Cui Bono? Arabs, football and state

Abstract

Arab football clubs have been playing in the Israeli football league since the establishment of the State of Israel (1948) and have continued to do so to date, with a few clubs in the premier league. While Arab football clubs expanded to almost every Arab village and town, football became highly popular among the Israeli Arabs. However, because of the Arabs’ minority status in Israel and the ongoing conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinians (also with certain Arab states) football assumed a definite instrumentality for the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel. This paper deals precisely with this issue: what did/does football do for the Arabs in Israel? Who gained/gains from the existence and the participation of Arab clubs in the Israeli football league? Certain gains can definitively be discerned and divided into three levels: the individual player that benefited from socio-economic mobility, the local club that became a hub of ethnic-national identification for many residents, and the entire Arab community in Israel whose internal debate about self-identification was encouraged by football and was instrumental both for integration and protest regarding the State of Israel, which has been dominated by the Jewish majority.

Notes

1. Goldblatt, The Ball; Mason, Passion of; Birley, Playing the Game.

2. Baily, Leisure and Class; Hargreaves, Sport, Power.

3. The relevant literature could not agree about the issue of profit that is garnered from football. It is possible to suggest that some clubs occasionally make a profit, and occasionally they do not (Conn, The Football Business; Kuper and Szymanski, Soccernomics; Szymanski and Kuypers, Winners and Losers). See also the annual reports of Deloitte.

4. Ben Porat, Football and Nationalism; Duke and Crolley, Football Nationality.

5. Huizinga, J. Cited in Guttmann, from Ritual, 13.

6. Answorth, ‘Sport as a Symbolic’; Guttmann, from Ritual.

7. Polley, Moving the; Hobsbawm, Nations and; Hill, Cocks, Cates.

8. Finn, ‘Racism, Religion’; Boyle, Giulianotti, and Williams, ‘We are Celtic’.

9. Jarvie and Wolker, Scottish Sport; Bariner and Shirlow, ‘Real and Imagined’.

10. Archetti, ‘Masculinity and Football’; Wamplew, ‘Wogbell’.

11. Burdsey and Randhawa, ‘How Can a Professional’; Agergaad and Sorenson, ‘The Dream of Social’; Njororai, ‘Colonial Legacy’.

12. Kozanoglu, ‘Beyond Edirne’; Crolley and Hand, Football and European; Ward, ‘Sport in Australia’; MacClancy, ‘Nationalism at Play’; Perryman, Ingerland Expects; Williams, English Football.

13. Vidacs, ‘Football in Cameroon’; Ben Porat, Football and Nationalism.

14. Calhoun, ‘Social Theory’.

15. Finn, ‘Racism, Religion’; Goldblatt, The Ball is; Hay, ‘Those Bloody Croatians’. It worth noting that some football clubs that carry ethnic names no longer engage in ethnic protest. In fact, their ethnic name (or class affiliation, etc.) is just a residual from the past. E.g. Liverpool is no longer a working class club (Williams, Red Men). Hapoel Tel Aviv is no longer a protégé of the Labor camp in Israel.

16. Althusser, For Marx.

17. Arabs in Israel are referred to by several collective terms. The state calls them ‘the Arab sector’. The Arabs in Israel call themselves by several names: some prefer Palestinians, some Israeli Palestinians, and others just Israeli Arabs. This paper uses the term Israeli Arabs to specify their status of citizen versus the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. (see, Rabinowitz and Abu Becker, Coffins on, Sorek, Arab Soccer).

18. The division into two periods is based in part on a certain tradition of the academic literature (e.g. Horowitz and Lisak, Troubles in Utopia). Probably a division into three periods – adding a decade after the Six Day War (1967–1977) could be more informative. However, the division into two periods is based on the assumption that the critical point of return with football was the transformation from the domination of politics to that of the economy (Ben Porat, From a Game).

19. Ben Porat, From a Game; How Israel Became.

20. Hapoel Sports Federation, the largest sports federation in Israel at that time was affiliated with the Histadrut (the Federation of Labor Unions) and therefore with the Labor camp, which was also dominating the government and the Knesset. Maccabi was affiliated with the bourgeoisie party (The General Zionists) and Beitar to a right wing party (Herut).

21. The military government began on 21 October 1948 and was abolished in 1966. Although they were Israeli citizens and cast their vote in the general elections, Arabs were not allowed to travel outside their villages or towns without a permit. (Cohen, Good Arabs).

22. About 90% of the Arabs in Israel lived in exclusively Arab settlements.

23. Lustic, Arab in; Zureik, Palestinians in Israel; Benziman and Mansour, Subtenants.

24. Rouhana, ‘The Political Transformation’; Smoocha, Arabs and Jews; Rabinowitz, ‘The Palestinian Citizen’.

25. Sorek, Arab Soccer.

26. In 1958, Arabs were accepted as members in the Histadrut. The Histadrut, by means of its affiliated Hapoel federation, established dozens of football clubs in the Arab sector. The other two federations also established their clubs all over the country.

