Abdullah al Andalusi – Should we ban Israel from international football – vs Zionist UK MP Paul Scully
![Abdullah al Andalusi](https://artwork.muslimcentral.com/abdullah-al-andalusi-150x150.jpg)
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This is Patrick Christie tonight on GB News.
Coming up, has multiculturalism
failed in Britain? Suella's got a thing or
two to say about that. But first, should
Israel
be booted out of world football? It is
time for tonight's head to head.
So remarkably,
FIFA are holding an urgent meeting in July,
copy that urgent number, anyway, to decide if
Israel should be banned from competing in world
football
over his continued military response to the October
7th Hamas terrorist attacks. FIFA president, Gianni Infantino,
confirmed a legal assessment would be held after
Palestinian Football Association,
backed by the FAs
of Algeria,
Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Yemen,
submitted the proposal and demanded the governing body
stand on the right side of history, as
they say. Palestine's FA president, Gibril Rajub, also
indirectly referenced Russia's ban from the sport last
year after it invaded Ukraine. He said, how
much more must the Palestine football family suffer
for FIFA to act
with the same severity and urgency as it
did in other cases? Does FIFA consider some
wars to be more important than others and
some victims to be more significant?
But Shino Moshe Zawares, who is the president
of the Israeli FA, responded saying, look. Hey.
We are facing a cynical, political, and hostile
attempt by the Palestinian Association to harm Israeli
football. So, look. Should Israel be booted out
of world football at the behest of Palestine
and a few other nations? Now going head
to head on
this are the former Tory minister, Paul Scully,
and the cofounder of the Muslim debate initiative,
Abdullah
al Andalusi. Look, Chaps, thank you very much.
Great to have you both on the show.
Avraham was a slightly late addition there, so,
so sorry to have kept you waiting. But,
Abdullah, I'll start with you on this. Should
Israel be essentially banned from playing international football
today?
Well, if we go by the policy,
opined by members of the British government, since
2022,
which said that Russia, should be banned,
from, football tournaments and and sport tech sporting
activities, and, of course, it's now it's also
banned from Eurovision,
then we should be consistent with the principles.
If Russia is is, banned for its aggressive
acts against,
Ukraine,
then, Israel
should be banned likewise with aggressive and apartheid
acts against, the Palestinians just like South Africa,
under its apartheid regime was universally banned from
a number of sports,
sporting federations,
to make the point that sports should be
based on principles of of, humanitarianism,
and these these states do not reflect that.
Alright. Paul, go on then. You're obvious.
No. I don't think they should at all.
I think there's a big difference between Russia
and Israel in this. Russia were the absolute
aggressors that invaded Ukraine.
Nothing to do with any prior attacks as
we've seen in
Hamas,
on October 7th going into Israel.
I totally agree with what Abraham was saying
that, actually,
football has to bring people together. We need
to use sport to bring together people together
rather than using this as an extension
of that PR war that's going on around
the world. Let's make sure that we can
bring 2 countries together in terms of a
ceasefire
and bring an end to the hostilities,
but not through sport.
Okay.
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, come back
to that. I mean, is there is there
any is there any is there any push,
you know, at all to, you know, ban
Ukraine from sports? Well, no. Because the argument,
I suppose, will be that Ukraine is defending
itself. And, you know, I mean, Israel is
responding to the October 7 of the tax.
No?
Well, firstly,
if we just look at the history, Israel
actually was been also been initiating attacks against
Palestine Palestinians
throughout 2023
before October 7th.
There was a bombing raids in in Gaza
that destroyed over 400 buildings.
There was 234,
Palestinians killed by Israel, 1,000 injured in the
West Bank. Not not just not even just
Gaza, but in the West Bank where there
is no,
Hamas as a as a as a formal
entity.
We we see, that in in the great
march of return where,
unarmed Gazans were making a demonstration to go
back to the the land of their ancestors
located in in where it's located in modern
days where they will but that,
over 200 of them were shot despite the
fact that they had no weapons on them.
Okay. Simply because they they were doing peace
with Can can I ask him to the
are you a big football fan? It's sorry?
Are are you a big football fan, Abdullah?
I I find the World Cup and the
the Euros quite, interesting.
So that's kind of my point. It's you're
not you're not actually bothered whether Israel play
football, are you? I'm
I'm bothered about consistency. If you're gonna hold
Russia to to a standard, and Russia argues
it was defending,
Russian ethnic Russians in Ukraine that were being
persecuted by, fascist Ukrainians.
And Russia claims that Ukraine is the heartland
of of the of the Russian of Russian
history,
like the Zionist, like like the claim Palestine
is. So there's a lot of parallels between
these two aggressive states. I'll give it over
I'll give I'll give it over to Paul.
I I I wonder I wonder whether or
not, you know, everyone who wants to see
Israel banned from Eurovision or banned from football
competitions actually is an avid watcher of either
Eurovision or football.
Yeah. Look what happened in, in the Eurovision,
actually, because when the public had their vote
you know, obviously, the joys were did their
thing, and a little
protesters did their thing in your revision of
Malmo. But, actually, when it came to the
public vote, you had the silent,
majority coming up there, and, supporting Israel's right
to be heard,
in that in that wider context. I mean,
nobody wants to see Palestinian citizens. Clearly, they
don't. It's horrible what's going on. But you
can't just take selective history of dealers that
taken there about, you know, listening to some
of those 3 hour,
speech in computing, the fact that it's the
heartland of Russia. That's absolute rubbish. Russia are
allowed Russian
are gonna be allowed to compete in the
Olympics,
under a different flag.
We need the less fortunate.
Let's not play out what's going on in
the Middle East. It needs wider
PR
Alright,
guys. Look look, both of you. Thank you.
I I am sorry that we were squeezed.
Like I said, we were we weren't expecting
our run rate there at the top. I
would like to have you both back on
April. But we did support we did support
bans on on sports for for Apartheid sub
Africa
to process against the Apartheid regime.
And in in the West Bank, Palestinians
do not have the same rights as their
Jewish neighbors.
Right? That's how they treat the Palestinian West
Bank. A, put a pin in it for
now, but thank you very much, both of
you. Nonetheless, much appreciated. We'll be both on
very soon. Now right. Coming up.