Tag: Maccabi Tel Aviv

  • Sport overcomes politics as Turkey hosts Israelis amid rising tensions

    Sport overcomes politics as Turkey hosts Israelis amid rising tensions

    By Ben Hartman, for CNN
    September 22, 2011 — Updated 1159 GMT (1959 HKT)

    110921022507 besiktas carsi tattoo horizontal gallery
    A Besiktas fan shows a tattoo which reads “Carsi” — the name of the club’s most famous supporters’ club.

    STORY HIGHLIGHTS
    • Clash between football teams from Turkey and Israeli passes peacefully in Istanbul
    • There had been fears that Maccabi Tel Aviv’s players and fans would be attacked
    • Besiktas supporters insist they have no problem with Israelis, but wanted to win
    • Just a dozen Maccabi fans attended the match, played amid rising political tension

    Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) — They traveled to Istanbul amid fears that mob violence might erupt as relations between two once-friendly nations turned ugly.

    But if Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Israeli club’s supporters received any trouble from the people of Turkey last week, it was only on the football pitch.

    After a 5-1 trouncing at the hands of Istanbul’s Besiktas, Maccabi safely returned to Tel Aviv the next day as concerns that the team and its fans would be in danger proved unfounded.

    The Europa League match appeared to be a perfect convergence of sports and politics, coming as relations between Israel and Turkey reached an all-time low.

    Less than two weeks before the match, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expelled the Israeli ambassador over the Middle Eastern country’s refusal to apologize for a naval commando raid on the SS Mavi Marmara, on which nine Turkish activists were killed as they made their way to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

    Days later, Turkey broke off military ties with Israel — and Jerusalem announced the formation of a naval alliance with Greece, Turkey’s historical enemy.

    Erdogan has since threatened to deploy Turkish warships to escort the next Gaza Flotilla and to increase Turkish naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean to counter Israeli “bullying practices” in the area.

    Turkey quickly became a state where Israelis no longer feel welcome, just as Maccabi Tel Aviv headed to Istanbul for a match against a team renowned for having some of the wildest fans in Turkish soccer.

    Elif Batuman, a regular contributor to The New Yorker and a writer-in-residence at Koc University, described the Besiktas squad as “the more working-class team.”

    “Of the three main Istanbul teams, Besiktas is kind of the underdog. They have the least money, the most run-down stadium,” she said.

    “With the other two big Istanbul teams (Galatasaray and Fenerbahce), the stadiums don’t have any particular ties to their neighborhoods, and the fan bases are more spread out. They call themselves the neighborhood team, the people’s team.”

    Ahead of a talk on Turkish soccer at an art gallery in central Istanbul the day before the match, Batuman described Besiktas supporters as being tied not only to the neighborhood but also, to some extent, to a political way of life.

    Israel isn’t our problem, it’s the country’s problem. Every Besiktas game is crazy
    Kemal Yuksel

    “They’re the most political of the soccer teams: they support Greenpeace, they do blood drives, they’re environmentalists. They’re definitely not pro-American, the ones I’ve talked to, but they say they don’t dislike Americans, only American policy. They are also definitely not pro-Israel and they support the Palestinians.”

    He said the match against Maccabi, the most successful club in Israel, was “clearly seen as a rallying event.”

    The Israeli media aired reports that Maccabi players who serve in the Israel Defense Forces reserves were banned from taking part in the game out of fear for their safety. The report turned out to be false, but was in keeping with a general sense in Israel that the team was heading straight into the lion’s den at the worst possible moment, prompting calls for the game to be canceled or forfeited.

    By mid-afternoon on Thursday, Besiktas fans began pouring into a square in the heart of their neighborhood, a short walk from the stadium. Cheering and downing copious amounts of Efes Pilsen beer, they locked arms and sang about the evils of the hated Fenerbahce and the beauty of all that is Besiktas.

    Those Besiktas supporters spoken to at the pre-game drink-up did not appear to have the Gaza Strip or the Mavi Marmara on their minds, and were completely indifferent to the presence of an Israeli reporter scribbling on a notepad in their midst.

