Arsenal Fired Me Over Palestine – Now I’m Suing

Former Arsenal kit manager Mark Bonnick describes his ordeal after being sacked by Arsenal following 22 years at the club, after pro-Israel campaigners accused him of antisemitism despite the Football Association reportedly informing Arsenal that he had not breached any FA rules.

Mark is joined by his legal representative, the human rights barrister at Garden Court Chambers, Franck Magennis.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
If a white supremacist called upArsenal and said I'm very upset
that your kit man has posted in support of Black Lives Matter,
how would Arsenal respond? Arsenal had a thing act with
class and I thought speaking outagainst genocide or the killing
of any people murder was right. 344 Palestinian footballers were

(00:20):
killed deliberately by Israel because Israel does not want
Palestinians to be football. It's genocidal, it's racial
segregation, it's colonialism. This is a this is a state that's
governed by fascists who tell usthat they are fascists.
We have to go on the offensive and argue that Zionist beliefs
are not worthy of respect in a democratic society.
Yeah, it did hurt. I was signed off with anxiety

(00:42):
and depression. Austin's action is like
condoning what I've done and saying, oh, hang on, they're
confirming he's a racist, which I'm clearly not.
It's an. Honour to represent you, Mark.
Thank you you. Did the right thing.
A lot of people were too afraid to speak up, but you weren't.
And you've you've acted with real integrity.
And I'm confident that that his case for me was success in one

(01:05):
form or another. Welcome back to Palestine Deep
Dive. And I'd Mubarak to all those who
celebrate. Now, whether you watch football
or not, you will still know by now that after 22 years since
their last Premier League, when Arsenal finally have their hands
on the trophy once again. Last week, half of north London

(01:27):
almost stopped functioning. Roads blocked, people hanging
out of car windows, flares everywhere.
Football really doesn't matter to people.
It's identity, community, family, politics all rubbed into
one. But behind the celebrations and
the billion pound spectacle, there are also questions about

(01:47):
censorship, sports washing and the politics shaping
international football today. So to discuss all that we've
invited into the studio Mark Bonnick, a former Arsenal kit
manager who worked at the club for two decades before he was
suspended and dismissed in 2024 over social media posts on Gaza
and Israel. Mark is now suing Arsenal for

(02:10):
unfair dismissal based on his philosophical anti Zionist
belief. Also joining us in the studio is
his lawyer Frank McGuinness, A barrister at Garden Court
Chambers instructed by the European Legal Support Centre.
You will often find a Frank walking on cases that involve
Palestine asylum seekers and people fired for a pro Palestine

(02:32):
speeches. Frank and Mark, thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you.
It's really a pleasure. I know we met before.
We haven't met before, Frank, but I'm I'm really happy to be
joined with you. Allow me to ask you first, Mark.
I know that it must be a hell ofa week.

(02:53):
Last week. Brilliant.
It's been a brilliant because I,I want to ask you, how do you
personally feel after everythingthat happened to you personally
and, and Arsenal? It's football.
It's the team that's won my team.
This has nothing to do with my political views or or that it's

(03:13):
about the team. So do you.
Did you still celebrate? Oh, cool.
Nice. Are you still a sell an arsenal?
Arsenal, yeah. Oh, interesting.
Can you tell us a little bit about, not a little bit, a lot
about what really happened to you with Arsenal?
I've been speaking out against what's going on in Israel for

(03:34):
for probably from 2013 on my Twitter account where X never
mentioned who I supported or whoI worked for.
Never come into it. The mistake I made if you like
was it was public. I had nothing to hide.
So I I tweet I'd have some interesting conversations with
people often called anti-Semitic.

(03:57):
So I'd ask where, never got a reply because I wasn't and
that's been proven. And this particular time someone
hiding behind a slogan decided to call me anti-Semitic and a
neo Nazi but couldn't defend it.I asked him nothing.
He's then gone into my accounts,found out who I worked for, told

(04:19):
me what he was going to do. He was going to go to Arsenal,
go to the police, go to the FA and get me sacked.
And it was different from normalpeople abusing you.
I knew something was wrong and it was this doxy, this all of a
sudden people bullying and it was like, oh, I know something's
wrong here. Answered a few more questions.

(04:41):
One of the guys was trying to catch me out.
He said, oh, it's all down of Jesus.
No, I don't know that. I've asked the question about a
false flag attack over this graffiti.
So it was I could take sense. Come off and literally next I
get a course and I've been suspended.
Stuff had been in the paper overanti-Semitism and I'm sure the

(05:02):
guy when he phoned me mentioned anti-Semitism and it's proven
not anti-Semitic. There was none.
Had a meeting gone into this fact finding meeting and one of
the big points Arsenal made was about an FA media release and

(05:22):
they asked me if I'd seen it. I said no not seen it.
I said I was making my own opinions.
I said but I've been told the FAand Kick It Out.
I've looked at it and found no anti-Semitism.
They they never mention the FA again in a sense after my beer
mention them again to say did I see it.

