Celtic Fans Were Far From The Only Ones Glad To See Israel Crash Out Of The Euros.

Over the last week, I saw a lot of stuff on social media where people were openly mocking Israel’s national team for the way they crashed to a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Iceland in the Euros. The game was played in Budapest. The Israeli players and their manager must have felt very far from home. That’s a feeling they’ll need to get used to.

Iceland’s manager, Age Hareide, was uncompromising in the run up to the game. He expressed his clear view about the match. He didn’t want to be there either, but for different reasons; “because of what is happening in Gaza and because of what they have done to women, children and other innocent civilians … we shouldn’t be playing this game if you ask me.”

He is not the first person to express this sentiment. He will certainly not be the last.

In the aftermath of the match, the Israeli national coach, who had accused Celtic of basically being an antisemite club at the height of the Abada affair, was foaming at the mouth as usual, objecting to a perfectly reasonable question with a rant. “”You spoke about a topic you don’t know much about,” he said to one journalist. “Do you regret that? In Israel we have faced massacre, murder, rape, hostage taking. Why do you have your political bias?”

Political bias as expressed by his weird, and perhaps bigoted, myopia is all you ever get from this guy. But much of the world disagrees, strongly, with his position and is appalled by the behaviour of his country and so he, and his players, should actually be pretty glad that they won’t be at the Euros where every opponent they face would probably express their own disgust.

The Palestinian flags he was so infuriated by in Scotland would have stalked their every step and that would only have been the start of it.

That tournament would have been extremely uncomfortable for them and when you think about it, that is a pretty extraordinary thing to write.

On 7 October it was his country which was attacked, it was their civilians who were murdered, it was his people who were in shock and in mourning at the horror of it.

And on that day, the world was united in condemnation of the atrocity that was visited on them. Almost every country on the planet expressed its support for them and the disgust at Hamas was virtually universal across the political sphere except in that handful of places where you do find the genuine antisemites.

It should have been impossible to destroy so much goodwill as thoroughly as Israel has done, but that’s what happens when you’ve spent decades treating the Palestinians like animals until you no longer think of them any other way.

There are elements of that Israeli government that were just thirsting for this. That, in fact, might have been Hamas’ calculation from the beginning.

It’s not crazy to suggest that Netanyahu and his brutal government might have played the role of the Idiot to perfection here.

Israel now stands accused of “collective punishment.”. Of violating the UN Charter. Of genocide. Israel. The country established in the shadow of that most monstrous crime.

The UN has just passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire. Israel’s deranged statement has said it’s an antisemitic organisation with an antisemite at its head.

He should file suit for that; this is an allegation that is too freely thrown about, and everyone who is unduly accused of it should take legal action over it until it’s no longer used with abandon, and to stifle any and all dissent.

They have lost all sense of proportion. The government of Israel is burning the nation’s moral standing to ashes. There is little left of their claim to be the one country in the region which embraces the rule of law; it was a dubious claim to begin with but they certainly have no real claim to it now, behaving like an outlaw nation, refusing aid convoys access, bombing civilian areas, imprisoning two million people and on and on and on.

Their national coach must have thought he was speaking from a position of strength when he attacked our club so recklessly, so stupidly, so ignorantly.

But more and more it is clear that it is the position held by Celtic fans which echoes around the world, and that response would have been waiting for the Israeli national team the moment their players got off the plane for that competition, had they gotten past Iceland and made the finals.

I am not saying that teams would have refused to play them, but many of them would have expressed their frustration at having to and many, many players would have condemned them in their statements to the media. I wrote a piece some weeks ago about how football could take a lead here and effectively freeze Israel out of the game in Europe; that looks more and more like something that not only should happen but will happen.

The Icelandic manager went out of his way, after the game, to express his sympathy for Israel’s footballers, and he was entirely correct to do that. They are not personally at fault for the policies of their government, although some of them have echoed the bigotry edged rhetoric of the manager over the course of this crisis.

But Russian footballers were not responsible for the outrages perpetrated by their government over Ukraine, nor were South African sportsmen and women responsible for theirs; all paid the price regardless, and it must be so if those governments which behave in this way are to be punished.

More of them should be.

There’s an argument for saying that we could and should have been over the scandal of Iraq. It is one of the ways the world confers pariah status on countries which act in a manner which cross the line and act as renegades.

Celtic fans by and large were pretty satisfied with the result.

It would have been better had UEFA suspended Israel entirely, but seeing them defeated on the pitch was something at least.

But had they made it, had they got there, I think all of Europe would have let them know well in advance of the competition that they might have qualified, but they were not welcome. That’s the message that I’d have liked to see sent. I still think in some way it will be.