How much longer will Israeli football's culture of hate remain unchecked?

Earlier this month, Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv football team squared off against the Netherlands' Ajax team in Amsterdam, as part of the UEFA Europa League.

Maccabi fans, Israel's second most popular team, are considered by some observers to be the second most racist in the country, behind Beitar Jerusalem fans.

While in Amsterdam, the Maccabi fanbase lived up to their reputation as one of the most retrograde and reactionary fanbases in world football by setting fire to a Palestinian flag and attacking taxi drivers.

On their way to the game, they were filmed singing incendiary songs, whose second verse stated, "Why is there no school in Gaza? Because there are no children left," shamelessly gloating over the massacre of thousands of Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces over the past year.

Once they entered the stadium, the depravity continued, as Israeli fans interrupted an official minute's silence for the victims of the Valencia floods with chants and fireworks. They did so because Spain has recognised the Palestinian state.

As a result of the tensions before and during the match, violent clashes broke out in the streets after the game between Maccabi supporters and local Dutch.

Notably, most reports downplayed the violence and racism that the Israelis committed, and focused only on the response from Amsterdam's young people and cab drivers. The BBC even claimed that footage of Israeli hooligans assaulting a Dutch person showed that an Israeli was attacked.

The incident has highlighted Europe's tendency to shield Israel's systematic racism, and how this has helped fuel such hate within Israeli football. It also once again illuminates FIFA's failure to take any action against Israel, even when its teams and fans break the rules.

Additionally, these events have exposed how blatantly media outlets can disregard the principle of impartiality. Despite clear evidence showing that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were the instigators of racist violence, some outlets chose to portray them solely as victims.

Such actions do not just obscure reality; they also fuel hatred and deepen societal divides.

History of racism

Israel's society and its racist fans represent two sides of the same violent colonialism.

Look at Beitar Jerusalem, considered by its own fans to be "the most racist team in the world." The club's hardcore fan base, known as La Familia, are notoriously abusive towards opposing players, routinely taunting them with racist and anti-Arab chants.

Beitar is infamous for being the only Israeli football team to have never signed an Arabic player, and neither the government nor the Israel Football Association (IFA) have ever taken the club to task on equal opportunity grounds. Citing racist abuse, Nigerian defender Ibrahim Nadalla left shortly after signing in 2005, and quickly moved from Jerusalem.

In 2013, the club's owner, Russian-Israeli Arkady Gaydamak, announced the signing of two Muslim Chechen footballers, Zaur Sadayev and Dzhabrail Kadiyev, from Russian team Terek Grozny. Beitar fans, led by La Familia group, protested with a banner reading "Beitar will always remain pure."

A group of them even torched the club's office, destroying Beitar memorabilia. In March 2013, when Sadayev scored at home on his debut, hundreds of fans walked out in protest at their own team.

The club has historic political ties to the ruling right-wing Likud Party. During the wave of anti-regime protests that began in 2020, Beitar fans aligned themselves with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's regime in Tel Aviv and took to the streets to assault both journalists and protesters.

In the stands of Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, the fans of Beitar can be heard singing songs championing Yigal Amir, the murderer of dovish Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who initiated the first peace negotiations with the Palestinians. On other occasions, these fans have glorified Dr Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish Israeli-American terrorist who massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron.

In June 2018, Miri Regev, Israel's culture and sports minister and a member of Likud, released footage of herself alongside Beitar fans as they chanted, "May your village be burned," "I hate all Arabs," and "Muhammad is dead."

Acting with impunity

Following this month's debacle in Amsterdam, the Palestine Football Association (PFA) issued a statement saying it was "gravely concerned" that this issue has come up yet again.

"The PFA has presented FIFA with extensive evidence of such hateful expressions, yet concrete action remains lacking. The absence of accountability for such entrenched violence and normalised racism has only led to further unfortunate incidents, such as those in Amsterdam," the statement said.

Indeed, FIFA's statute prohibits "discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin." The body also said such actions are "punishable by suspension or expulsion."

However, the Israel Football Association (IFA) has also allowed deeply discriminatory practices to go unchecked within its national league and has not taken meaningful steps to address supporters' incitement of violence against Arabs and Palestinians.

This has led football fans to play an increasingly influential and profoundly damaging role in public discourse in Israel.

There is a large body of highly credible evidence that shows that Israel is practising racial discrimination, which is to say that Palestinians live in a system of apartheid, and compelling evidence that this has infected the policies and practices of the IFA.

In this regard, FIFA’s expulsion of the South African football association in the 1970s provides a clear precedent for similar action to be taken against the IFA. However, the world's football governing body has delayed making a decision on the matter four times this year.

Tacit approval

Israel uses the IFA to cast itself in a positive light, as a democratic nation where the Palestinians under occupation are athletes who have equal rights, a lie that the football body has never denounced.

By allowing Israel to continue to participate in international competitions with no restrictions, FIFA is tacitly accepting its political message and implicitly recognising its criminal policy.

The reason why FIFA is not calling out Israel's participation remains "unknown," but here's what UEFA executive committee member and former IFA chairman Avi Luzon said in 2016 when Gianni Infantino was elected as the new FIFA president:

"I have worked closely with him for the past seven years since he became Uefa secretary-general and he is a true personal friend and friend of Israel. His election will make it difficult for anybody to impose sanctions on Israeli football. It's an excellent choice from Israel's point of view and he has always helped Israeli football whenever I’ve asked him."

Europe disappoints

Notably, FIFA is not the only one condoning bad behaviour through inaction.

European leaders have also failed to condemn racist acts by Israeli sports fans at competitions on their continent, as we saw in the recent incident in Amsterdam. Instead, aggressive hooligans were portrayed as the victims.

This has happened time and time again. Earlier this year, a mob of Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club who had travelled to Athens for their team's match against Olympiacos FC beat up a pro-Palestinian Arab man in the Greek capital. European politicians were nowhere to be heard.

This rhetoric not only distorts the facts, but perpetuates a dangerous precedent. By positioning Maccabi supporters as targets of anti-Semitism, despite clear evidence of their instigation, these leaders engage in a narrative manipulation that erodes public trust and obscures accountability.

These crafted narratives represent mass gaslighting on an international scale, an attempt to rewrite reality in defence of the troubling political ideology of Zionism. While these politicians proclaim their commitment to human rights to their citizens, their actions reveal the contrary: an alignment with the repression of truth and the endorsement of authoritarian fascist principles.

Sports often serve as a reflection of society at large. In particular, football has evolved into a representation through which one can analyse a specific society, its ideological foundations, its ethical-political horizons, and the citizenry's response to all that has been mentioned.

Leaders have an opportunity to change the game by calling fouls when they happen. When it comes to Israel, this is long overdue.