(05:42):
I said no all the FA deal with this.
Never did they say to us they were legally obliged, obligated
to speak to the FA. Completely lack of candle from
Arsenal. Dishonest.
So anyway I have my disciplinaryon the 20th so I'd ask Arsenal

(06:07):
before going to it. Has a decision been made or will
it be made on the day? I'm told been made on the day.
So I go in there expecting things to be made on the day.
I quote an Arsenal statement about Moe and Ellie.
You're allowed your own opinion.So we're told to leave the room

(06:31):
for 2010 minutes. 20 minutes later we called back in.
No decision. So OK, still none the wiser.
I go out to the car park and on the cars we had security passes.
The security guard really apologetic, he said, Mark, I'm
sorry, I've got to take your pass off you.

(06:52):
I don't think anything of that at a time.
And and now that to me saying this decision was really made,
you know, because otherwise if it wasn't.
But you were not told. Yeah, I would not have had my
pass taken off me. So 24th of December on a sofa, I
get a call saying I've been sacked.

(07:14):
Would I like to appeal? Of course, straight away on my
work's computer saying yes, I want to appeal.
So goes on. I get a text from someone I
didn't know hard and asking about these gentlemen.
What a wonderful lot ELSC, but Iwant to support them.

(07:37):
So I'm thinking of doing the right thing.
IPhone, Arsenal and basically told to go away, speak to
Citizens Advice and I thought no, I'll speak to these people
and they've been brilliant. Working for 20 years in Arsenal,
did you ever expect that you will be sacked for speaking up
with the Palestinian people? No, because if you like ask me

(08:00):
how to think, act with class. And I thought speaking out
against genocide or the killing of any people murder was right,
So no. You haven't?
OK, yeah. So have you had any support from
within the club itself? I had a lot of support from

(08:20):
within the club, but because of the fear, yeah, you know, the
cancellation, that sort of culture, people don't want to
speak out so. Quickly.
So they had to do. It, yeah.
And I believe early, early on init, members of staff were told
not to contact me, not to speak to me.
Oh, so again, friends, people you work with.

(08:42):
So a lot of people didn't speak to me.
And I I just think the way Arsenal had dealt with it is
shocking. OK.
Do you think that they have set an example with that or they
have also like both regulations to prevent Arsenal players from
saying anything? No, I think it in Palestine.

(09:04):
Done purely as example. Listen, you behave like this.
You speak out against certain stuff.
You're going to get cancelled. You're going to get stopped.
And. Then you're eventually decided
to take legal action and saw Arsenal for your dismissal.
What do you think the outcome would be here?
I think Mark's going to win. I don't think that Arsenal can

(09:26):
defend what they've done. It's unfair dismissal in my
opinion. And we have this very helpful
case that David Miller brought against the University of
Bristol. And the judgement in that case
confirms that anti Zionist philosophical beliefs are are
capable of protection under the Equality Act.
And if you manifest anti Zionistbeliefs, if you criticize the

(09:49):
apartheid state of Israel, if you criticize its racist
governing ideology, then you're engaging the Equality Act.
And the response to your manifestations of your belief
has to be proportionate. And it's obvious that's sacking
someone because they criticized an apartheid state while it
committed genocide. That's not proportionate.
And I think that Arsenal probably know that.

(10:10):
We'll see how they decide to play it.
But in my opinion, as someone who represents people in Mark's
situation regularly, I think that the Zionist position is
sort of collapsing in court. I think it's increasingly
impossible to defend. And we can see that across a
variety of British judgements and jurisdictions.
So I'm very confident that, I mean, certainly I should say

(10:30):
it's an, it's an honest representative Mark.
Thank you you. Did the right thing.
A lot of people were too afraid to speak up, but you weren't.
And you've you've acted with real integrity.
And I'm confident that that his case for me was success in one
form or another. Yeah.
So, Mark, how did this like affect you personally and
professionally? Maybe if it had.

(10:52):
Yeah, it did hurt. I think the biggest part of it,
obviously I've been up and down.I was signed off with anxiety
and depression and I could have easily stayed on there and not
work on standardly sick pay. But I have two children I want
to set examples to. And I think one of the biggest
thing is with Arsenal taking it,the action, I think people look

(11:17):
at me as if maybe I'm a racist and it's Semitic and I never had
that before. You know, people obviously
calling your names and whatever just brushed off.
Arsenal's action is like condoning what I've done and
saying oh hang on, they're confirming he's a racist, which

(11:37):
I'm clearly not and their actions are disgraceful.
I would say just chiming in, I mean, the this astonishing
revelation came out, Navarro media ran a story talking about
the fact that the FA before you were sacked had confirmed that
you hadn't breached their rules.And it's worth noting that
Arsenal, in deciding to sack you, did not make the allegation

(11:59):
that what you've done was anti-Semitic.
So that's part of why I say yourcase is so strong.
I just don't see how they can defend that position in court,
right? It's going to come out before
the judge. The judge is going to be looking
at evidence that the FA said he's not reached our rules.
Why would you sack someone in that situation?
It's complete completely disproportionate overreaction to
an unfortunately all too common Zionist smear tactic.

