Greek basketball fans wave Hezbollah, Palestinian flags; burn Israeli flag during game
Fans of the Greek basketball team AEK Athens waved Hezbollah and Palestinian flags and burned an Israeli flag during a game with the Israeli team Hapoel Jerusalem in Athens on Wednesday.
Fans of the Greek basketball team AEK Athens waved Hezbollah and Palestinian flags, and burned an Israeli flag during a game with the Israeli team Hapoel Jerusalem in Athens. Source: Screenshot.
During the Gameday 9 match, part of the Basketball Champions League (BCL), the Greek fans also held up pictures of Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti and shined a laser in the eyes of Israeli fans, Ynet reported.
“We had heavy security protecting us,” said Matan Ben-Harush, a Hapoel Jerusalem fan who attended the game. “We were surrounded by hundreds of police officers; we could see the fans of the other team tearing Hapoel flags before the game but there was no physical confrontation.”
Not a good look from the AEK fans burning the Israeli ???????? flag with the Hizbullah and PLO flags in full display at the @JerusalemBasket vs @aekbcgr in @BasketballCLaction. pic.twitter.com/8yIjXQzCEv
— Israel Sports Rabbi (@thesportsrabbi) December 18, 2019
Ben-Harush said that thousands of AEK fans entered the stadium during the first quarter of the game and added, “We could see the Greek fans getting closer to our seats, waving Palestinian flags and carrying pictures of Barghouti. The climax was when they started burning Israeli flags.”
Hapoel Jerusalem notified BCL of the incident and said in a statement that “there is no place for these types of acts at a sport arena. We are working with FIBA authorities on this matter. We want to acknowledge the 400 fans who accompanied the team to the game.”
BCL said it will launch disciplinary proceedings against AEK Athens.
One Hapoel fan described the incident as “horrifying,” while another Hapoel supporter said, “It’s a disgrace to basketball. There’s no place for such behaviour. It was shameful seeing our flag burned; they should be mortified with themselves.”
AEK Athens won Wednesday’s match 91-78.
JNS
The anti-Jewish ravings of one of the early Church Fathers, a Greek, who was nicknamed St John Chrysostom (i.e., the golden-mouthed) still incites Greeks.
Juxtapose his utterances about Jews next to Hitler’s and tell me if there is a substantive difference.
I would have thought historically that Greece would have more of a problem with Middle east Muslims given the Ottoman Empire occupied Greece until the mid 1800’s or there about.
Not unexpected. Orthodox Christian Jew hatred has a long and deep history, with the worst examples of the hate being pogroms under the tsars. It persisted under Moslem rule and continues even when Greece and Israel are allied in the fight against Turkish jihadi aggression. Sad, very sad; the Greeks need to embrace the 21st century of the common era.