I don’t miss the part of living in Katamon, in Jerusalem, when a Beitar game would be on.
Beitar Jerusalem fans are known for a right-wing/arse/loud/violent combination of stereotype.
This, though. This is disgustingly criminal. It’s been a bit buried in the papers – partly because it happened around the time of the France Jew murders, and partly because, well, it is not flattering and since when do Israeli papers post something that admits to this level of wrongness?
Hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem fans beat up Arab workers in mall; no arrests
Hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem supporters assaulted Arab cleaning personnel at the capital’s Malha shopping center on Monday, in what was said to be one of Jerusalem’s biggest-ever ethnic clashes.
Despite CCTV footage of the events, no one was arrested. Jerusalem police said that is because no complaint was filed. Witnesses said that after a soccer game in the nearby Teddy Stadium, hundreds of mostly teenage supporters flooded into the shopping center, hurling racial abuse at Arab workers and customers and chanting anti-Arab slogans, and filled the food hall on the second floor.
It’s not the first time Beitar fans have acted utterly stupid in the name of a game won or lost. There have been tramplings, stampedes. But this is a fit of violence that goes beyond a game.
I despise the violence that erupts from sports frustration or elation (ahem, Red Sox fans). And I despise even more when hate crimes are done from within my own people to minorities living among us.
How short are our memories? How immature are our minds?
These fans were young – who hasn’t been teaching them?
(And by the way, Arutz Sheva, seriously? There’s camera footage and you’re saying fans ‘allegedly attacked Arabs’?)
Whadya got: