Liel Abada needs our continued support because his family is at war. So says Brendan Rodgers. Respectfully, I don’t agree at all, but i do sympathise with the manager’s position in being asked the same ridiculous questions over and over again as though he were some UN diplomat who could solve this problem with the stroke of his pen.
Hamas took its shot. The Palestinian people are the ones now paying a momentous price for the 7 October attacks. Abada’s family is not in the front line or under siege, unless I’ve mistaken him for a whole other player.
So, this is now a soap opera. We’re coddling this guy for I know not what.
If he’s let the Israeli right get in his ear and they’ve poisoned him against our club then there’s no sense in not spelling that out, and especially if he’s incapable of thinking this through on his own. The longer this drags on the more brutally it allows others to portray Celtic.
Talk of letting him go on loan seems to me like speculative rubbish. Most leagues do not allow loan signings any longer, so unless the rules have changed without anyone telling us the prospect is pretty low. Which in some ways is a shame because then we might get to the bottom of this crap.
Because isn’t his state of mind affected “by the war”? Is the war going to end the minute he leaves Celtic Park? If not, then presumably the same state of mind will affect him wherever he goes, and so we’d be allowing him to go on loan for what? To sit in another club’s stand?
What a farce. What’s the real issue here? Are people going to keep dancing around this?
Let’s assume that this is about the war and not about Celtic fans expressing an opinion he doesn’t like. He and his agent are going to have some selling job on their hands convincing another club to take him if every flare up in the Middle East is going to get under his skin and stop him wanting to play. Because something tells me that we’re going to have a lot of this to contend with.
More and more, the impression grows that no matter what people are saying in public Abada just doesn’t want to be here any longer.
If that’s the case then the club shouldn’t be shy about admitting that.
Best to deal with it for what it is rather than what we want it to be.
But this ghastly dance with the facts which is underway, the pushing of this story that he’s worried about his family when it’s his not country under bombardment but which is steadily reducing Gaza to rubble, is not being viewed with a cynical eye for nothing.
Especially if everything suddenly becomes alright the minute he pulls on another shirt.
Celtic fans were supporting the Palestinian cause before Liel Abada arrived here and we’ll be doing it long after he’s gone. If he, or anyone else, thinks we should cease that at a time when his country’s grotesque over-reaction is killing Palestinian civilians by the thousands then he really is at the wrong club and he can go whenever he wants.
We are a good and tolerant support here.
If his family was on the front lines (as opposed to being part of the front lines, a different perspective entirely and one that would be very hard to stomach as far as I’m concerned) we would certainly wish to give him the time and space he needs, but to suggest that he is the only Israeli player on the planet who is affected by this because he’s one of the few who has not grasped the reality of what is happening in Gaza is to stretch our credulity beyond the breaking point.
Our patience is not limitless and I’m already tired of feeling like we’re being bullshited.
If he doesn’t want to be here then punt him.
BTW. I don’t see much difference between Netanyahu and Putin. Both are war criminals.
Israel is perpetrating a genocide on the Palestinians and history will judge it so.
I’m with you James, the Liel Abada situation is getting old. I support him and like I commented a couple of days ago hope his family and friends are safe in Israel. With that said, the conflict is also getting old and the fact I support equal rights and statehood for Palestine shouldn’t be an antisemitic stance-especially since I’m Jewish. My understanding about the term Zionism is meaning the Jews should have a right to exist in what we refer today as Israel/Palestine. So I suppose by that definition I am a Zionist. I only bring that up just because I see so many comments about Zionism or anti-Zionism. With that said, last I checked Israel has been recognized by the vast majority of countries since the late 1940s whereas the Palestinian people have not. The settlements need to stop, the killing needs to stop, and there needs to be a negotiated peace. Not sure how we get there, but I think many Jews like myself feel this way. I hope Liel is with me and I want to see him do well at our club soon!
Zionism stems from the 19th century movement which campaigned for the re-establishment of a Jewish nation which I do not condone in as much as I don’t agree with theocartic states. I hate the fact I have to clarify that for the benefit of people who would have me down as an anti Semite for harboring those views.
