Messi, other players threatened
In what might be the biggest victory yet for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, Argentina’s national soccer team announced on Tuesday that it was cancelling a friendly match against Israel’s national team after facing political pressure.
Protesters outside the team’s Barcelona practice facility have displayed soccer jerseys dabbed with red paint resembling blood, and players and their families, particularly star player Lionel Messi, have reportedly received death threats.
These were also among the reasons cited by Israeli leaders and Argentine representatives as to why the team decided not to go ahead with the match scheduled for Saturday in Jerusalem.
For the BDS movement, which aims to pressure Israel into complying with international law in its policies toward the Palestinians, however, the cancellation of the highly anticipated match is perhaps its biggest coup to date.
The game, just a week before the opening of the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament in Russia, was politically charged from the start.
Initially it had been slated to take place in the northern city of Haifa, but Israel’s minister of culture and sports, Miri Regev, switched the venue to Jerusalem. She said that as Israel’s capital, the city was the appropriate venue for such a prestigious game. About 30 000 tickets were sold for the match.
On Sunday, Regev said Messi’s visit to Israel was a public relations coup for country and he would “kiss the Western Wall” and “shake hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”.
But Jibril Rajoub, chairperson of the Palestinian Football Association, said the Palestinians would not allow the game to take place. At a protest on Sunday outside the offices of the Argentine representative in Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital, he said he had sent a letter to the Argentine Football Association urging it to cancel the match.
The letter was also “intended for Messi”, he said, “who is a symbol of love and peace, and a Unicef ambassador for spreading love and tolerance. We demand that he not serve as a means to beautify the fascist occupation’s image and its racist policy”.
“Starting today, we will begin a campaign against the Argentine Football Association, and we will personally target Messi, who has tens of millions of fans in Arab states, Islamic states, in Asia, in Africa, and in states that are friends of the Palestinian people,” he said.
He called on “everyone to burn their Messi shirts and pictures and renounce him”.
Waking up to the news yesterday that Argentina had cancelled the match, Israeli leaders denounced Rajoub, saying it was his incitement against Messi and the Argentinians that caused them to withdraw. They called Rajoub’s messages “terror threats”.
In her initial response, Regev said “since they announced they would play against Israel, various terror groups have been sending messages and letters to players on the Argentina national team and their relatives, including clear threats to hurt them and their families”.
These included video dead children.”
Israel’s Football Association said it would send an official complaint clips of against Rajoub’s actions to Fifa, world soccer’s governing body.
“The association views with severity the physical and brutal threats that crossed every red line made by the head of the Palestinian association, Jibril Rajoub,” wrote Ofer Eini, the head of Israel’s Football Association.
In an attempt to get the match back on track, Netanyahu called Argentine President Mauricio Macri on Tuesday night. But Macri said he did not have the ability to influence the national team’s decision, at least if the match took place in Jerusalem.
Tensions have been high between Israelis and Palestinians over the past few months, following a decision by President Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv. The move has been fiercely protested by Palestinians and seen as illegal by much of the world.
In addition, Israel has faced sharp international criticism for its lethal response to ongoing protests along its border with the Gaza Strip.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian enclave in 2005. But after the militant Islamist movement Hamas, which has been labelled a terrorist organisation by Israel and the US, took control of the strip more than a decade ago, Israel imposed a land and sea blockade on the territory. Egypt has kept its crossing into Gaza closed for much of the past 10 years.
A growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has led residents to start protesting. In late March, thousands began weekly protests demanding a right to return to land now inside Israel and a solution to the crisis facing more than 2 million residents.
On May 14, the day the US Embassy was officially inaugurated in Jerusalem, tensions were further inflamed, and Israeli forces killed more than 60 Palestinian protesters and wounded thousands.
The images of Palestinians killed and injured juxtaposed with Trump’s daughter Ivanka opening the new embassy.
It drew condemnation, and international calls to hold Israel accountable have increased.
There is often pressure on celebrities and high-profile individuals not to perform in or visit Israel. In recent years, several artists have cancelled tour dates in Israel, either for political reasons or because of ongoing violence.
Last December, New Zealand singer Lorde cancelled, and in 2010 Elvis Castello cancelled, as did the Pixies, after the Israeli military raided a Turkish ship bringing aid for the Gaza Strip, leaving nine dead.