    They’re the most political of the soccer teams: they support Greenpeace, they do blood drives, they’re environmentalists
    Elif Batuman on Besiktas fans

    “We hate Fenerbahce, not Israel,” said Kazim, a student from Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, who also said he did not believe the war of words between the Turkish PM and Netanyahu gave the game any extra meaning.

    Kemal Yuksel, a student at the Istanbul Technical University said the Besiktas fans are “just interested in football, not politics.”

    “We live for Besiktas and it doesn’t matter what country you’re from — we want to beat you,” he said. “Israel isn’t our problem, it’s the country’s problem. Every Besiktas game is crazy, doesn’t matter if we play Maccabi or anyone else.”

    At the same time that the Besiktas fans were pounding pre-game lagers, a crowd of around 200 people marched from Taksim Square in central Istanbul to the Inonu stadium, vowing not to forget or forgive the Mavi Marmara incident. Wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the pictures of the nine Turkish activists and with some protesters carrying flags of the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah, they made their way towards the stadium without arrest or incident.

    The protest was a repeat of sorts of a smaller gathering held the night before outside the Divan hotel where the Maccabi players were staying. A crowd of about 20 people waving Palestinian flags stood in silence across from the hotel for a couple of hours before filing away into the night.

    Meanwhile, a block further down the street past the Divan hotel, three street-walkers of unclear gender plied their wares, drawing slightly more interest from passersby than the nearby anti-Israel protest.

    We told everyone we were Israeli. No-one gave us any trouble whatsoever
    Israel Mukhtar

    Like everywhere else the Maccabi players traveled during their visit, the Divan was under heavy police protection. Outside the hotel, two armored police vans were parked at the ready, with officers in front of the vehicles with sub-machine guns. Around a dozen other police officers stood in formation next to the vans, but were not wearing riot gear. Next to the vehicles, a police sedan idled, while a single officer napped in the front seat.

    The heightened security continued inside the stadium, where dozens of riot police circled the field and plainclothes police and security officials kept a constant watch on the event.

    Once the match kicked off, it took only three minutes for Besiktas forward Hugo Almeida to put his team on the board with the first of his two goals. Maccabi answered soon after halftime through forward Roi Kehane, but the visitors never threatened again and Besiktas rolled to a 5-1 victory before a raucous home crowd.

    The 12 hardy Maccabi Tel Aviv fans who attended the game, protected by at least 20 police per head, were seated in the fenced-off visitors’ section, which was book-ended on the left and right by two sections of empty seats patrolled by stadium security.

    One of those Israeli fans who made the trip to Istanbul was Israel Mukhtar, 45, who was in town on his first-ever trip abroad with the Maccabi squad.

    “We went all around the markets and the nightclubs [in Istanbul] and we told everyone we were Israeli. No-one gave us any trouble whatsoever,” Mukhtar said, adding “all of the security was well done and we never felt a threat for a second, I didn’t even see a single Palestinian flag.”

    Mukhtar and his friends, nearly all of whom were middle-aged men who seemed to know each other prior to the trip, said the danger inherent in the match was overblown by the Israeli media.

    They praised the professionalism of Turkish security forces, and expressed their feelings that the diplomatic tension between the two countries is on the upper levels of their respective government, and not reflected in a visceral hatred from people on the streets of Turkey’s largest city — as opposed to Cairo, for instance, where a mob ransacked the embassy a week earlier forcing the Israeli staff to flee in drag under evacuation by Egyptian commandos.

    Even with the final score of the match reflecting an on-field massacre of the Israeli visitors, Mukhtar said he was not disappointed by his decision to attend the match.

    “To be honest, it made me proud to be Israeli. To know that out of 6 million people (in Israel), you’re one of only 12 who was willing to come … I think it means something.”

    Ben Hartman is a reporter for the Jerusalem Post.

