This interruption was to highlight the ongoing commercial relationship between Cliftonville Football Club and Puma, a major global corporate sports brand.
How did a small club in the Irish Football Association become involved in a worldwide boycott movement?
Puma is an official sponsor of the Israel Football Team.
Israel has been described as an Apartheid state.
Humans Rights Watch states, April-27-2021:
On the basis of its research, Human Rights Watch concludes that the Israeli government has demonstrated an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the OPT. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.
For Cliftonville Football Club, as a promoter and champion of the slogan ‘Give Racism The Boot’, it seems hypocritical to call for an end to racism in football here while accepting sponsorship from a global company that stands accused of supporting an Apartheid regime Israel.
A change of kit sponsor will not materially affect Cliftonville FC.
Unless the Board of Cliftonville FC put the money they receive above the lives of Palestinian children it would be unconscionable and immoral for them to continue with this sponsorship deal.
Now is the time for the Board to unequivocally and publicly state they will cease from accepting monies from companies which support Apartheid states.
Cliftonville must stand on the right of history.
BDS global action and the Palestinian and Cultural Boycott of Israel statement,
Puma is the only international sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.Puma’s endorsement gives legitimacy to Israel’s illegal settlements pushing Palestinian families off their land and its attacks on Palestinian sports. Israeli snipers ended the careers of dozens of Palestinian athletes in Gaza in 2018 alone.
Palestinian teams and athletes are calling for a boycott of Puma until it ends its sponsorship of the IFA.
There is a long and proud history globally against injustice and apartheid states.
During the 1969 -1970 South African rugby tour of Great Britain and Ireland, thousands protested in the streets and on the pitch, disrupting games and demanding an end to Apartheid in South Africa.
We are now revisiting history with the pitch invasion at Cliftonville’s ground ‘Solitude’ last Saturday.
Cliftonville FC, please from our own history, remember Belfast Celtic FC forced out of the Irish league and remember Derry FC now playing in the Football Association of Ireland league.
Most of all remember the 67 dead Palestinian children. Their mothers and fathers.
The displacement of up to 58.000 people (UN figures), now homeless refugees, alongside massive destruction to the infrastructure and health facilities, in and of itself should be enough to dissuade you from continuing your links to Puma.
Boycott Divestment and Sanction, BDS, is a global movement.
Boycott ‘withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest.’
Boycott was popularized by Charles Stewart Parnell during the Irish land agitation of 1880 to protest high rents and land evictions. The term was coined after Irish tenants followed Parnell’s suggested code of conduct and effectively ostracized a British estate manager, Charles Cunningham Boycott, who collected exorbitant rents on behalf of absentee landlord Lord Erne.
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| Fra Hughes is a Freelance journalist-author-commentator-political activist. |
Follow on Twitter @electfrahughes
Fra
ReplyDeleteWill you be calling for a boycott of any Chinese-= made products used by Cliftonville or any other football club because of the persecution and enslavement of the Uighurs and Tibetans?
what could possibly be wrong with calling for a boycott of a company that sponsors teams in Israel's lebensraum project? This does not seem like a genuine criticism and more an attempt to deflect criticism away from a war crime regime.
DeleteAM, Fra
ReplyDeleteThe point I was making is that Fra Hughes' open defence of the Assad regime in Syria and his defence of the dismemberment of Ukraine by Russia makes any call for boycotts on human rights on his part an exercise in gross hypocrisy on his part.
But not on your yours? Do you not think you having a go at him while remaining silent on Israeli war crimes each time he draws attention to them might be regarded as hypocrisy? Would it not be better to address the issue?
DeleteTo return to his call for a boycott of Puma because it sponsors the Israeli national team; such calls should only be made on purely sporting violations. South Africa was justifiably subject to world wide sporting isolation because its team selections in rugby and cricket were made on purely racial grounds. No non-white could play at international representative level. By contrast, there is no colour or ethnic bar in relation to Israeli national soccer side - Arabs have been selected.
ReplyDeleteIt is boycotting of settlement goods that is the most appropriate response to Israeli violations of international law. I am not a fan of cultural and intellectual boycotts.
I criticise war crimes and human rights abuses without fear or favour to any country or government. This can not be said for Fra based on his previous postings.
it is becoming increasingly accepted that Israel is an apartheid state. Boycotting it is a peaceful way (in contrast to the violence of its own crimes against humanity) of applying pressure to it in order to have it desist from its criminality. And if Puma is sponsoring teams in the Lebensraum areas?
DeleteI don't agree with Fra's take on Assad. I think it weakens his overall perspective on these matters. But you have been very quick to shout anti-Semitic at things which are clearly not anti-Semitic: they amount to criticisms of Israeli crimes against humanity.
I sense you are a very reluctant critic of Israeli war crimes and have modified your position as a result of the flaws in it being teased out through discussion
I have no problem with bans on arms and security and equipment to Israel and with boycotts of companies such as Caterpillar who have been involved in house demolitions on the West Bank.
ReplyDeleteBut I am opposed to BDS as a matter of principle because I do not think boycotting ideas and culture is ever a good thing. Besides, far from causing Israel to desist from the criminality you accuse it of, BDS is more likely to entrench and legitimate the Israeli far right in its siege mentality.
Yes, Israel under Netananyu (let's hope he has gone for good) has taken worrying steps towards a Putin type ethnocracy as symbolised by the Nation-State Law and has shown every inclination to annex the West Bank. But, compared to the legislative infrastructure of apartheid-era SA such as the Group Areas Act, Population Registration Act, pass laws, bans on interracial marriage and sex and the Suppression of Communism Act, Israel behind the Green Line at any rate is far from being an apartheid state.
