Two months ago when A. C. Milan star, Kevin-Prince Boateng
protested racist chants from opposing fans of Pro Patria, the video of him
kicking the game ball into the crowd and walking off the field went viral. Surprisingly, the critical mass of the opponent’s
fans cheered Boetang. Then, his teammates
and coaches, those of Pro Patria, as well as the referees, walked off the pitch
with him. After the incident there was
global support as well as demands for FIFA, soccer’s international governing
body, to take substantive, rather than public relations action, against racism
in the sport.
Now we have another shrill example from Israel where there
are racist protests because Beitar, a Premier League (Ligat Ha'al) team in Jerusalem,
have signed two Muslim players from Chechnyan Russian Premier League team Terek
Grozny. Beitar has a long history of
racism and xenophobia, but they are not solely responsible for discrimination
in the country’s soccer society. Racism
in Israeli soccer corresponds directly to the bigotry that is prevalent in
Israeli society. In Israel, however, the
racism is magnified because of the discrimination and oppression of
Palestinians, a practice that some people around the World, including the
prestigious Bertrand Russell Tribunal, refer to as apartheid.
Beitar Jerusalem has a long, nationalist, Zionist history
that matches the political foundation of the club. The latest events, however, have brought more
light on the crass, oppressive, and of course racist reality of the team and
segments of Israeli society. The Beitar movement
was founded in Latvia by right wing, Zionist, Ze’ev Jabotinsky in 1923. According to Beitar’s webpage: “The
new youth movement aimed at educating its members with a military and
nationalistic spirit.” The
organization grew in Eastern Europe and was responsible for emigrating
approximately 40,000 people to Palestine by the 1940s. In addition, Beitar partnered with the
underground army, Irgun, in attacks on the Palestinian population before,
during, and following World War II.
Beitar became affiliated with the Herut political party and then later
Likud. And like its political
opposition, Hapoel (Workers’ Federation), Beitar started a football club. Founded in 1936, the team became successful
in the late 1970s under the leadership of Uri Malmilian who is sometimes
referred to as the Israeli Pele. Because of the club’s political
foundation and history, supporters have included Prime Minister Netanyahu,
neo-fascist Avigdor Liberman, and Parliament Speaker Reuven Rivlin. Former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, is a
season ticket holder. The teams’
history, however, has been racist and exclusionary. In 76 years there has never been an Arab
player, in spite of the fact that Arabs play on teams throughout all three
divisions of Israeli soccer. In addition,
the team has signed only a handful of Muslims and in some of those cases the
religion of the player was hidden by team management. A decade ago a Nigerian, Muslim player,
Ibrahim Nadallah, was signed to play with Beitar Jerusalem. In correspondence to the anti-Muslim and
racist dispositions of both Israeli society and soccer, the team’s fans
harassed Nadallah viciously. Nadallah left
before completing his initial season in Israel.
During his stay at Beitar
Jerusalem, Ibrahim Nadallah endured chants of kushi, the ‘n’ word in
Hebrew. The team’s fans besieged him
with monkey calls as they threw bananas at him on the pitch. They delivered the
same derision for black, Israeli star, Baruch Dego, also born Nigerian but
adopted by an Israeli woman when he was two years old. If more venomous behavior is possible, the
Beitar Jerusalem fans have saved their worst vitriolic for Arab players. One particular case involved Israeli national
team player, Salim Toamah, who is an Israeli-Arab. After Beitar Jerusalem beat his Tel Aviv team
for the league championship in 2008, Beitar fans sang the following words to
the melody of an Israeli folk song that promotes the civil rights of Israeli-Arabs:
What’s Salim doing here? I don’t know.
What’s going on here I ask?
From all around me I hear,
Toamah here is the Land of Israel!
This is the Jewish state!
I hate you Salim Toamah,
I hate all the Arabs.
What’s going on here I ask?
From all around me I hear,
Toamah here is the Land of Israel!
This is the Jewish state!
I hate you Salim Toamah,
I hate all the Arabs.