(12:22):
Right? Pick on a target they think they
can get away with bullying, Run awful stories through the
national and international presstrying to attack your
reputation. Mark and Arsenal could have
reacted with principle and with courage and they could have
defended one of their own employees.
Exactly. Within 20 years, yeah.
But what what is the problem with Arsenal, with people who

(12:43):
are anti Zionists? Why is Zionism so important to
Arsenal and football clubs? Like it's, it's mind boggling
for me. I mean, if that was if Zionism
or if Israel, if we're talking about someone who's in the UK,
if you're attacking people who are in the UK or ideology in the
UK, maybe I would say, OK, maybethey're interested, but this is
a foreign country, why do you care?

(13:03):
I think it's a bit backwards. I think it's it's tricky, right?
But why is Zionism still so protected?
I think we should notice the extent to which Zionism is
collapsing. Like 2 1/2 years of genocide has
fundamentally broken and and sort of eviscerated its
reputation. So it is changing.
But I think the reason Zionism and Zionists forgiven so much

(13:23):
protection for so long is related to a few things.
One is that we're in Britain, right?
And the British Empire is responsible more than any other
country for the emergence of theapartheid state of Israel and
the racist project of Zionism. So that's part of it, right?
There's this kind of racist colonial common sense in Britain
that that, you know, we're on the side of our little loyal

(13:45):
Jewish Ulster, as Ronald Stores called him whenever he was the
colonial governor of of Jerusalem.
So that that's part of the picture.
And then I think another part ofthe picture is that some
Zionists have very consciously and very cynically wielded the
language of anti-Semitism. So you have this bizarre
situation that an ethno state that decides to to self
racialize as Jewish then uses the allegation of anti-Semitism

(14:09):
to protect itself. And we have a parable for that,
right? It's called crying wolf, right?
We have this parable of the boy who cried wolf.
And that parable is supposed to teach little children, Hey,
don't pretend that you're in danger when you're not.
Because. Then you are actually in danger,
no one will believe you. And we now have this staggering
situation where the meaning of anti-Semitism has been totally

(14:33):
and deliberately degraded by some of the most openly racist
people in society. So we have the bizarre situation
where card carrying fascists in an apartheid state that are
committing A genocide get to accuse other people of racism.
People like Mark get accused of racism for opposing that.
It's it's complete backwards andstuff.
And it's not. And it's not only Mark.

(14:53):
I also know that you representedanother client who was dismissed
by the the coffee shops. So my question to you, well, he
wasn't. Dismissed actually.
So he. He wasn't dismissed.
This is part of why I say their position is collapsing.
What happened in that case is ongoing.
And what happened in Aiden's case is that he was made to
remove a Palestine badge. So we say, we say the, the, the

(15:16):
mere fact of having his badge removed in that way in response
to Zionist complaints is a reachof the Equality Act.
It's a racist harassment and it's, it's not good enough.
And so, you know, it's like I'vesaid, 2 1/2 years of genocide.
I think something has fundamentally broken and
employers like Arsenal, like thecoffee shop in Aiden's case,
need to understand that if you engage in this kind of racism,

(15:37):
because what was done to Mark was also racist, right?
If you if you stop people from speaking out against racism,
you're engaged in a kind of racism.
I think that employers need to need to understand that the game
has fundamentally changed. Tell us more about this
employment protection in the UK.Can people can employers just

(15:59):
sack their employees for expressing their political
beliefs in the UKI? Mean the short answer is no.
It's the law is always a bit complicated, but broadly no.
People have protections. They have protections against
being unfairly dismissed which accrue after two years service,
right. So after two years service
employees in in the so-called United Kingdom will have a right

(16:20):
not to be unfairly dismissed. But the protections the Equality
Act apply from day one. So I would encourage people to
think about the way that trade unions and organizing gives them
protection. I think that joining the trade
union organizing with your fellow workers is a very good
starting point for actually practically protecting yourself.
And I think the British trade union movement needs to to do a

(16:40):
lot more than it has done. But broadly speaking, anti
Zionists are on home terrain when they engage in the trade
union movement. Most trade unions in this
country have some kind of pro Palestinian, anti Zionist
position and those positions aregetting better and more
developed. So the first part of my answer
would be getting involved with the trade union and then also
getting involved with sympathetic anti Zionist
organisations like the European Legal Support Center that's

(17:02):
instructing me to assist Mark here.
But then on the legal front, andsorry to, I don't want to
overstate it, but my impression is that that Zionist positions
are incapable of defence. And that's true not just on the
ground in Palestine. We see the way that Israeli
positions are just collapsing, but also in English courtrooms
and stop me if I get into the weeds too much.

(17:24):
But there's a few signs of this.I mentioned David Miller's case,
right? That was that was more than two
years ago we had that judgement.So it's now the position
effectively that people who criticize the apartheid state of
Israel on Twitter and social media, people who manifest their
opposition to Zionism can defendthemselves much more effectively
than they could before that judgement, right.

(17:45):
So that was two years ago. In my opinion, the terrain, the
legal coalface has now switched.So what used to happen in these
cases was that the, you know, the claimant, the person who's
been dismissed would say, well, I manifested my anti Zionist
beliefs. And the other side, the employer
would say your anti Zionist beliefs are not worthy of
respecting a democratic society.Right.

(18:05):
That's the legal test. Are your beliefs worthy of
respecting a democratic society?Are they incompatible with human
dignity and are they incompatible with the rights of
others? So people like David Miller had
to defend himself and say my beliefs aren't anti-Semitic,
they are worthy of respect. We won that battle two years ago
and as someone who represents a lot of people in Mark's
position, in my experience, employers are no longer even
bothering to argue the Granger 5argument.

