Are Soccer Fans a Danger to Democracy ?

B"H

Beitar, Beitar and again Beitar.
The Israelis press is jumping on the fans of the Jerusalem local soccer club Beitar Yerushalaim. The day before yesterday, Beitar played in the Haifa soccer stadium Kiryat Eliezer against Maccabi Haifa. Before the game started, officials had called for one minute of silence to remember the brutal murder of a youth in Tel Aviv a few days before and additionally the former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. The Haifa fans stood in silence while the Beitar fans started screaming phrases against Rabin. That he was "garbage", for example.

Since Rabin was murdered twelve years ago, left wingers have been exploiting the Rabin memorial for their own purposes. According to the leftists, right - wingers do not mourn about Rabin and furthermore, also have no right to mourn. Wasn't it the religious fundamentalist Yigal Amir who murdered the left – wing symbol Yitzchak Rabin ? Whose memorial is Rabin really ?

After the incident in the soccer stadium, the left sees a new danger coming up. The evil spirit of Yigal Amir continues crawling through our society. But who are really the Beitar fans and who was screaming in favour of Amir ?
It is well – known that many Beitar fans belong to the Sephardi haredi movement. Whether SHASS or not, most fans are right – wing, and do not allow the club owner, Arkadi Gaidamak, to buy an Arab soccer player for the team.
If you go to the Machane Yehudah Market today, you might hear different opinions. The market is a stronghold of the right and the traders say that only some youngsters at the age of 15 or 16 were freaking out. Not all Beitar fans should be seen as the new "Yigal Amirs" of Israeli society. They shouted, so what.

Is this a reason to punish a whole soccer team ?
The Israeli official soccer authority says YES and is planning to let Beitar play one game at home without any spectators.

The left – wing paper HAARETZ calls the Beitar fans "The 1000 children of Yigal Amir". Haaretz uses a play on words, as Amir just celebrated the birth of his first son. Is Haaretz exaggerating ?
Leading politicians such as Ehud Olmert see the same danger coming up as twelve years ago. Yesterday, posters were hung up in the religious Har Nof neighbourhood where Shimon Peres was called "Arab President" and a picture showed him with a Khafiyeh (Arafat's head cover). Responsible for the posters is the right – winger Baruch Marzel.

The left is afraid to loose. Daliah Rabin – Pelosof, the daughter of Yitzchak Rabin, wishes that Amir had faced the death penalty instead of rotting in jail. However, she and her followers have to accept that also a murderer has human rights.
The right and Amir himself consider the Rabin murder as a success. Fact is, that for the past years, Yigal Amir has been more present to us than the murdered Prime Minister. Amir is just everywhere. First the whole fuzz about his wedding, than about the birth of his son and now the newborn is the latest gossip subject. Amir is probably very proud of himself when he hears that thousand of Beitar fans obviously support his actions.

Everybody can have his own opinion but I think that it is disgusting that Yigal Amir together with his wife Larissa Trimbovler planned the birth of their son according to the memorial day of Yitzchak Rabin. Not only the press is establishing a new "evil symbol"; the hunt after the baby is also the fault of the Amir family. How cruel can someone be by using a baby for their own political statements ?