Maccabi Haifa fans in a confrontation with police officers in the stands (according to Article 27 A of the Copyright Law)
On the last day of the Hanukkah holiday, I loaded my children on the car and we drove to enjoy a football game in Netanya, at least that was the intention.
It's not unusual for me or the kids, we do it every week, I've been doing it since the eighties, but I still have a hard time digesting what I saw in this stadium this time.
Let's start with full disclosure, I'm not a criminal.
I am a normative law-abiding citizen.
I am also a polite and cultured person.
In short, I'm not one of those people who should be lying on the floor after being thrown there by a young thug in uniform the age he could be their son.
What was my sin?
I asked the policeman to stop violently pushing my son.
What was my son's sin?
He was standing there with a Maccabi Haifa shirt.
Now some proportions.
In the list of injustices that were caused that evening, the injustice that was caused to me and my children is deep, deep at the bottom of the list, because what was there was a real battlefield where on one side is an armed and violent force and on the other side are civilians whom they are supposed to, in theory, protect.
Does anyone remember when we came to watch football?
Maccabi Haifa fans (photo: official website, screenshot)
We saw the results of the fight in the morning in countless photos of injured and bleeding fans, with photos of fans getting beaten for no reason, with harsh descriptions of what was done to them.
Just like that, simply because they were there, even if it's hard for some of you to believe that police officers in Israel would just beat up civilians who did nothing, that's exactly what happened there in front of my eyes and in front of my children's eyes.
Let's start by describing the facts.
The event started in the stands, with the start of the game a group of police officers suddenly broke into the stands in order to arrest a fan who was suspected of possessing a flare.
For those who don't know and know, when policemen break into the stands, they do it with a little excessive assertiveness, or in simple words, blow up everyone who stands in their way, even if he just happens to be standing there, even if he is a child.
This break-in, as expected, caused riots in the stands and clashes that lasted tens of minutes with the use of pepper spray and stun grenades in a crowded stand.
By the way, Avoca was not there.
A mistake, it happens, check the small print on the back of the card, it says T.L.H.
But it turns out that this was just the prelude to the main event of the evening which took place at the exit of the field, the restoration of public order by all means, or if we use simple words again - lynching.
When the fans left the field to the road connecting to the parking lot, crowds of policemen were waiting for them outside and as soon as enough fans came out, the policemen charged like in a military operation, Bint Jebel the diamond version.
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This is called lynch (photo: Surfer's photos, from Twitter)
Horsemen gallop into the heart of the crowd with the brave infantry behind them, with dozens of stun grenades and free fire of rubber bullets.
I say again, stun grenades and rubber balls, on a soccer field, not in disturbances in the territories.
When in the background of the incessant explosions I try to calm my ten-year-old son who is crying hysterically, a boy I don't know, frightened and pale, approaches us and asks us to help him get out of there.
Fans, strangers and friends, approach my child, hug him and tell him that he is a hero and everything is fine and I stand and watch and can't believe what I see, how unnecessary all of this is and how easy it was to prevent all of this and how the hell am I supposed to explain to my wife now why the children have to keep coming to the lots.
And I explain to her, as best I can.
I explain to her that the bleachers are not a violent place, I explain to her that the bleachers have a feeling of camaraderie and friendship and even if once in a few games two hotheads let a stupid argument drag into a physical confrontation, their friends in the bleachers immediately separate them and I wish it was like this in their school.
But I still don't have a solution for this group, with the blue uniforms that are responsible for 99.9% of the violence I've ever seen on the football fields.
It is in the hands of the politicians, of the committees for the intensification of violence in sports, of the enemies of football in the association and the administration.
Someone needs to think very seriously and turn 180 degrees the approach to football fans, because what is happening now is driving families and children away from the industry.
Someone should take the police out of the stands and let us take care of order in the stands, because contrary to what many think, we are really not violent, and really not criminals.
We are football fans who come to enjoy the love for their team and this sport.
If only they would let us.
sport
Israeli soccer
Super League
Tags
Maccabi Haifa
Israel Police