(18:27):
They're no longer saying anti Zionist beliefs aren't worth the
respect because the position hascollapsed.
So in my opinion, the coal face now, and this is increasingly
coming up and it's coming up in the case you mentioned, the
coffee shop, we have to go on the offensive and argue that
Zionist beliefs are not worthy of respect in a democratic
society. They, they don't, they fall foul
of Granger 5, to put it in legalterms.

(18:47):
And in, in my experience, it's just increasingly easy to do
that because all you do is you say, well, it's the ideology.
It's Israel's official ideology.Israel's an apartheid state.
And we know that from the ICJ. It's genocidal, it's racial
segregation, it's colonialism. This is a, this is a, a state
that's governed by fascists who tell us that they are fascists.

(19:09):
And when you go into court, the judges just go.
No one ever says that, but that's actually correct.
But if we want to be fair, I think Zionism and or expressing
umm support for Zionism should be illegal to be honest.
Because what is Zionism? Zionism is when you it's an
ideology that think it is betterthan everyone else, that they
deserve more rights than the Palestinian people, that
ethnically kills the Palestinians, kill the

(19:31):
Palestinians, suicided the Palestinians for too long.
So I don't know why is it legal even to so Barzionism.
Well, this is my point. I think that So what you're
saying, what Zionists will sometimes say is that just as
anti Zionist philosophical beliefs should attract
protection, they try to do this false equivalence and say so to
Zionist police should attract protection.
And one of the things that we increasingly do in these kinds

(19:51):
of cases is to make an analogy with, you know, Black Lives
Matter and white supremacy, right?
And this is relevant to Arsenal because Arsenal has put out
public statements supporting Black Lives Matter.
Also supporting things like opposition to the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, right? So in my opinion, it's very
helpful to have this Black LivesMatter analogy and also to think
about the analogy with South African apartheid, because what

(20:11):
so often happens is in a case like yours, Mark, a lot of
racist people complain, right? A lot of people who are, I'm a
Zionist, I have these racist views.
I think that there should be an apartheid state that dominates
non Jewish Palestinians because they're the wrong race and
they're a demographic threat. Like openly, grotesquely racist.
People. Yeah, unfortunately.
Complain to a club. What's the correct response to
that? Well, let's make the analogy
with white supremacy because Zionism is akin to white

(20:33):
supremacy. If a white supremacist called up
Arsenal and said, I'm very upsetthat your kit man has posted in
support of Black Lives Matter, how would Arsenal respond?
They would say I'm sorry, you'reso racist.
Yes, sort of. When, after, after him down that
line. I wanted to ask a question
about, you know, if someone elsecomplained, would they have come
after me? I was shut down.

(20:53):
I said, oh, that's hypothetical because they didn't want to
listen. So again, that sort of indicate
to me or a decision has been made.
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(21:16):
needed it more. Find the link in the description
below. So talking about the European
Legal Support Centre, last week the European Legal Support
Centre and the Public Interest Law Centre submitted a formal
complaint to We can see it here on the on the screen formal
complaint to the Bar Standards Board, the regulator of

(21:37):
barristers in England and Wales accusing 3 senior barristers of
using their legal status to intimidate Palestinian activists
in their roles as patterns of UKlawyers to Israel.
So it says the legal profession carries real authority, and that
authority should never be used or appears to be used to
intimidate people or organizations engaged in lawful

(22:01):
campaigning and public debate. For small charities and
grassroots campaign groups showing solidarity with
Palestine, receiving legal correspondence that appears to
carry the backing of some of themost senior figures at the bar
can be deeply intimidating, particularly where they don't
have access to legal advice of their own.

(22:22):
So what do you think about this?What do you think about it and
the understanding of what you'veexplained so far?
For me, it's purely done to silence and cancel people.
I think the real big thing for me, and I was real pleased for
it, was the Rachel D Hunter case, and the judge did superbly
there about the total lack of candle by the legal team that

(22:43):
was trying to get to Reginald D Hunter.
Yeah, I think it's very hopeful.I think this, I know the people
who are behind these complaints and I commend them for publicly
criticizing UK Louis for Israel.I think it's a good start, but
in my opinion, like the apartheid state of Israel, I
don't think UK Lawyers for Israel should exist as an
organization. I think it's openly racist.

(23:05):
I think maybe before October 2023, these racist people could
try to public present themselvesas UK Lawyers for Israel.
But at this point, you know, anyof these patrons, these members
of the House of Lords and these barristers and so on who are
agreeing to be associated with agroup called UK lawyers for an
Apartheid state are choosing those people are choosing

(23:26):
racism. And I think that this needs to
be the start of a much broader coalition comprising trade
unions, anti Zionist groups, lawyers.
In my opinion, it's long past due that we get a coalition of,
of, of people who call for the organization to be rendered
ineffective. They're they're, they're racist,
they're vexatious and they existto intimidate people.