  • Tension rises for Jews in Turkey

    Tension rises for Jews in Turkey

    For Turkey and Israel, sports are the only remaining relations that are intact.

    Noga Tarnopolsky

    Turkish riot police stand guard as Maccabi Tel-Aviv players walk towards a bus at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, on Sept. 14, 2011. (Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)
    Turkish riot police stand guard as Maccabi Tel-Aviv players walk towards a bus at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, on Sept. 14, 2011. (Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)

    There are no Jews in Jordan and possibly a dozen Jews in Egypt, once the cradle of a great Jewish culture, but Turkey is different. About 20,000 Jews live in Turkey. Cenk Levy, 33, lives in Istanbul and works for Greenpeace.

    “Weeeell,” he says. “It is not so tense regarding the Jews. You don’t hide it, but you don’t feel very comfortable regarding your identity these days.”

    His name is Levy. “Yeah, absolutely,” he laughs. “It’s very, very obvious!”

    “You hear many statements about how the main problem here is the government, but we have also started to hear about how people themselves are turning. It’s not like it was three or four years ago. People don’t trust Israel, they don’t trust what Israel does. It’s becoming clear that this could disrupt business relations and other ties, not only military.”

    For now, sport remains an area of intact relations. Last night, Istanbul’s Besiktas soccer team played Maccabi Tel Aviv at home.

    Tel Aviv fans who went to support their team reported the paradoxical experience in which merchants and restauranteurs, hearing they were Israelis, welcomed them warmly and with explicit expressions of friendliness. Meanwhile, on the radio they heard that thousands had gathered n Istanbul’s central square to chant anti-Israeli slogans.

    Cenk Levy watched the match at home.

    “Bekistas were trying to reduce tensions as much as possible before the match, to emphasize that it is part of a friendship and sport. They went to some lengths to emphasize that there is a clear distinction between politics and sport, and that there are also Muslim players playing for Israel. There was also very high security in the stadium.”

    “I think there was only one anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, slogan heard during the entire game.”

    Maybe it helped that Bekistas won, 5-1.

    “Things are a bit depressing,” Levy added. “This didn’t start yesterday, with the match, or a month ago. It’s been a long campaign and as you see it moving forward, and with the flotilla incident, now my sense is that the government is using Israel as leverage to stabilize themselves politically in the new Middle East.”

    via Tension rises for Jews in Turkey | GlobalPost.

  • Israel and Turkey, Foes and Much Alike

    Israel and Turkey, Foes and Much Alike

    By ETHAN BRONNER

    Ethan Bronner is the Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times.

    JERUSALEM

    Associated Press  Riot police officers surrounded a bus Wednesday as Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer players arrived at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.
    Associated Press Riot police officers surrounded a bus Wednesday as Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer players arrived at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.
    Associated Press

    Riot police officers surrounded a bus Wednesday as Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer players arrived at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.

    ISRAEL and Turkey, key American allies, are clashing. But they disagree over the source of their disagreement. Turkey says it expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut military ties because Israel oppresses Palestinians and refuses to apologize for killing activists aboard a Turkish-based flotilla last year. Israel says Turkey aims for regional leadership so it is forsaking Israel.

    While both claims have merit, there is a third explanation. The two countries have gone through remarkably similar political shifts in recent decades from aggressively secular societies run by Westernized elites to populist ethno-religious states where standing up to foreigners offers rich political rewards.

    Two and a half years ago, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey scolded President Shimon Peres of Israel onstage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — right after Israel’s war in Gaza — telling him, “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.” He stormed offstage to a heroic welcome at home.

    A year later, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, invited the Turkish ambassador to his office, giving him a low seat at a table without refreshments or a Turkish flag. Before the invited guest entered, Mr. Ayalon said to Israeli television camera operators, “The important thing is that people see that he’s low and we’re high and that there is no flag here.” Mr. Ayalon’s standing only rose in his party, Yisrael Beiteinu, run by the nationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

    It was not always so. Both societies used to be very different places in rather the same way. And over time, they built a pretty warm relationship of business, military ties and tourism. The surprising thing is what similar — and mutually contemptuous — paths they have taken since.

