hosting of a European Under 21 soccer
tournament in June.
In response, Lori Lowenthal Marcus wrote in NYT: Fans Mirror Israel’s Racism—Ignores Europe’s Hate Stadiums:
When Beitar management last week brought in two Muslims from Chechnya
to join the team, the response by the haters was ugly, if not
unexpected. Despite official efforts to celebrate the inclusion of
Muslims into the Beitar family as an important Israeli value, some fans
responded at a game over the weekend with shameful calls for "Beitar
purity," and unfurled a vicious banner: "Beitar, pure forever."
But today's New York Times story about the incident is shocking in its
narrow focus and excessive reliance on Israel haters to suggest that the
racism of the worst Beitar fans accurately reflects Israeli society.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Jewish
Press by telephone from Berlin, "You want to know what "mirrors" Israeli
society? Walk in the Mamilla Mall on a Saturday night, Arabs and
Israelis, Muslims and Jews, all strolling, eating and shopping together -
that's the mirror of Israeli society."
While the focus of her article is what the antisemitic attitudes that
the New York Times missed, this point by Mrs. Marcus is important. By
focusing on a minority of Israelis and using selective sources to
project those attitudes to the larger society, the New York Times
reflects its attitude towards Israel. To the Times Israel is assumed to
be the sinner, unless shown otherwise.
An interesting contrast can be drawn to an article from nearly a year and a half ago in the Times, Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege. In discussing the siege and sacking of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the reporter wrote:
But as the months of Arab Spring have turned autumnal, Israel has
increasingly become a target of public outrage. Some here say Israel is
again being made a scapegoat, this time for unfulfilled revolutionary
promises.
But there is another interpretation, and it is the predominant one
abroad — Muslims, Arabs and indeed many around the globe believe Israel
is unjustly occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at
Israel for it. And although some Israelis pointed fingers at
Islamicization as the cause of the violence, Egyptians noted Saturday
that Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, distanced
themselves from Friday’s protests and did not attend, while legions of
secular-minded soccer fans were at the forefront of the embassy attacks.
(Contrary to the implication of this article, calls for attacking the
embassy did come from the Muslim Brotherhood.) Note the contrast with
the recent article on the Beitar Jerusalem fans. In addition to
explaining the attack on the embassy as being anti-Israel not
antisemitic, the article justifies the antisemitic attitude.
Instead of taking an aberration and projecting it onto the whole
society, the New York Times took pains to explain away a society's
hatred of Israel and Jews.
2) What about 1701?
The New York Times reported Syria Says It Has Right to Counterattack Israel:
But military analysts said that the Israeli jets’ flight pattern
strongly suggested a moving target, possibly a convoy near the center,
and that the Syrian government might have claimed the center was a
target to garner sympathy. Hitting a convoy made more sense, they said,
particularly if Israel believed that Hezbollah stood to acquire
“game-changing” arms, including antiaircraft weapons. Israeli leaders
declared days before the strike that any transfer of Syria’s extensive
cache of sophisticated conventional or chemical weapons was a “red line”
that would prompt action.
Hezbollah — backed by Syria and Iran — wants to upgrade its arsenal in
hopes of changing the parameters for any future engagement with the
powerful Israeli military, and Israel is determined to stop it. And
Hezbollah is perhaps even more anxious to gird itself for future
challenges to its primacy in Lebanon, especially if a Sunni-led
revolution triumphs next door in Syria.
But if weapons were targeted, analysts said, it is not even clear that
they belonged to Hezbollah. Arab and Israeli analysts said another
possibility was that Syria was simply aiming to move some weapons to
Lebanon for safekeeping. While there are risks for Hezbollah that
accepting them could draw an Israeli attack, said Emile Hokayem, a
Bahrain-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, there is also an upside: “If Assad goes down, they have the
arms.”
In the whole discussion about the meaning of the target and its
implications, one detail is missing: where is resolution 1701 - the
resolution ending Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006? The provisions of 1701 include:
14. Calls upon the government of Lebanon to secure its borders and
other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent
of arms or related materiel and requests Unifil as authorised in
paragraph 11 to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;
15. Decides further that all states shall take the necessary measures to
prevent, by their nationals or from their territories or using their
flag vessels or aircraft;
a. the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and
related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition,
military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts
for the aforementioned, whether or not originating in their
territories, and;
b. the provision to any entity or individual in Lebanon of any technical
training or assistance related to the provision, manufacture,
maintenance or use of the items listed in subparagraph (a) above, except
that these prohibitions shall not apply to arms, related material,
training or assistance authorised by the government of Lebanon or by
Unifil as authorised in paragraph 11;
Israeli efforts to prevent arms transfers to Lebanon would seem to be
justified by the language of this resolution. See Elder of Ziyon for a similar observation.
At the end of his assessment of the Israeli strike, Barry Rubin writes:
While much of the Syrian opposition is radical Islamist or even part
of al-Qaeda, Sofrin continued, that is a new threat but not an immediate
threat like that emanating from Hizballah.
However, given the likelihood of the regime being overthrown and
replaced by a government that is led by the Muslim Brotherhood and,
either willingly or because it is unable to prevent them from doing so,
gives a free hands to Salafist groups or even al-Qaeda affiliates,
Israel cannot predict what its security situation will be like with
Syria a year from now.
Note that if al-Qaeda gets its hands on chemical weapons — and that
means deadly nerve gasses — this would be a direct threat to the United
States and other Western countries as well as to Israel.
The New York Times also provided a similar assessment attributed to Boaz
Ganor at the end of its article about the more general threat Syria
chemical weapons could pose in the future.
Tony Badran makes a an interesting inference from this air strike:
Why Hezbollah chose to smuggle these systems at this moment is
unclear. It could simply be that, having engaged in such transfers of
its assets in Syria for a good year now without any Israeli
interdiction, it thought it might be another routine operation. That
Israel was able to obtain such detailed intelligence is a testament to
its penetration of the organization.