There are many more racist,
anti-Arab incidents revolving around Beitar Jerusalem. How can you even begin to address this hatred
when fans still take pride in a pre-game chant that includes: "Here
it comes, the racist team of the country."
While there are Israelis, mostly on the left, that fight and challenge
the oppression of Palestinians by their country, some of the country’s critics
believe that it is getting more difficult to confront Israeli racism and
bigotry. Hebrew University historian
Moshe Zimmerman worries that bigotry is more pronounced – both in the country
and at Beitar Jerusalem.
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. The fact is that
the Israeli society on the whole is getting more racist, or at least more
ethnocentric, and this is an expression.
The recent incident at Beitar
Jerusalem in some ways parallels Professor Zimmerman’s point of view. In other ways, it points to both nominal and
substantive resistance. In January 2013,
the team owner and Russian oligarch, Arcadi Gaydamak, announced that he was signing two Chechnyan
players from the Russian Premier League team Terek Grozny. The players, 19-year-old midfielder Dzhabrail
Kadiyev and 23-year-old striker Zaur Sadayev are both Muslims. The announcement of the signings came just
before the Israeli election and the reaction from at least some of the Beitar
Jerusalem fan base was swift and venomous.
Criticism regarding the actions of the bigots came as both window
dressing and serious confrontation. The
fans’ racism was evident at two Beitar Jerusalem matches just after the
signings of Kadiyev and Sadayev. On the
Saturday after Gaydamak signed the players, a day that also happened to be the
eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, fans’ bigotry imploded on
players from rival Hapoel
Tel Aviv. While one might question how
knowledgeable Beitar Jerusalem hooligans are in terms of a detailed history of
their own club or Hapoel, they do understand the historical essence and know
that their team was founded within the Zionist right while there opponents come
from the opposite “progressive” Zionist tradition.
Beitar fans welcomed Hapoel with
a banner “Beitar forever pure” and chants of “Death to Arabs,” “Death to
Muslims,” and “No entry to Arabs.” None of this, of course, was new for Beitar
fans, however, there appeared to be more intensity because of the forthcoming
addition of Muslim players. The brunt of
their attacks, on this particular day, was hurled at Nigerian born Hapoel
player Toto Tamuz, who scored a goal in the match.[1] Both Tamuz and his Nigerian teammate, Eric
Djemba Djemba, were met with the same racist chants cited earlier in the
article. Being called a Kushi is the
norm for African players at Beitar Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium.
There was also more subtle,
political, racism at Teddy Stadium on the eve of both the Israeli elections and
International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Two right wing politicians, Michael
Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad, attended the game in a clear attempt to garner the
votes of Beitar Jerusalem hooligans.
Neither man was elected to the Knesset!
After the match, the actions of Beitar fans were condemned but that did
not stop the fans from even worse displays of racism and pure bigotry two days
later when Maccabi Umm
al-Fahm came to
play at Teddy Stadium. The declaration
of Hapoel Tel Aviv players after the game might be the most forward reaching
and impactful response in terms of Israeli football. Backed by management, and in correspondence to
Kevin-Prince Boateng’s stand cited at the beginning of this article, the
players announced that they would walk off the pitch if they were met with the
same racism that they experienced from Beitar supporters.
Both the coach of Beitar
Jerusalem, Eli Cohen, and the owner, Arcadi Gaydamak, spoke out against the bigotry
of the team’s fans. However, Gaydamak
ignored past and present bigotry and oppression from both his team and Israeli
society and blamed the racist violence on the stupid acts of a few youngsters.
Unfortunately, racism and
bigotry in Israeli society and thus Israeli soccer is not just the “stupid acts
of a few youngsters.” Likud politicians
who are among the fan base of Beitar Jerusalem also castigated the
hooligans. But like Gaydamak, there was
neither depth nor breadth in their declarations. Current Speaker of the Knesset, Reuvin
Rivlin, chastised the fans saying: “Today is
International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Imagine the outcry if groups in
England or Germany said that Jews could not play for them.” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat also
condemned Beitar Jerusalem fans, but he praised the club for speaking out
against them. And although he did
globalize the issue in terms of bigotry, he misrepresented the problem as
belonging solely to a segment Beitar Jerusalem fans. Finally, he crafted his statements to
question how the actions of the hooligans would affect Jews.
