Vol. 77/No. 9      March 11, 2013

Members of La Familia, the Beitar Jerusalem fan club formed in 2005, have routinely chanted “Death to Arabs,” “Death to Mohammed” and “I hate all the Arabs” during matches.

In March 2012, some 300 La Familia supporters stormed a mall after a home game, attacking Palestinian workers in the food court. They rioted for 40 minutes before cops and mall security intervened. No arrests were made.

While government and sports officials mostly looked the other way, La Familia intimidated anyone, including players and team officials, who so much as suggested this should change.

Along with their usual anti-Arab chants at a Jan. 26 game against Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv, La Familia showed its anger at the arrival of the Chechen players by holding a banner saying “Beitar will be pure forever.” On Feb. 8 an arson attack damaged Beitar Jerusalem’s offices.

But this time the actions of La Familia provoked wider condemnation than any past outrages, forcing government leaders to speak out.

“The last thing we want, and which we absolutely reject, is violence, racism and boycotts,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Feb. 10.

That same day Beitar Jerusalem played mostly Arab Bnei Sakhnin. Hundreds of police and security guards prevented fans from entering the stadium with La Familia shirts.

“Dzhabrail Kadiyev entered the game and created a rare moment of unity between Beitar fans and Sakhnin fans, who together welcomed him with applause,” reported Haartez newspaper. “Representatives of La Familia watched that very moment when the nail went into the coffin of what had been their team.” Beitar came from behind and tied the game.

In the 1950s and ’60s there were just one or two Arab players on Israel’s top soccer teams. By the late ’70s there were still only 10. But over the last several decades the number of Palestinian citizens of Israel grew and their fight for equal rights has won broader support. Today Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israel’s 7.8 million citizens.

“The dramatic change was in the 1980s, we can call it the renaissance of the Arab player,” well-known Israeli Palestinian sports writer Zouheir Bahloul told the Militant from Tel Aviv Feb. 21. “Now we have almost 60 Arab players in the first division.”

For the last eight years or so, La Familia fought to keep Beitar Jerusalem exclusively Jewish and a bastion of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigotry.

“Of course I’m proud of that,” La Familia President Guy Israeli, an accountant, told ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap when asked last November about there being no Arabs on the team.

Beitar Jerusalem fan and Pelephone worker Haim Sahar told the Militant that La Familia is a tiny minority. “Beitar Jerusalem is the national team. There are something like 100,000 fans all over Israel,” Sahar, who is Jewish, said. “La Familia is only something like 500 to 800 people, and the real militants only 80 to 100. They are damaging the team.

“This is 2013, not 1920. We support Arabs and Jews living together. It’s not right to judge a player by his race. If he is an Arab and he is a good player, bring him to play at Beitar Jerusalem and pay him millions,” Sahar said.

“We still have issues as an Israeli Palestinian minority,” Bahloul said. “We still have a very big gap to reach equal rights. But on the sports stage it is better. There, Jews and Arabs are shoulder to shoulder and are integrated.

“Next year there should be an Arab player in Beitar Jerusalem,” Bahloul added.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home