Israeli daily reports on last Friday's game that went ahead in Hampden, Scotland's national stadium, in Glasgow "The Israeli women's national soccer team faced surveillance, harassment by hosts and rival players and a threatening atmosphere on the part of pro-Palestinian protesters at the European Championship qualifier between Scotland and Israel on Friday."
The players played their part
"We felt that we weren't at all wanted here. At the end of the game, the Scottish players refused to shake hands"
The protestors played the main part
"We didn't come to find ourselves in these provocations – we're happy that it's over, and that we're flying out...The atmosphere was really hostile towards us. In the second half, you could see the demonstrators through the goalpost...At the end of the game, the team was forced to wait in the bus until they received approval to depart due to demonstrators who continued to congregate outside the stadium. One of the players described the experience as "A feeling of harassment."
"Dozens of demonstrators arrived to the hotel, some of whom managed to break into the building itself, photographing one of the players – who was forced to flee and hide in a bathroom stall along with one of the female staff members." She hid from a Palestinian woman keen to tell her about the genocide.
The pitch invader played his part skilfully
"The security detail failed to prevent the break-in of a demonstrator who wore a security guard's vest and tied himself to the goalpost, causing the match to be briefly delayed.
The BDS Team played their parts
"When the Israeli players left the airport, a number of cars followed the team's bus, forcing the driver to ...try to shake the tail. The effort was unsuccessful, and the location of the team's hotel was ultimately discovered.
The paper thinks it all started with this "video clip showing a number of players on the team in Israel Defense Forces uniforms [being] distributed on social media" pointing out that the players had almost all served in Israel's murderous military.
The Israelis were not happy - it wasn't supposed to be like this: "The video that was posted really surprised us as did when the demonstrators found our hotel."
Despite the authorities' efforts on behalf of the soldier-players "the team already complained about the attitude of the Scots, who prevented them from practicing in the stadium and sent them to synthetic fields."
As representatives of a pariah state, Haartez reports "The players were forced to hide the team symbol on their training uniforms with black stickers," Forced by their own management?
Even Police Scotland werre not doing enough to keep protestors out of sight: "Two vehicles followed our bus on the way to the stadium, and that didn't bother the local police". In fact the police called later at the drivers' homes to try to intimidate them into backing off. It was nsuccessful.
Was there an opponent of genocide at the controls of the sound system? Apparently "we had to scream the national anthem because the Scots didn't play it on the stadium loudspeaker". Eleven soldier-players screaming couldn't match more than a thousand drowning them out and the Palestinian national anthem belting out ona powerful sound system.a powerful
One of the Israeli players told Haaretz that anti-genocide protests "are always unpleasant, but at the same time they spur us to fight for the entire nation" including Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the soldier-criminals who video themselves in action.
It's unlikely the SFA will agree to ban the Israeli ambassadors without sustained and intensified pressure.
All quotes from Israeli daily, Haaretz, June 1st 2024
Mick Napier
West Calder
4 June 2024
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