    The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the founding prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, had much in common. This was not an accident. Ben-Gurion, who studied law in Istanbul, modeled himself on Ataturk, seeking to build an instantly modern society of like-minded and “ideal” citizens with few deviations in language or culture. Both saw religion as a deviation and ethnicity as a problem. Like the Kurds of Eastern Turkey, the Moroccan and Yemeni Jews on the Israeli periphery faced an official — if less brutal — disregard.

    Sidelining religion and ill treating minorities can be hard to sustain in a democracy, however. The founders’ heirs were dislodged by electoral revolutions — in Israel in 1977 and in Turkey in 2002. Today a religious nationalism plays a central and growing role both in Israel, dominated by the Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in the Turkey of the Justice and Development Party of Mr. Erdogan. The secular elites who set the cultural and political agenda for decades have lost much of their influence.

    Last year, Mr. Erdogan waved away retired Turkish ambassadors who criticized his foreign policy with the words “mons chers” (meaning “mes chers,” or my dears). Foreign Minister Lieberman similarly dismissed Israelis who found his policies too tough as “feinschmeckers,” those with overly refined tastes. In neither case was the derisive use of a European term accidental. Turks have been offended by the endless stalling of their country’s application to the European Union. Israel’s establishment, supported by a mix of Jews from the Middle East and former Soviet Union, views the elite of Old Europe, with its pro-Palestinian sentiments, with disdain.

    “I often compare the Erdogan upheaval of 2002 to the elections here in 1977, which brought Likud to power,” noted Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador to Turkey who teaches a course on the two countries’ histories and relations at Tel Aviv University.

    “In Turkey, the Kemalist elite ignored the religious leadership, the countryside and the Kurds, creating groups of very unhappy people who cohered into a new political opposition. The same happened in Israel, and Menachem Begin connected with them. Today, both Erdogan and Netanyahu rule from a support base that is more religious, more rural and less educated, where honor and nationalism are important. That makes the relationship between the two very hard.”

    As non-Arabs, they had once built an alliance based on being outsiders. But it is precisely in foreign policy where they differ today, one turning east, the other west. Turkey, while a member of NATO, feels rejected by Europe and renewed in its sense of Muslim and Middle Eastern identity. Last week, Mr. Erdogan went on an Arab Spring tour — to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya — in a quest for leadership.

    Israel, whose Middle Eastern ties are fraying badly, looks to “new” Europe, countries like Poland but also to Romania and Bulgaria where anti-Turkish feelings run high from Ottoman days.

    Washington, in hopes of restoring the Israeli-Turkish relationship, is pushing Israel to take conciliatory steps on the Palestinian issue, partly to avoid a showdown at the United Nations this month over a Palestinian statehood resolution. It is also pressing Turkey to move away from its recent moves to improve ties with Iran and Syria. It recently persuaded Turkey to place a NATO radar station focused on Iran on its soil, a step that will benefit Israel.

    And there are other mutual interests that could help reunite them. Both are engaged in battles against militants — Israel against Hamas and other Palestinian groups, Turkey against Kurdish separatists unimpressed by Mr. Erdogan’s moves toward tolerance. Both occupy land in defiance of the international community — Israel in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Turkey in northern Cyprus. Moreover, although resource-poor, both are economic success stories, high-growth members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, exceptions in the region.

    Still, they will have to overcome deep societal trends. As Efraim Inbar, a specialist on Turkish politics at Bar-Ilan University, says: “Nationalism in Turkey today is ethno-religious. The same for Likud. Neither listens too much to what outsiders say.”

    A version of this news analysis appeared in print on September 18, 2011, on page SR5 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel and Turkey, Foes and Much Alike.
  • Turkey Beats Israel in Politically Charged Soccer Match

    Turkey Beats Israel in Politically Charged Soccer Match

    By JOE PARKINSON

    OB PR093 0915ts D 201109151724331ISTANBUL—Fiyapi Inonu Stadium on Thursday showcased the latest sign of the deteriorating diplomatic relationship between longtime allies Turkey and Israel: 12 Israeli soccer fans.

