MEDIAPART

J'ajoute à ceci, pour les vrais fans de foot et ceux qui s'intéressent à la politique footbalistique israélienne, un mail de mon ami Roi Siny, fan ardent de Hapoel Tel-Aviv, qui donne une petite historique des principales équipes mentionnées ci-dessus... Sports clubs in Israel were first established by the political parties, and used for political mobilization of the masses and protest against the establishment, which was actually controlled by the labor party. It might seem very strange and twisted to you (and it is), but the labor party also controlled the largest and only workers union that time - the Histadrut. Hapoel Tel-Aviv and most of the other Hapoel teams were established and maintained by the Histadrut or other branches of it. Hapoel means "The Worker". The aim wasn't to create pure competitive sports club, but rather to allow the masses the opportunities and the accessibility to practice in various kinds of sports. The slogan was: "Not Alufim (Champions), but Alafim (Thousands)". During the 80's, Israel had gone through pathological process of privatization. About the same time, Israeli football became professional, and Hapoel became a financial burden on the bankrupting Histadrut, which led to its relegation to the second division in 1989. The 90's were very bad years for Hapoel who struggled against relegation, until it was finally bought by a group of capitalist so-called Hapoel fans. Around these years, Hapoel supporters begin to revive the old socialist values of the club, but this time taking them to their real socialist meaning. For example, while the so-called labor party was the very one to discriminate and oppress Arabs and Sepharadi Jews, Hapoel fans are now raising the flag of anti-racism. Beitar Jerusalem was a team which was founded by the revisionist right wing in Israel and became the main protest ground for the real workers after the birth of the state of Israel. The reason for that is that most of them were Jews who came from Arab countries and suffered from severe discrimination from the European veteran Jews and their establishment. They could not join the workers teams because back then they were part of the same establishment which oppressed them and rejected their eastern, non-european culture, so they joined the right wing and Beitar, and only in the last decade or two they have completely lost their ideological way (which was respectable) and since they became a rich and powerful club, they succumbed to the extreme parts in their crowd, that took over and tattooed this crowd and let racism, xenophobia and far right fascist ideology lead their image and eventually their behavior. As for Maccabi, this is a different story. Those guys never really had clear ideological roots, so they obsessively try to adopt ones and take the bad aspects of the two ideological poles mentioned above. Maccabi was also founded by a political rival of the labor party, and it is mostly associated with "HaZionim HaKlaliym" ("The General Zionists"). This was a political force which represented the bourgeois in Israel, meaning, people who didn't like the fact that the state controls most of the resources in the country and that the welfare system is fairy developed, and they were struggling for liberal reforms in the economy (unfortunately they have succeeded). For this kind of people, values is not something that you can quantify, so just the same as financial gain is above everything, so is victory in sports, and that's why for Maccabi teams, and Maccabi Tel-Aviv in Basketball as the ideal-type, it doesn't matter how you achieve victory, as long as you achieve it (that includes signing contracts with players from rival teams during a playoff between the teams, includes preventing a foreign player for missing a match while his young son lies in the hospital after a serious car crash, and many, many more). When we Hapoel fans talk about "Maccabism" we mostly have in our mind the basketball team because they have managed to bring the capitalist ethics to an unbelievable peak, using nationalism in its ugliest form. Maccabi is the exact definition for opium to the masses: it is presented as the team of the whole state, and everybody has to support it (if not, you are considered to be a traitor), and at the same time it is a team which only the higher middle class and above can allow themselves to watch the matches in the arena. Of course, it is not the first time that capitalism uses nationalism, but in a country which has a constant security problem, Maccabi matches became a disgusting nationalist ritual where we – the so called Jews – beat those nasty GOYIM (non-jews), and it doesn't even matter that 90% of Maccabi players are foreigners who came here for money and were magically arranged-for an Israeli citizenship just for the aim of playing in Maccabi. This thing severely affects the local league: Maccabi destroys any chance for competition by buying young promising Israeli players and drying them for a whole career on the bench and other techniques. The money, how surprising, came and coming for years from the establishment which was quick to recognize the power that this club has by using its nationalist rhetoric. As a result, Maccabi had won ALL championship titles but one, for nearly the last 40 years. I will just add a quick notion about Maccabi football team, who at the same time tries to present itself as the definition of being Zionist, but doing it by adopting the racist and fascist patterns used by Beitar fans, by implementing right wing nationalist approaches in their crowd displays and songs. By doing so, they mostly appear incredibly ridiculous, but since they are unable to perpetuate continuous success as in basketball, they try different formulas in order to maintain the mentioned spirit of the "Maccabism". It seems that they might have finally came up with something: A Russian oligarch recently bought the team, and of course they have already started to worship him in hope that the hegemony in basketball will clone itself into football.

On a perdu, en effet... mais noblement: Hapoel a tenu tout le match, plus les prolongations... mais a finit par craquer sur un penalty décisif. Beuh. Nous étions au stade, d'où nous avons pu juger des différentes tactiques de fans: les religieux en calottes venus de Jérusalem ont béni les tribunes de Beitar, et les drapeaux rouges des supporters d'Hapoel, s'auto-proclamant les "fils de Satan et de Karl Marx" se sont agités en réponse. Le capitaine de l'équipe de Hapoel, Walid Badir (Arabe), a encore du essuyer les insultes habituelles: terroriste! Auquelles Hapoel a repliqué, qualifiant en masse les tribunes jaunes: neo-Nazis! Et tous se sont criés dessus, le doigt levé en menace: c'est la guerre, la guerre, on veut la guerre...! Gaydamak doit être content, cela faisait 19 ans que Beitar n'avait pas eu ce titre. Les joueurs de Beitar ont refusé de serrer la main du ministre des sports arabe qui leur présentait la coupe, arguant qu'il avait insulté leurs supporters.