To Barcelona FC from Israeli citizens: Cancel Your Game in Apartheid Israel

 
July 2021
 
 
 
To Barcelona FC,
 
We are 1,000 citizens of Israel, who are active against our government's violations of international law and human rights against the indigenous Palestinian people [1]. We support the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel, until it ends its military occupation and apartheid policies [2]. Most relevantly, we support the call from Palestinian sports clubs to you, to cancel your match against Beitar Jerusalem, the Barça Exhibition to be held in Tel Aviv, and to withdraw from the Legends Clásico “peace” match [3].
 
We reiterate the points made by the Palestinian sports clubs, adding our voices to the hundreds of complaints from clubs and fans against this match:
 
Teddy Stadium, where you are scheduled to play, sits atop Al-Malha, an indigenous Palestinian village, ethnically cleansed in 1948 by the Zionist militias [4], and just kilometers away from Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, where Israel continues its ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinian communities, as you play.
The host of the match, the Jerusalem municipality, is one of the main actors in the current ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinian Jerusalemites, in neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan. It is also important to note, vis-a-vis Israel's municipalities, that in indigenous Palestinian cities that survived the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the newly established state of Israel replaced the existing Palestinian governance systems with completely new municipalities that excluded Palestinians, allowing for the militarized ethnic cleansing to continue in the form of zoning regulations, lack of building permits, and lack of services. To this day, it is state policy to keep surviving indigenous Palestinians out of decision making roles in local municipalities [5].
 
Israel executes, imprisons, and tortures the indigenous Palestinian population, every day, among them athletes, among them football players [6]. Restrictions on movement also play a role in the disruption of players' careers, and the entire Palestinian sports industry.
 
Beitar, your "friendly" opponent, is the most racist club in Israeli football, to the extent that its fan club took an active role in pogroms against indigenous Palestinian citizens of Israel, just two months ago [7], showcasing that when they habitually chant "Death to the Arabs" during matches, they mean it.
 
The last point made by the Palestinian football clubs to you, is that prominent international and Israeli human rights organizations have described Israel as an apartheid regime. We add the links they provided to our footnotes, as well as additional links [8].
 
Finally, we would like to add that Charlton Broadcasting, who will be broadcasting your match, is an Israeli broadcasting company whose content would be inaccessible to viewers without a subscription to one of Israel's media companies, all of whom are on the UN list of companies complicit with Israel's colonies and war crimes in the West Bank in some way or another [9].
 
It is for all this, that we add our voices to so many people across the world already asking you to respect Palestinian human, civil, and indigenous rights, and show your solidarity with them, by cancelling all your events in Israel.
 
Please feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have.

Sincerely,

Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within
 
  •  
[8]