(23:47):
So that's that's the first thingto say.
And then I agree with you, Mark.I think the original D Hunter
example is really helpful. And again, it's a sign of the
extent to which Zionist positions are collapsing.
That, of course, was campaigningagainst anti-Semitism.
In my opinion, that organizationis all but defunct.
Now. I don't want to claim an easy
victory, but the the judge snow District Judge snow just
destroyed their reputation, right?

(24:07):
So there's a there's a judgementnow that they sort of have to
wear as a sandwich board effectively.
The judge said that anytime you try to do this again, anytime
you try to bring a private prosecution, you have to bring
this judgement to the attention of the judge system.
They've basically been preventedfrom harassing people.
So I think campaigning against anti-Semitism, their reputation
lies in tatters. They're all but out of action.
The next organization that we should, that we should try to

(24:29):
put out of action is UK laws forIsrael.
And so I welcome, I welcome thislatest development.
The only other thing I would say, and again, it's further
evidence of the extent to which Zionist positions are collapsing
in English courtrooms. And I can cite so many cases,
but a case that springs to mind specifically in the regulatory
context is this case of Hussein and the SRA, right?
So these people have been reported to Bar Standards Board

(24:50):
because you understand me of these two flavours of lawyer in
England, right? Barristers and solicitors, BSB
regulates barristers, the SRA regulates solicitors.
Hussein and SRA is the case against the SRA that went to the
High Court. So it binds all of the lower
regulatory tribunals. And what Mr. Justice Chamberlain
said in that he he did real damage, in my opinion, to three
of the most problematic IHRA examples of anti-Semitism,

(25:13):
so-called anti-Semitism, right? And so he pointed out that
you're allowed to call for Israel to be abolished, right?
You're allowed to say, I think it should be a single state
that's not called Israel. He said that's not ipso factor
anti-Semitic. He said that you're allowed to
suggest that Israel's a racist endeavour.
You're allowed to look at the circumstances of Israel's
creation and suggest in my opinion, this is racist
endeavour. And perhaps astonishingly, he
said, and I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said, look, if
you're careful, comparisons between the Israeli government

(25:36):
and Nazi Germany are sometimes made and they are not inherently
anti-Semitic. So we all know like a massive
central plank of Zionist campaigning was to say if you
make any kind of comparison, if you point out that the
concentration camp, if you pointout that Israel's governed by
fascists, then you're making a comparison to the Nazis.
You're not allowed to do this. And Mr. Justice Chamberlain just
eviscerated that in a binding High Court judgement that now

(25:58):
binds regulators like the Bystanders Court, the Solicitors
Regulation Authority. So again, it's hopeful that even
English judges are having to say, well, do you know what?
You are allowed to. You are allowed to make
comparisons when when a a state is governed by fascists, it
becomes reasonable to make comparisons with other fascists.
Seems like legal fronts is amongthe very few fronts with Israel
that's winning in a way. I think that Israel is in a

(26:22):
crisis and it's to be hoped thatit's in terms of ISIS, like, I
mean, who can say? I can't predict the future, but
it's to be hoped that the apartheid state of Israel will
collapse and will be replaced with a a democracy called
Palestine. Hopefully I also think with
these regulatory boards, it, it was quite clear from, you know,
like me that what they were doing was wrong.

(26:42):
Surely someone from the board goes well, hang on, this isn't
right. This isn't what they're supposed
to be doing and they they make astand for it rather than waiting
for people to speak out. Regulate it yourself.
Exactly. And this crackdown is not only
on people like Mark, it's also on many other people in the UK
and outside Francesca. But recently even Misan, the

(27:04):
chair of the South Bank Centre, he was under a huge campaign,
media campaign, they're trying to demonize him and, and, and,
and take him out of his position.
So my question to, to both of you actually, so this is Misan.
But you know, that backfired actually because of record
complaints filed over UK press smear of anti genocide artist

(27:28):
Misan Harriman. What I like about this is that
the the campaign against Nissan did not, uh, did not go
unnoticed. And we found 80,000 people
complained about that the campaign against them.
So people are waking up, people are noticing what what is really
happening. But my question to you is how

(27:49):
this media campaign and how these crackdown campaigns are
going to affect people on different sections.
I mean in on art, on on football, on on people like you
and international human rights lawyers.
How will this affect our world? The crackdown campaign, on

(28:09):
people who are pro Palestine andwho speak for justice?
I, I think what happens is if wedon't speak out, boot gets
harder, we stamped on more. So as pack guard Guardiola said,
once the little bird drops just the water on the fire, it

(28:32):
cascades. And that's what's going to
happen. And hopefully is that if people
if people are silent, it carrieson, you know, and so often we
hear about people being silent over what happened in World War
2. Now those same people that moan
about silence want silence. So what?
What do you really think? Exactly.

(28:53):
I think a couple of things, I mean on the Nissan Harriman
stuff, I think that this is another example of some of the
most racist people in British society masquerading as anti
racist. And it's madding.
And I think most of them know what they're doing.
And I think it's a common far right technique.
You, you think about how the, the Nazi party, famously we now
know, chose red as their colour to Madden the left, right.