    Engulfed by a sea of empty white seats in the 32,000-capacity stadium and vastly outnumbered by battalions of riot police, the solitary Israelis had traveled to cheer their team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, against Istanbul’s Besiktas in a politically charged Europa league match.

    Ricardo Quaresma of Besiktas reacted as he was stopped by Savo Pavicevic of Maccabi Tel Aviv during their match.

    When the tournament schedule was announced, Istanbul authorities had expected thousands of Israeli supporters to attend, but just a dozen made it there amid rapidly escalating tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem and fears of violence.

    Israeli fans were shepherded into the visitors’ stand at the far end of the stadium, which is covered by a special fireproof netting to shield spectators from projectiles.

    “I’ve been to games between Israeli and Turkish teams many times and we usually see hundreds or thousands of visiting fans,” said Joseph Perez-Ari, a commentator for Tel Aviv Radio broadcasting at the stadium. “Today there’s so few. It’s because people are scared, because of the situation.”

    Late Thursday, the match appeared to have passed largely without incident as Besiktas, the pre-game favorites, romped to a 5-1 victory.

    But the dramatically increased police presence and sporadic protests by anti-Israeli demonstrators in the center of the city underscored that the relationship between the countries is being redefined.

    Tensions escalated after Israel refused to apologize for a raid on a Gaza-bound ship last year that killed nine activists, prompting Turkey to expel top Israeli diplomats, cut military ties with the country and vow to send navy vessels to escort aid ships in the future.

    That coincided with Turkey showing signs of trading its vaunted “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy for a more muscular approach, bidding to become the leading power in the Middle East and North Africa. The shift, on display as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved a major aerial bombing campaign against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and pressed Egypt to let him visit Hamas-run Gaza, could trigger clashes with Jerusalem and force Washington to choose between its closest allies in the region, analysts said.

    At Thursday’s match, fans said Besiktas’s on-field domination may have diminished the potential for violence, which could have further fueled tensions.

    Still, Thursday saw an escalation of diplomatic tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.

    Turkey’s foreign ministry warned that it would sign a continental-shelf delimitation agreement with Turkish-backed Northern Cyprus if the Greeks of the divided island move ahead, following a December maritime-demarcation deal with Israel, to develop offshore natural-gas fields.

    Athens responded by calling on Turkey to drop threats to Cyprus, warning the dispute could prove “dangerous” to the already tense eastern Mediterranean basin.

    In Tunis, Prime Minister Erdogan, following a meeting with his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi, reiterated that Turkish warships would be deployed in the Mediterranean, stressing that Israel would “no longer be able to do what it wants” in those waters.

    The buildup to Thursday’s match also reflected heightened diplomatic tension.

    Before the evening kickoff, several hundred protesters gathered in Istanbul’s landmark Taxim Square, chanting anti-Israel and anti-American slogans and briefly halting traffic at one on the city’s busiest intersections.

    The Israeli team arrived at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on Wednesday under tight security and were escorted from the stadium by riot police after the match.

    Istanbul police tried to calm fears, stressing that they had taken measures to thwart protests that were organized on social-networking websites, including possible plans to invade the pitch.

    Amid fears over their citizen’s security, Israeli authorities had petitioned UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, to reschedule the game at a neutral venue, but Turkey’s government refused, last week offering guarantees for players’ and fans’ safety.

    Turkish Sports Minister Suat Kilic told reporters at a televised news conference last week that “various issues” existed between Turkey and Israel, “but it is not a situation that could prevent this match. “The game would be played in the “highest level of [Turkish] hospitality,” and that Israeli players would “safely” return home, he added.

    Write to Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@dowjones.com

    via Turkey Beats Israel in Politically Charged Soccer Match – WSJ.com.