The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #149360   Message #3478300
Posted By: Steve Shaw
11-Feb-13 - 01:41 PM
Thread Name: BS: Israel condemned by UN
Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
Here you are, Keith. From last April, nothing to do with this latest incident.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/it-s-time-to-intervene-against-racism-in-israeli-soccer-1.422040

Only in Israeli soccer can a club block Arabs from joining its ranks, and harsh violence is treated solely as a disciplinary infraction, to be handled by the Israel Football Association's internal court. The anarchy and lack of police enforcement have turned Israeli soccer into a source of violence, racism and hatred, and has even started to attract dubious characters, who at times manage the teams.

The IFA is subordinate to international sports institutions, such as UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, and FIFA, the international association, and vehemently refuses the involvement of the Culture and Sports Ministry. But after several years in which Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat has proven incapable of getting rid of the rot that has penetrated Israeli soccer, it's time for her to get into the thick of things.

She must adopt the model that has been successfully used in Britain, which combines persistent, preventive police action against hooligans and tough sentences against violent fans. The State of Israel cannot allow a situation in which a sport avidly followed by hundreds of thousands of people, among them many youngsters, turns into an untreatable abscess of racism and violence.


Not demonisation, not made-up shit, Keith. Concern expressed by reasonable people who want to face the truth of a long-time endemic culture in Israel. We tackled it here in the UK. Israel are thirty years behind us. You have to wonder if they have the will.