(29:17):
They knew that red was the colour of the left.
So they're like, oh, and they call themselves the National
Socialist. So they were trying to bend
reality. Obviously they were a far right
anti communist organization, butthey tried to appropriate the
language of the left to drive the left mad right.
And this is well documented. That's what that was part of
their tactics and I think contemporary far right politics

(29:38):
consists in trying to drive theydid it to Jeremy Corbyn right
turn turn your enemies biggest strength into their weakness.
So Jeremy Corbyn was a principalanti racist who had spent
decades in parliament being on the right side of every single
foreign policy and anti racism issue.
And so they tried to monster himand say what you have now is
this absurd situation where the Tory party can run an election
campaign with open racism against gypsy Roman traveller

(30:01):
communities while claiming we'rethe real anti racist because we
care about anti-Semitism. So you have this completely
degraded backwards. Black is white public discourse
where the most openly racist people who are openly Zionist,
they identify with the colonial project that's governed by
fascists that govern an apartheid regime that are
committing genocide, which is, Imean, genocide is basically the

(30:22):
most racist thing imaginable, right?
The mass murder of people because they're deemed to be the
wrong race. But those people, those
Zionists, they're the real anti racist actually, right?
And it's, it is madding, but I think that's part of their
powers that they don't have to be consistent in a way that we
do because we are actually committed to opposing racism
where our political opponents are committed to wielding racism
to sort of attack and divide theworking class and to attack and

(30:44):
divide Palestinians right to fragment and destroy the
Palestinian nation. So I don't have an easy answer
about what's to be done about that.
But even just being clear sighted that the far right are
not serious about fighting racism.
They're crying wolf and they're using a degraded definition of
anti-Semitism to justify their open racism against migrants,
against Muslims, against black people like me, son Harriman.

(31:07):
What's to be done with such people?
I guess we just have to confrontthem the same way we always
confront the far right, which isunflinchingly.
We need to get organised and andto see them for what they are,
which is dishonest charlatans. Yeah.
So back to our. I was just going to say I think
it's a complete strategy, divideand conquer, you know all.
Let's make about saying it's notlike the religion.

(31:28):
I think they use the religion, the Judaism, Islam.
It's nothing about that. It's about land and control.
Exactly. It's a political and colonialism
problem. It's nothing about religion.
So back to Arsenal. So Arsenal had the the shirty
sleeve sponsorship before with visit Rwanda and Rwanda is a
brutal western funded and backedthe dictatorship.

(31:52):
And now they have a new sponsorship by Israel founded
company deal who is Israeli Co founder publicly backed the
Israeli genocide of Razzle. So what do you make out of this
like. You know, money before morals.
You, you. It's all about cash, isn't it?
It's perhaps with me because I'dspoken out against Zionist and

(32:18):
all what had gone on. It was scared of them losing
revenue. So I think they've looked at it
and I don't know what they've been offered.
They haven't gone well. Do you know what?
What's going on is wrong. I don't think we should get in
bed with these people. Exactly.
I think that Arsenal is, I agreewith you, money before morals.

(32:42):
It's a business, it's a profit making business and that's a big
part of how they make their decisions.
As I understand it, there was pressure to drop the Rwanda
sponsorship and that did result in it being dropped.
It's now being replaced with something arguably worse or, you
know, it's the same category, but but it is interesting to me
that it was possible to organizeagainst that.

(33:03):
And so hopefully it should be possible to organize against
this new sponsor if Arsenal fansget organized.
But I think that a lot of work needs to be done in that regard.
There have there have been attempts to organize Arsenal
fans, but, you know, I would encourage any Gooners listening
to this to get more involved in in campaigns within your club.
It has to come from the supporters ultimately, right?
And I think we have a big problem.

(33:24):
I mean, the clubs aren't owned by their fans in most cases.
There's a real lack of democracyand business seems to take
precedence over what the fans actually want.
I do think in the top flight, Celtic is a really interesting
example of a club that's got very, very well organized.
They have really close ties to Palestine.
I'm not here to uncritically endorse Celtic, but you know,

(33:47):
they have ties with either refugee camp.
There's Legi centre in in Bethlehem that has really close
ties to Celtic and you have the Green Brigade, which is this
very powerful, militant, ultra left wing, anti Zionist force of
Celtic, you know, home grown working class supporters.
And the reason the Green Brigadeis so powerful is because

(34:08):
they're willing to go toe to toewith their own clubs.
So when the club says you must not do this and when UEFA and so
on tries to ban Celtic for flying Palestine flags, the
Green Brigades just escalate, right.
So it's a battle to organize your club and it's a bit like a
a trade union struggle, right? It's like it's difficult and you
have to you have a strategy, youhave to get organised and you
have to defy your club in order to turn it into the kind of club

(34:31):
that you want it to be. And I think Arsenal fans are are
starting to do that around Palestine and I encourage them
to keep attempting to organise around these kinds of issues.
Yeah, so we spoke about the sleeve, but also the shirt
itself is made by Adidas and Adidas is a company that has
previously bought Bella Hadid for her positions over Palestine
and herself is Palestinian. So what do you like?

(34:55):
What about Adidas? What's their position?
Where are they still making the shirts for the club?
Again, it's a sponsorship deal. Yeah, I I find it strange that
sports manufacturers are worriedabout people speaking Murray
about wrongs. Exactly.

