The Arab League Israel today

Last week Ali Othman celebrated his 70th birthday. For most young football fans, this name can be used mainly as a trivia question, which occasionally appears in quizzes.

Most of the friends who came to celebrate with him - the stars of the past of Israeli football - must have remembered that he was the first Arab player to ever play in the first division of Israeli football, in the uniform of Hapoel Jerusalem, back in the 70's.

Among the congratulators was Rafat (Jimmy) Turk, another Arab soccer player who made history and was actually the last Arab to represent Israel in the Olympic Games, when the soccer team qualified for the tournament in Montreal in 1976.

50 years later, no one is excited about players from the Arab sector in the local soccer leagues.

In fact, when you look at the different national teams of all ages, you see an impressive amount of Arab footballers.

There is no branch in Israeli sports with such a large amount of athletes from the sector, and these know how to use football as a tool for social leadership.

Some of them went to play abroad of course, just like the captain of the Israel team Beavers Natcho, the pride of the Circassian tribe.

shut up

The pride of the Circassian community, photo: Maor Alxalsi

The new immigrant, Maccabi Bnei Raina, comes from the settlement of Petasov, whose entire population does not reach 20,000 inhabitants.

If you put all the residents listed there into Bloomfield, there is still room for another crowd

Last summer was marked by the retirement of Monas Davor from the Israeli national team.

In May 2021, the player published a post on social networks, regarding the riots on the Temple Mount, which drew boos and curses at him from the local crowd that came to cheer the team in the following games.

Davor, who did not receive the sympathy and support of the other national team players, led by stars Eran Zahavi and Shawn Weissman, decided last summer not to continue wearing the national uniform.

The Israel Football Association accepted the decision with heartache, but it seems that most of the team's players felt relieved at the removal of this hot potato from the locker room, where the tension was already unbearable following the affair.

Professionally - Davor, who plays in the strong German league, will be missed by the team, but it seems that the ego, of all parties, is more important than anything.

In the Premier League, on the other hand, the situation is going to be different in the season that opens tomorrow.

Two Arab teams - the veteran Bnei Sakhnin and Maccabi Bnei Raina, the biggest surprise of Israeli football in recent years - will play in the top league, and just to clear the ear: the newcomer comes from the town of Petasov, whose entire population does not reach 20,000 inhabitants.

In other words, if you put all the registered residents there into Bloomfield Stadium, there is still room for another crowd.

Rayna, which does not own a local stadium, will play in the Nof HaGalil stadium.

Reina's sons.

The big surprise, photo: Oded Karni

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43 thousand footballers are registered with the Israel Football Association and they play in more than 1,800 teams for children, boys, youth, adults and seniors.

The Arab players stand out mainly in the lower leagues, where in recent years the Arab teams have generally become the owners of the highest budgets.

In all the Arab villages in Israel, soccer is played and dreams of moving up from the lower leagues to higher leagues in an attempt to reproduce the success of teams like Bnei Sakhnin, Ahi Nazareth or even Hapoel Taiba, which once emerged in the first league in Israel.

The Arab groups - and this is not a prejudice but unfortunate facts - are often characterized by improper management, accused of under-the-table payments more than once and other budgetary problems.

Rumors about sales of games between the sector's teams are a common thing every year in May, when the battles for promotion or staying in the various leagues begin.

Everything leads to the fact that when you look at the popularity of the industry, you discover one thing: in Israeli society, there is no lever of influence as big on Arab society as football.

It is still a dominant entry ticket among the population in question.

True, in the 74 years of the state, the gates of the academy were opened to the Arab population and as a result dozens of new jobs, and Israeli politics is also filled with figures from the sector, but in recent years football has become the leading tool for leaving the pre-determined path, towards a better future, certainly economic.

A tour of the villages and large cities reveals a phenomenon that of course also characterizes the Jewish population: more and more personal trainers work with children and teenagers who are not satisfied with the local football club and want to dream far away.

To that we have to add fitness trainers, nutritionists and mental trainers who used to be a distant dream for every beginning soccer player, and certainly in the Arab sector, and today it is a standard for everyone who dreams of their son becoming the next soccer star.

Benny Rayna fans, photo: Danny Maron

Optimism, despite the racism

Will the Premier League this season be free of racism, and prove once again that there is no place like Israeli football when it comes to accepting the other?

Depends on how you look at things.

On the one hand, Beitar Jerusalem will not have an Arab soccer player playing this year either, and probably not in the foreseeable future either. Racist cells have emerged among the fans in Maccabi Tel Aviv in recent years as well. Mehran Radi, the last Arab star who played for Maccabi Tel Aviv, about seven years ago, said that captain The group, Sharan Yeni, explained to him that the handful of passionate fans of the group "hates Arabs" and is not ready to talk to Radi.

But the vast majority of the Premier League teams have Arab players who are successful and lead the clubs to achievements.

In fact, 11 out of 14 teams in the Premier League will have at least one Arab player in the lineup (in the two Arab teams, of course, the numbers are higher), a figure that shows that the future of Israeli football belongs equally to Jewish players, but also to Arab players.

The reason is clear: while in the Jewish sector football is still considered a tool for social change, the options facing a young Jew are still wider than those of a young Arab.

Another interesting point is the fact that this year there will be an Arab coach on the main stage of local football: Adham Hadia, coach of Bnei Rayna.

To understand how rare this event is, we note that at the beginning of the current millennium, only two Arab coaches were on the lines of the Premier League teams.

Azmi Nasar, who led Ahi Nazareth to the Premier League in the 2002/2003 season and was fired shortly after the season began, and Saleh Hasramah, who in 2015 coached Kiryat Shmona for only six months, according to which he was removed from his position.

Jewish teams are in no rush to appoint an Arab coach, justifying this by the lack of a large supply of Arab coaches, and in general, they claim, it is also difficult for Jewish coaches to find work in the top teams.

To this it should be added that the Arab teams themselves also prefer to appoint Jewish coaches and not trust Arab coaches, who are considered weaker in front of the players than the Jewish coaches.

Adham Hadia will try to prove that even in the field of coaches, even though all the odds are against him, Israeli football continues the revolution that the rest of Israeli society is having trouble joining. 

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