Beitar Jerusalem owner Moshe Hogeg has canceled a friendly soccer match between his team and FC Barcelona after the Catalonians wanted it to be played outside Jerusalem.
“After I got the contract to sign and was exposed to the unequivocal demand that the game not take place in the capital, Jerusalem, and a few other demands that I did not like, I slept with a heavy heart, thought a lot and decided that first of all I am a proud Jew and Israeli,” he wrote on Facebook.
“I bought Beitar Jerusalem out of love for the holy capital,” Hogeg wrote. “I fought a bitter war against racism, and I will continue to fight it. I promote coexistence and am for peace. At the same time, a game against Beitar Jerusalem deserves to take place in Jerusalem, and if the motive for its not taking place in Jerusalem is political and I submit to it, I will not be [at peace] with myself. I cannot betray Jerusalem.”
Palestinians called for boycotting the Barcelona soccer team after it was reported that it might hold a preseason game in Israel against Beitar Jerusalem. The match was reportedly set to take place in Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium on August 4.
Teddy Stadium in Malha is located “near” the east Jerusalem neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, where a number of Arab families are facing eviction from their homes, a spokeswoman for an anti-Israel boycott movement said.
Malha is located at the southern tip of Jerusalem, while Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan are located in east Jerusalem.
The purported match was “politically motivated in an attempt to marginalize Palestinians’ rights and play over the blood and suffering of the Palestinian people,” the spokeswoman said.
Anti-Israel activists launched a hashtag in Arabic on Twitter titled “Boycott Barcelona” in an attempt to pressure the Spanish team to cancel the match against Beitar Jerusalem.
The Barcelona team is planning to hold a match in Israel “at a time when Palestinian athletes are being deprived by the Zionists of the right to participate in sports events around the world,” according to “Boycott Campaign – Palestine.”
Teddy Stadium was “established on the blood of the Palestinians,” the anti-Israel group said, adding that many of FC Barcelona’s fans are Arabs.
Several Palestinian activists accused Beitar Jerusalem of racism and said the team’s fans are known for their chants against Arabs and “insults” to the Prophet Muhammad.
FC Barcelona president Joan Laport said his club has not publicly released any statements through its official channels confirming the holding of a friendly soccer match against Beitar Jerusalem over the summer, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency.
Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub received a letter from Laport about the match planned in Jerusalem on August 4 “in a stadium built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of al-Malha, whose residents were forcibly expelled and displaced in refugee camps,” Wafa reported.
“Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime,” Rajoub, a former PA security commander who is secretary-general of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction, has said in the past.
According to Wafa, Laport wrote to Rajoub: “We have received the letter that you sent on behalf of the Palestinian Football Association in which you conveyed your concerns about FC Barcelona’s presumed activity of a friendly game in Jerusalem.”
FC Barcelona has not announced the team’s schedule for the current season through its official channels, Laport stressed, adding that FC Barcelona, “as a democratic sports institution committed to basic rights and principles, has always expressed through actions, as the club’s history confirms, its clear defense of the rights and freedoms of all peoples of the earth.”
Joshua Halickman contributed to this report.