And whilst I accept that the Jewish people consider themselves a race rather than people who share the same faith (i.e. secular Jews are still Jews), I don’t see why that would entitle them to land in the Middle East at the expense of the people who reside there.
People are people as far as I am concerned. I couldn’t care less who or what you are in that regard. As soon as you pull on the Hoops, yer wannae us. You and Liel Abada included.
Israel still under rocket fire from Hezbollah and to a lesser extent Hamas. Mls still allows loans I think.
True in the North and south Israel is under attack . They have eliminated attacks from Egypt Syria and Saudi backed terror. Now it’s just about 10 other terror backing countries they face . N one wants to see what’s happening but Hammas can end this immediately, come out from behind the woman and children
It’s clear what the issue is here. The “establishment” view in this country sides with the Zionists. Celtic fans do not share this view. And as we all know, if you’re not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
It’s all part of this pish which is making us out to be establishing a siege mentality. When, in fact, we are establishing nothing. It is being forced upon us.
I’ll be honest – I simply don’t know enough about this conflict to comment on its rights or wrongs other than to obviously say one life lost is one too many…
I’m maybe a wee tad selfish here in that I’ve not watched the news since just after Covid as all these poor folks dying of it was too depressing and I stopped watching and therefore I missed the Ukraine invasion by Russia and the Palestine invasion by Israel as well and to be honest I don’t miss or regret stopping watching the news –
Given that I don’t read nor buy papers sites like this are my only source of global happenings other than an hourly radio two minute news bulliten on the hour when driving in the motor…
I chill out by fishing, walking in the countryside, listening to Rebel songs, Irish County & Western music and 60’s and 70’s music most of the time and enjoying the pubs and boozing and all things Celtic (apart from paying through a turnstile to see them these days) so I’m probably the last that can pass comment on The Liel Abada scenario that’s unfolding –
But I am definitely pissed off that Celtic are the losers in this through no fault of their own…
For once I won’t go in too hard on the board as they are innocent victims in this as well (as in paying good money to a player and getting no return in a critical title race that’s far too bloody close for comfort) !
I see no Hamas flags being flown in any sports stadium events anywhere. Palestine is not Hamas, it’s a county ( concentration camp) .
This is a guy that feels insulted by the fact that Palistine are bombing his County and that the Celtic support are giving them their blessing by waving the Palistine flag. Unfortunately were poking our nose around things that have nothing to do with football so that said we’re going to lose another quality winger. Celtic Football Club is just that(a Football Club). Politics, war and religion should be left out of football. Your right it is bullshit
You’re over thinking this. He probably doesn’t want to play in front of fans, a vocal minority of whom are likely anti semitic, fly flags supporting terrorists on the day of an a massacre and want the elimination of Jews from his homeland. Quite understandable really.
He wants to leave because of the daily, yes daily death threats he and his family receive from all you puddle drinkers.
Rename the Green Brigade the Blue brigade, by chasing abada away
with their so called support of Palastine. If that is not helping Rangers win the league what is ?
‘Israel is under attack’, lol, from which army?, the one with no AIRFORCE, OR NAVY, OR TANKS, OR ARMOUR, OR ARTILLERY, WITH ONLY INEFFECTUAL ROCKETS TO SUPPLEMENT THEIR LIGHT ARMS.. ISRAEL IS THE MOST ADVANCED FORCE AND WELL EQIPPED ARMY IN THE WORLD, AND HAS BEEN WAGING WAR ON THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE, CIVILIANS, FOR 76 YEARS, WITH ATROCITY AFTER ATROCITY AFTER ATROCITY. October the 7th wasn’t the cause of this, it was small retaliation for seeing this done year after year after year, to men women and children, all unarmed. They have carried out over 70 massacres over the years and hold 10000 Palestinian hostages in jail, thousands of them women and children, whose only crime is to be Palestinian. Genocide lovers, god save you’se.