(35:18):
They were pressured though, weren't they?
Because Adidas used to sponsor the Israeli football team, as if
I'm not mistaken. And then back in 2018 or
something, because of public pressure, they dropped Israel
and then Puma took it over and then Puma dropped it.
So it again. It does feel like there's an
escalating boycott campaign against the Israeli football
team, which obviously should be kicked out of FIFA.

(35:41):
And I think Russia was kicked out after four days or
something. Russia was kicked out like that.
South Africa got kicked out for their part, Yeah.
And for years we've had conversations about apartheid.
UEFA and FIFA have done nothing about it.
There's a. Big conversation happening in
Ireland, right? There's the FAI, right, Football
Association of Ireland, which has been much better on this.

(36:02):
Well, I, I'm not here to again, I'm critically endorsing it.
There's a battle going on in Ireland like anywhere over this
stuff. But I think the common sense in
Ireland is much more, oh, undoubtedly, much more
undoubtedly. And so it's to be, does the
cancel the game campaign, right.Ireland's supposed to be playing
Israel. And so there's a growing
campaign saying that that game needs to be boycotted.

(36:23):
So it's to be hoped that we are witnessing a kind of like the
position that South Africa was in in kind of the late 80s,
early 90s, where it's like it's just becoming a complete
international pariah. And it's to be hoped that
football, I mean, football is animportant site of struggle in
all of that. And I think Adidas is kind of
again, it's a profit making company, it will have attacked
by the Hadid in the way that they did because of pressure.

(36:46):
And it's for us to apply equal and opposite pressure to force
them to to respond to the growing anti Zionist consensus.
Can we take a look at this imageof the kit?
This is our our friend Matt Kennard.
He says nice kit, unwearable though.
Israeli founded company deal advertised on sleeve.

(37:09):
Airline owned by one of the world's most brutal dictatorship
advertised on the front. Then there is Adidas, no time
sponsor of Israel, one time sponsor of Israel's Football
Association, one big advert for genocide and apartheid.
Disgusting. That is our friend Matt Kennett.
But you know, now we're talking about sponsorship and how these

(37:32):
sponsor sponsorship like may tryto influence the club and all of
it. But still the community's, the
fan base of Arsenal is, is rooted in, in the community.
And to be honest, Arsenal is theonly a club I've ever been to.
Like when I came to the UKI visited Arsenal twice and I

(37:54):
watched two of their matches. Not that I care about football,
I don't, but I care about people.
And when I was there, I I reallyenjoyed my time, not because of
watching. Football should.
Be exactly because I've found people from all walks of life,
people from different backgrounds there were
celebrating and they were full of energy and they were happy
people and it was happy for themand it was a very nice

(38:16):
experience. My wife loved it really.
But my my question to you now, the fans, the 10s of thousands
of people who support and and love Arsenal, do they have any
say in who funds the the club and Arsenal?
I think those behind who fund Arsenal and Arsenal not a team

(38:40):
don't really care about what thefans say.
I think it might have been MO and Nanny got reported and I
think it was from a coffee makerand there was discipline.
Obviously we've used the most crap account.
It'd be great to see Arsenal fans say, well we're boycotting

(39:01):
a shirt because it basically hasa murderous, genocidal company
on the sleeve, so I'd like to see action taken over here.
I also think, I don't know this is going to aggravate you, Mark,
but I like I like I like going to non league football.
There's Clapton CFC, right? That's amazing, right?

(39:23):
100% fan owned club. I was, I regularly go to their
events they've held like you go to their website, you see the
number of solidarity things they've done long before the
genocide even and certainly during the genocide, all these
anti Zionist events and solidarity activity with
Palestinians. And I saw when I was on the way

(39:43):
here, I was Googling Clapton to see what they've been up to.
You know, I've been to a bunch of their matches and stuff as
Palestine flags everywhere. And apparently there was a game
had to be called off because somebody tried to enforce the
FIFA's ban on Palestine flags orsomething.
And it was a bit like you and whose army kind of thing, right?
So it's like, I do think. In the top flight of football,

(40:04):
it's very money saturated and it's a business.
And I think for a lot of these golf monarchies, it's also kind
of like a status symbol, right? Yeah, Newcastle comes to mind,
right. It's like like I think the very
top clubs are profitable. A lot of clubs aren't that
profitable. They probably don't break even.
And so for a lot of these golf monarchies, it's kind of like a
status symbol. But I do think at the the more

(40:26):
kind of in the lower leagues, there are clubs that are 100%
fan down and they're able to do really beautiful and amazing
things because the fans have control.
Yeah, but a lot of people would would argue that, OK, people go
watch football, attend these matches because they want to
have fun. They don't care about the
sponsorship, they don't care about the politics around it, so

(40:47):
why should they care? I think that's in some ways
wrong because they've I got a lot of local football.
They still care. Humans care about humans, you
know, so they do care, each in asense.
When you go to the bigger games,you're paying money, so you want
to see the product you've paid for, so a slightly less concern.