As we do not
want Jews to be abused around the world simply because they are Jews… we must
value Muslims and Christians playing on our sports teams. This is not just a
soccer matter, but an international Jewish issue… The whole world watched
Jerusalem’s behavior, and that racism among Beitar fans hurt the whole city.
The
strongest statement came from former Prime Minister Olmert who criticized the
racism as “hatred, contempt, disgust, and
intolerance of the darkest kind.”
Adding, “This issue should concern us all. If we
do not remove these racists from our stadium and disconnect them from the team,
we will be just like them.”
While it is difficult to argue
with Olmert’s condemnation, it too implies that there is a small problem to
fix. But, the Israeli society he
describes is far from the present reality in terms of bigotry, racism,
anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian dispositions and actions.
Two days after the Hapoel match,
Beitar’s racist fans were in full force when Maccabi Umm al-Fahm, a predominantly Israeli-Arab team, came to play in
Jerusalem. Police were stationed around
the neighborhood and some of the better-known Beitar hooligans were barred from
the stadium. Ironically, the first
banner seen at the stadium read, “Beitar fans against violence and
racism." Although hopeful, it was
dwarfed by other signs and incessant, bigoted chanting. Back from the previous match was “Beitar pure forever,”
reminiscent of the same types of placards seen regarding Jews in Nazi
Germany. Before the match, Umm al-Fahm’s
coach, Samir Issa, had publicly stated that his team would leave the field if
fans cursed the Prophet Muhammad. Issa
also said: “It was important for both the teams to cooperate in a “supreme
effort” to change the stereotypes and make sure that no problems arose.” The Beitar chants were definitively racist
and anti-Arab. It must be said, however,
that the 1,000 Arab fans attending the game, segregated by a fence in a corner
of the stadium, answered abusive taunts.
One of those fans said: “They’re always cursing the Prophet Muhammad, so
we came to answer back.” For some reason, however, Beitar did not present their
entire repertoire and there was no mention of the Prophet. But Beitar Jerusalem fans were clear
about their racism as they left the stadium.
Comments included: “Arabs
are impure people” and “all Palestinians are terrorists.”
Might it be that for the Beitar
Jerusalem hooligans as well as other Israeli people, “all Palestinians are
terrorists” equates to an oppressive, colonial, anti-Muslim, and possibly
apartheid disposition that is part of the Israeli psyche that is promoted by
the beliefs and actions of Israel’s current government. And that said, the issue of bigotry and
racism within Israeli soccer cannot be divorced from the same in the whole of
Israeli society. In an article entitled
“Some Fear a Soccer Team’s Racist
Fans Hold a Mirror Up to Israel,” Jodi Rudoren writes that the current
government enacted at least 20 new laws that discriminate against Arab-Israeli
citizens including neighborhood housing covenants. In addition, the Coalition Against Racism
reported that during 2011 and 2012 racist incidents in Israel had risen by
close to 30 percent.
There is no question that the
overt racism of Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans corresponds to the bigotry that
exists in Israeli society. The team fan
club, La Familia, is representative of the far right anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and
anti-Palestinian segment of Israeli society and of course needs to be dealt
with. But it also might be that the
Beitar fans who are softer, or its more famous fans who condemn the racism but
ignore the societal reality, and actually promote the oppression of Palestine
through their support and facilitation of settlements and IDF violent
oppression are the bigger problem.
Unfortunately, Israeli leaders, just as other leaders throughout the
world, do not make the society-sports connection. In Israel it is more stark because
Palestinian oppression is both harsh and deadly – might the Beitar Jerusalem
racism help us make the link.
[1]
Even more ironically while Beitar Jerusalem was not penalized for the actions
of their fans, Tamuz was exiled from the game by the referee when he celebrated
scoring his goal. Not only was the
referee not in tune with the racist atmosphere, sports radio in Israel reported
that the taunts toward Tamuz were not racist but rather in response to him
being a former Beitar player. How did
they explain the treatment of Djemba Djemba?
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