Abdullah al Andalusi – Should we ban Israel from international football – vs Zionist UK MP Paul Scully

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.