What’s more, although Israel prepared itself for possible retaliation,
the lack of hesitance in taking out the convoy, on Syrian soil,
underscores Hezbollah’s predicament. With its Syrian strategic depth in
shambles, the Party of God is not in a position to start a major war
with Israel.
3) The Islamists in government
Khaled Abu Toameh writes about the Talibanization of Gaza:
Those who thought that Hamas would ever establish a modern and
liberal regime in the Gaza Strip received another reminder this week of
how the radical Islamist movement is pursuing its effort to create a
Taliban-style entity in the territory that has been under its control
since 2007.
The reminder came in the form of a decision taken by the Al-Aqsa
University administration in the Gaza Strip to force female students to
dress in accordance with Islamic teachings.
This means that all female students would be required to wear the hijab or niqab which cover their heads and faces.
Remember the predictions about how the responsibilities of governing were going to moderate Hamas? Meryl Yourish does. Perhaps that should be a lesson regarding Egypt. (h/t Daled Amos)
Labels: 12th Imam, Beitar Jerusalem, Egypt, Gaza, Hezbullah, Lebanon, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Soccer Dad, Syria, UN Security Council Resolution 1701
Jodi Rudoren gets suckered
To read Jodi Rudoren in Friday's New York Times, you'd think the only problem between Jews and Arabs is
racism.
“The Temple Mount is in our hands,” chanted the notoriously aggressive fans of the home team, Beitar Jerusalem.
The visitors from Umm al-Fahm, an Arab-Israeli town, had their own provocations. “With blood and fire, we will liberate Palestine,” they called in Hebrew.
The angry, defiant exchanges that punctuated Tuesday night’s unusually
tense game here came amid intense protests by Beitar Jerusalem
supporters over the team owner’s plans to recruit two Muslim players
from Chechnya. Some young men had unfurled a banner at the previous game
declaring “Beitar pure forever,” which reminded many here of Nazi
Germany’s purging of Jews from athletics in 1933 and prompted statewide
discussion about racism on and off the field.
“People in Israel
usually try to locate Beitar Jerusalem as some kind of the more extreme
fringe; this is a way to overcome the embarrassment,” said Moshe
Zimmermann, a historian at Hebrew University who specializes in sports.
“The fact is that the Israeli society on the whole is getting more
racist, or at least more ethnocentric, and this is an expression.”
Reaction to the purity banner, perhaps the most controversial in a
series of Beitar outbursts, was swift. One of the fans who made the sign
was arrested and banned from games for the season. Fifty more were
barred from Tuesday’s match, along with banners of all kinds, and the
team was fined about $13,500, amid concerns that the episode could
threaten Israel’s scheduled hosting of a European Under 21 soccer
tournament in June.
What's wrong with this picture? Lots. For starters, Beitar's fans don't exactly reflect Israel's general public. For seconds, where else in the world are fans arrested for unfurling a banner? Third, why did the Beitar fans get into trouble while the Um-el-Fahm fans did not (their chant has been the chant of Arab terror organizations for decades)? And why does his incident rate more coverage than much more violent incidents involving attacks on Israeli teams playing in
Turkey,
France,
Bosnia and
Sweden over the past few years?
And as to her expert, Moshe Zimmermann, he is a professor of
German History, with no mention of sports in his
Wikipedia profile. On his Hebrew U profile, sports is the
last interest listed. It fits with nothing else in his profile.
And by the way, Rudoren neglects to mention what Zimmerman is best known for in Israel. It was Zimmerman who
likened the IDF to Nazis.
Maybe he was looking for an excuse to attack Israeli society?
Much, much more
here.
Shabbat Shalom.
Labels: Beitar Jerusalem, Muslims, racism, soccer
Two Arabs arrested for plotting missile attack on Teddy Stadium were British Consulate employees
On Sunday, I reported that five (a number I got from Israel Radio) Jerusalem Arabs had been arrested and charged with plotting a missile attack on
Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem's main soccer stadium.
As a couple of people have already noted in the comments, it now turns out that the two main suspects were also
employees of the British Consulate in Jerusalem.
Britain's Foreign Office has confirmed the arrests and says the UK is urgently seeking confirmation of the charges.
"We have been told by the Israeli authorities that the investigation into our two employees is unrelated to the work they do at the consulate," the spokesman said.
British sources in Israel say the pair are not thought to be senior members of staff. All staff at British embassies and consulates abroad are meant to undergo strict security screening.
So I guess that means they can keep their jobs?
By the way, 'strict security screening'?
Like at Heathrow?
What could go wrong?
Labels: airport security, Beitar Jerusalem, British Consulate, HaPoel Jerusalem, London Heathrow Airport, Teddy Stadium
Released for publication: Arabs planned missile attack on Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem
It has been released for publication that five Jerusalem Arabs (who have the right to Israeli citizenship) have been arrested in connection with a plot to carry out a missile attack on
Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem's main soccer stadium.
Officials released for publication Sunday details of a plot by several Jerusalem Arabs who, working on behalf of Hamas, had planned to fire a missile at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem during a major event there. The attack had been planned for last November, but was foiled by Israeli security agents.
The Arabs arrested are residents of Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. The main suspects in the case, two friends, decided to carry out the attack in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, and collected information about possible targets in the city, including the stadium. They began acquiring weapons and bombs for an attack, and made contact with members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia, via relatives. In addition to preparing for the attack, the detainees supplied under questioning details of Hamas activity in Jerusalem, especially on the Temple Mount.
So can we say that the system worked because these people were caught? I think so.
Labels: Beitar Jerusalem, HaPoel Jerusalem, Teddy Stadium