At the end of the day, it will be pressure applied by the US under Biden which will be the best means of getting Israel to change course and make peace with the Palestinians (there was such an agreement in the 1990s, remember).
I stand over everything I have said in my TPQ articles on British Labour and Contemporary Left Antisemitism. Criticism of alleged Israeli war crimes (Hamas has also been accused which Fra conveniently ignores) and of the essence of the State of Israel may not be stand alone antisemitism. But the demonisation of Israel at public rallies and online and generalised obsession does have antisemitic consequences as the 600% spike in antisemitic hate incidents in Britain (and similar outbreaks in the US) during the Israel/Hamas conflict showed.
Not everybody agrees with BDS but it is a point of pressure which the Israeli war criminals do not like and seek to undermine. When a regime behaves with such cruelty a boycott is sometimes the only effective means of dissuading it. And if the teams are part of the Lebensraum project?
ReplyDeleteThe Israeli far right is emboldened by the Israeli state and exists solely because of the Israeli state. The policy of lebensraum emboldens it not BDS.
Biden will only apply pressure when his regime feels the heat itself. At least if the Israelis have any plans to build gas chambers for the Palestinians there are grounds to believe that the US will say "No."
Israeli war crimes and butchering of children is what produces the exponential rise in anti-Semitism. If people would desist from equating the Israeli war crime regime with Jewishness, the task of curbing anti-Semitism would be somewhat easier. Each time it is alleged that criticising Israeli policy is anti-Semitic, the less of a differentiation between the war criminals and Jewish people is seen. Does it not strike you that there is a correlation between Israeli war crimes and the spike in anti-Semitism?
There are countless Jews opposed to the war crimes. In fact, I read recently that the war crime lobby now has to rely on support from the religious whack jobs in the US because the Jews are saying no.
I find it laughable that the war criminal Ratko Mladić was in court yesterday to hear his appeal rejected yet Netanyahu walks the streets.
The spike in antisemitism is the responsibility of the bigots and nobody else.
ReplyDeleteJust as spikes in anti-Muslims hate crimes after ISIS terror attacks is the responsibility of bigots and nobody else.
Just as the arrest and wrongful imprisonment of the Birmingham Six after the pub bombing massacres were the responsibility of corrupt police and biased judiciary and nobody else.
No crimes committed by Israel or Palestinians compare to the Srebinica massacre or the rape camps which the Bosnian Serb leadership perpetrated. Talk of Palestinians being put into gas chambers is far-fetched not least because genocidal regimes do not give advance notice of their plans
"If people would desist from equating the Israeli war crime regime with Jewishness". That is exactly what the anti-Jewish hatemongers on the streets and online are doing.
Cause and effect - if there is a spike in anti-Semitism after Israel commits war crimes against Palestinians we are entitled to infer that a six fold increase did not come out of nowhere and was prompted by something. The same with Isis attacks that give rise to attacks on Muslims. The IRA bombing of Birmingham fed into an anti-Irish sentiment in which it was easy for the police to target the Birmingham Six. Because there is no excuse for anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred, anti-Irish hatred, does not mean there is not a reason for it.
DeleteAll war crimes compare with each other - that is why they are called war crimes. They fit into a an identifiable generic category. It is not true to say there are no comparisons between Israeli war crimes and Bosnian Serb war crimes. Just as it is not true to say there are no differences in scale between the war crimes that both committed.
It is reassuring to hear that the Israelis will not at some point build gas chambers for the Palestinians - but that is not because they would not stoop to such a thing but because the international community would block them (we hope). They have already stooped to war crimes, of which gas chambers is another one. We have seen government ministers and members of the Knesset calling for genocide. So, for those reasons I do not share your confidence that they would not consider gas chambers and call it moral cleansing by the world's most moral army.
It is not just the anti-Jewish hatemongers who equate the Israeli war crime regime with Jewishness - it is those propagandists who seek to equate criticism of Israeli atrocity with Jewishness. They both play a role.
Despite Barry's forked tongue hypocrisy he has a point. If we boycott Israel, logic points to us also boycotting those who fuel the genocide with arms, political cover and the perennial gift of impunity: the USA, the UK and others. China's treatment of the Uyghurs is worthy of a boycott too.
ReplyDeleteTo boycott China would be almost impossible to do with their reaches into all parts of our lives in this small planet of ours. We can lobby on behalf of the Uyghurs, demostrate and campaign.
Regarding the Israeli list, I notice BDS have a list of eight. I have boycotted dozens of corporations over the last 35 years,including some of those on the BDS list. It's hard to do. I haven't bought a tin of Coke or Fanta since I was 13 years old but it took me a while to work out some other brands like Schweppes, River Rock are made by Coke too. Or the stranglehold Mars and Nestlé have on confectionary. So its good to see that the impossibly long lists of omnipresent goods on some sites are reduced to 8. These 8 are the worst culprits, implicated in Israel's human rights violations and a focus on those 8 is better than weak attempts targetting too large a number of corporations. It's easy to boycott these 8 as there are always alternatives to give your money to.
1. Israeli fruit and veg
2. AXA
3. Hewlett Packard
4. PUMA
5. Soda Stream
6. Ahava Deadsea Cosmetics
7. Sabra
8. Pillsbury
A useful list to have Simon
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