Don’t let football give Israel the red card

There may be renewed talk of a ceasefire in Gaza, but the culture war against all things Israeli in the West continues to escalate. After Eurovision, football is now the latest front line.

There are growing calls to suspend Israel’s national team from international competition. The Times of London reports that UEFA, the body that runs European football, could hold an emergency meeting on the Israel issue this week, with ‘most members of its executive committee understood to be in favour of a ban’ (although the vote may now be delayed while the peace talks are ongoing).

This follows a UN panel calling for Israel to be suspended from football, after a UN Commission of Inquiry claimed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The UN verdict was, of course, about as trustworthy as the corrupt refereeing decisions for which European football was once infamous. The truth is that the Israelis are fighting a war for their survival in Gaza, against the truly genocidal Jew-haters of Hamas.

But as with so much to do with football, the facts appear less important than who you love and loathe. The campaign to kick Israel out of European football has become the sporting arm of the Western crusade to demonise the only Jewish state on Earth.

If they cannot actually fulfil their ambition to wipe the democratic state of Israel off the map, at least the Israel-haters hope to score a consolation goal by erasing Israel from Planet Football.

Simon Johnson, a former English FA official and ex-head of the Jewish Leadership Council, protests that a ban would be ‘a shameful act of demonisation and delegitimisation of the only Jewish state’, which would ‘do nothing to bring a ceasefire, peace or the release of the hostages’. He’s right. But then, vilifying, demonising and delegitimising Israel is the whole point of this otherwise-pointless game of virtue-signalling.

Of course, the haters will all deny any allegation of anti-Israeli bias. After all, in August, when the pitch was defaced at the UEFA Super Cup final between PSG and Tottenham Hotspur with the slogans ‘Stop Killing Children’ and ‘Stop Killing Civilians’, they didn’t name Israel, did they? The fact that this extraordinary political intervention came right after UEFA had been criticised by the likes of Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah for not condemning Israel enough was presumably coincidental.

Typically, a widely reported open letter from a group of footballers and others called ‘Athletes 4 Peace’, demanding a ban, claims that ‘sport must uphold the principles of justice, fairness and humanity’ and that ‘this is not about politics or taking sides’.

Really? Then how come there has been no similar sporting protests, letters or calls for bans in response to the many bloodier conflicts around the world? It is indeed all about the politics of taking sides against Israel.

No doubt the fans of suspending Israel will claim that it should be treated the same as Russia, which has been banned from football and international sport since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Another dodgy call, ref.

Leave aside for the moment the false comparison between Russia’s attack on a sovereign state and Israel’s defence of its national sovereignty against an Islamist death cult. Everybody knows that Russia’s suspension is seen as an unfortunate temporary matter, and that the 2018 World Cup hosts will be welcomed back to football’s inner circle soon enough. Indeed, much of the world that wants Israel banned would gladly entertain Russia right now.

By contrast, the move to ban Israel is the culmination of a long-running campaign to remove the Jewish State from the pitch. And as top football columnist Martin Samuel of The Times argues, once the Israelis are given the red card, it will be permanent. There will be no way back for them in an increasingly hostile world.

Samuel also points out that, even before a formal ban, Israel has long been treated as a pariah in international football. Most European nations play the Israelis only when they are forced to, by being drawn together in the World Cup or the European Championships. Thus England last hosted Israel in 2007, in a Euros qualifier:

‘Israel has a friendly scheduled in Lithuania on 13 November and [this is] the first country to welcome them without a UEFA draw dictating it since Hungary on 8 June 2024. The last country to travel to Israel without being compelled was Cyprus on 20 November 2022. Italy and Spain have never played a friendly with Israel; France did once, approaching 38 years ago.’

A ban will formalise the long-running silent campaign to kick Israel out of top-level European football.

It will certainly make no difference to the war in Gaza. But anybody who imagines that this vilifying of Israel is just about silly old football, and has no impact on real life in Europe, might recall the events of last November, when Jewish fans of the Israeli club, Maccabi Tel Aviv, were chased and beaten through the streets of Amsterdam.

The widespread response to this modern-day Jew-hunt in a European capital was first to claim it was simply everyday football hooliganism, and then effectively to side with the Jew-hunters. Just this month, Amsterdam city councillors voted (presumably with straight faces) to declare that Maccabi Tel Aviv and its fans are ‘not welcome’ in their city.

The pious request to ‘Keep politics out of sport’ has long been seen as naïve in a world of international rivalries and conflicts. But the European campaign to show Israel a red card is something more. It is turning sport itself into a political weapon, to be used to advance an international culture war against the only democracy in the Middle East and the world’s only Jewish state. How about ‘Keep sport out of politics’? Or even, if it’s not too much to ask, ‘Kick anti-Semitism out of football’?

There are no Israeli players in the English Premier League, though Tottenham Hotspur’s Manor Solomon is on loan at Spanish club Villarreal. Last weekend, supporters of Sevilla booed Solomon throughout the game, chanting ‘Murderer’ and ‘Free Palestine’ whenever he touched the ball. The Israeli repaid them by scoring the winning goal. Sometimes, football can still be the real winner.

Mick Hume is a spiked columnist.