Passing the Buck on the bad boys of football

Bataween
Point of No Return
03 January '10

The Financial Times' partial Middle East coverage has for some time been giving cause for concern - a bias no less worrying than that of the BBC and The Guardian. There must only be bad news about Israel. One narrative that western journos like the FT's correspondent Tobias Buck dutifully follow is that Israel society may come across like one big family, but is in fact hopelessly fractious and divided.

On Saturday, under the guise of an article on the 'not-so-beautiful' game of football, the FT published a portrait of the downright ugly 'bad boys' who support Beitar Jerusalem. No other soccer team in Israel glories in the fact it will not recruit an Arab player (although Buck does not reveal it has black players). What an unpleasant bunch. Out-and-out racists they are, screaming milhama at their opponents ('war'). Their hatred for Arabs and for the Ashkenazi 'liberals' of Hapoel Tel-Aviv is truly venomous.

The Mizrahim behind Beitar Jerusalem, Buck acknowledges, come from Arab countries. How and why did the families of the fans come to Israel? How many Jews have ever been allowed to play for Moroccan teams? Might persecution in Arab countries just have something to do with their anti-Arab racism? While it can never excuse it, might it explain some of their behaviour? No, Buck is not going there. Jews can never be portrayed as victims, except of each other. That role is reserved for Arabs - sorry, 'Israeli-Palestinians,' as Buck calls them.

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