27. The Histadrut – the Federation of Labor Unions – assisted the local residents establish football clubs under the banner of Hapoel Sports Federation. The reason for this was not football per se. The Histadrut was motivated by political reasons: to integrate the Arabs in the football league through dependency and the state’s benevolence. If fact, football was used to enhance the loyalty of the Arabs to the state’s institutions.

28. Already in 1944, before the establishment of the State of Israel, the Arab-Palestinians created their Sport Association. The Association had 65 clubs and many of them had football teams. The 1948 war destroyed the entire Arab community in Palestine, football included (Sorek, Arab Soccer). Only about 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel after the 1948 War, which the Jews call the War of Independence and the Arabs call Al Nakba (the disaster).

29. Sorek, Arab Soccer, 42.

30. Most of the Arabs in that period lived in villages. Some lived in cities such as Jaffa (Tel Aviv), Haifa, and Lod. However, many lost their land to the state and thus became dependent on the Jewish economy (Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish), and primarily on the goodwill of the military governor.

31. Sorek, Arab Soccer, 5.

32. Very few Arab footballers actually played in Jewish clubs: Bulus Bulus with Hapoel Haifa, Hasan Bastouni with Maccabi Haifa, Ali Otaman with Hapoel Jerusalem. In the early 1960s, a few Jewish footballers joined Arab clubs, e.g. Ze’ev Zeltser with Hapoel Kfar Qasim. In 1976, Rif’at Turk (who played with Hapoel Tel Aviv) was the first Arab to play in the Israeli National Team.

33. Football in the Arab sector is almost exclusively a men’s game. Moslem women do not visit the stadium. They may watch games on their home television sets. Sometimes a few women can be spotted among the fans in the stadium, but these are usually Christian women.

34. Rosenfield, They Were; Reces, The Arab Village.

35. In a few cases, football clubs in the specific villages were established by one of the big families. Hence, Hapoel club was identified with a particular family and Maccabi club was identified with another family. A local match (derby) occasionally turned into a battle between these families. This was the situation in Sakhnin for many years until the clubs united under the banner of the city.

36. Smoocha, Arabs and Jews; Rabinowitz and Abu Becker, Coffins on Our; Lustick, Arabs in the.

37. Mapai (the Party of the Workers of Israel), the dominant party at that time, and the leader of the government coalition, created a few Arab political parties in the 1950s that participated in the Knesset (parliament) elections. These artificial parties were intended to recruit support for Mapai in the Arab sector. At that time, Arabs were not accepted as party members in Mapai.

38. The official definition is ‘a Jewish-democratic state’. This definition is phrased in three basic laws that were legislated in 1992, 1994, and 2002. The association between democratic and Jewish is disputed among Israelis.

39. A coalition of various Arab organizations organized a protest against the state’s program to confiscate Arab land in order to expand the city of Karmiel. The demonstration turned into a riot and the police called the army for help. Six Arabs were killed by the army and the police. Since then, the 30th of March is a memorial day called Land Day to commemorate the Arab community in Israel.

40. Because of the legal situation, the club was/is formally a public association. Privatization was effective only in terms of purchasing the management rights of the club. In practice, the new club directors have effective control of almost every aspect.

41. This club is Beitar Jerusalem. The club has a strong core of fanatic, anti- Arab supporters who publicly refuse to accept an Arab player in the club.

42. Such as a non-Jewish player who is married to an Israeli woman. It is very difficult for a non-Jew to be accepted as an Israeli citizen. Only some players have been.

43. This is the attitude of Arab football fans to the Israeli National Team. Ben Porat, Oh, such a.

44. Mainly by certain fan groups of Beitar Jerusalem, but also by other groups of fans. It is worth noting that most of the football fans in Israel have accepted the presence of an Arab club in the top league as a normal thing (Ben Porat, Oh, such a).

45. Ben Porat, Biladi Biladi; Sorek, Arab Soccer.

46. This is the standard attitude of Arab fans toward the Israeli side. While the Israeli national anthem plays, he stands in silence, Ben Porat, Oh, What.

47. Different public opinions indicate that the Israeli Arabs disagree with the formal definition, determined by the Jewish majority, of Israel as a ‘Jewish state’. But the general opinion is that the Arabs wish to remain Israelis, even when the Palestinian state becomes politically viable (Smoocha, Arabs and Jews; The relation between … Also, Yedioth Ahronoth (a daily newspaper) 12 September 2010).

48. In 1986, the Islamic Movement established the Islamic football leagues. This league is not affiliated with the IFA. It is not a professional league and it is managed by volunteers. The aim of the Islamic movement was to offer its young members athletic activities that are subjected to and regulated by Islamic values. (Sorek, Arab Soccer).

49. This is borrowed (and rephrased) from Hobsbawm, Nations and, 143.