(41:12):
Yeah, I think that, yeah, I agree with what you said about
humans caring about humans. I think everyone does care.
And I also think that there's there's this idea that you
should be apolitical and there can be these apolitical spaces,
but it doesn't make sense. Like, how can you have
apolitical football? Oh, can we all just get along
and play football? And in some sense, that is
what's beautiful about sport. It is it does bring people from
all over the world together and especially the sport of football

(41:34):
because it's kind of the world'sgame, right?
Like I remember watching the most recent World Cup final and
it was like, I think it was the most watched in history.
And it was problematic because it was in Qatar and all the rest
of it. But like billions of people
watching the finals, like, so it's this amazing universalist
thing, right? Everyone sort of knows football.
Everyone gets the rules. It's very intuitive.
There's national teams, just local teams.

(41:56):
So it is this beautiful thing, but it's also like anything,
it's complicated and it is political.
And to say, oh, let's just enjoyit in an apolitical way becomes
absurd when the apartheid state of Israel has eviscerated
Palestinians. Yeah, and benefited from the
some of the benefits that come benefits that come from like the
matches for instance, Adidas andlike deal and all of that.

(42:18):
They benefit actually from the the games and all of that.
But for me, like the having fun thing, I remember in 2014,
Israeli Christian in Gaza when Iwas there, like there was the
World Cup at that time and people were watching it.
So we knew that like young people are going to different
cafes to watch it. And we felt like some people are

(42:38):
having a little bit of fun with that very aggressive real
aggression. And at that time, like it was
like my my moment of many thingshas changed for me at that, at
that moment when Israel have bombed a cafe, killing seven
Palestinian youth watching the World Cup.
And at that moment, I felt like if our people within an Israeli

(43:00):
aggression are putting effort toshare the joy with other people
around the world. But the rest of the people and
the clubs, the football, the players are not looking at them.
So what's the point of football?If it's about fun, then it has
to be for everyone. And after that I.
But look how they reacted to Russia.

(43:21):
Black lives matter anti racism but you are making statements
about kicking out knife crime. So you you do speak out.
Again, political issues, but some you don't.
Well, this is my point about Black Lives Matter, right?
Like, do Palestinian lives matter?
So we're allowed and we should support the struggle against

(43:44):
white supremacy and the Black Lives Matter movement, right?
Of course we should support that.
Why can't we support the movement for Palestinian lives,
right? And the answer is because the
most Western governments, most NATO governments support the
apartheid state of Israel to thehilt.
But their little loyal Jewish shelter is in crisis, right?
And I just think football is is unanswerably political.

(44:07):
You think about the role that sports boycotts played in
bringing down South African apartheid.
How do you actually bring down an apartheid regime?
The international dimension, thediaspora and the pressure that
can be brought to bear from outside of Palestine is an
important part of the picture. Take the Irish example.
If we organize well enough and we put enough pressure on the

(44:29):
Irish team to boycott that game,that will be a serious blow.
It's not going to single handedly defeat Zionism.
Yeah, but it. Will be an important.
So many efforts it's. Symbolic, it's important, it's
damaging, it's damaging the fascist ideology of Zionism,
it's damaging their reputation, it's increasing their isolation.
So it's an it's unanswerably a site of struggle, but also just

(44:51):
thinking about like, oh, it's a beautiful game and people should
be allowed to resolve their national disagreements in the
World Cup on the on the, on the football pitch, whatever.
How are Palestinians supposed tocompete in the World Cup
whenever Israel has murdered hundreds of footballers, right?
I was looking at statistics hundreds.
And even before the genocide, they were infamous.
It was it was like it was notorious that that Zionist

(45:12):
soldiers would shoot the feet ofknown Palestinians, right end
their careers, right. How can you allow such open
fascism into into FIFA right? They should be banned right?
Like but. Also, FIFA itself and new FIFA,
we know that Israel is committing A genocide up to the
ICJ, plausible genocide. The ICJ has also declared that

(45:34):
Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is unlawful.
And at the same time, FIFA is still like up to the new
reports, FIFA is still supporting a legal Israeli
settlement collapse. And they have increased in
numbers, they have increased in status and in size.
So why is that still happening? Is it?
It is political. It's not unpolitical, political.

(45:57):
But I. Think.
What you also have to look at ishe has to fill a game where Tel
Aviv come over how that was portrayed, you know, oh, this is
anti-Semitism. No, it's against racist football
thugs. And I think the very next game
they played in Israel, it got abandoned because of racism and

(46:19):
violence. But they were the victims when
they were told they couldn't play Villa.
Yeah, classic example of this Zionist.
Cry wolf. Yeah, and self victimizing
right? Just like the worst cry bullies
ever to have played the game of cry bullying or whatever.
Just completely absurd the way again, reality gets bent

(46:40):
backwards to try to accommodate,as you say, this racist thugs.
I mean from where I was standing, I saw what happened in
Amsterdam. A load of Zionists showed up,
chanting death to Arabs, tearingdown Palestine flags, attacking
random people on site, and then they got hammered on the
football pitch, which was obviously delicious, and then
they got the thugs also like thegood people of Amsterdam, sent

(47:01):
them packing. And then suddenly you've got
world leaders in Canada and stuff saying like, oh, no, the
football folks are the victims, actually.
And there was that, there was that iconic video.
I say iconic. There was that infamous that
that video that did the rounds, the viral video of a scene from
that night in Amsterdam. And everyone was saying, oh,
look at these poor people. It's a pogrom.

(47:23):
And what the video showed was the Maccabee fans and, like,
chasing down other people. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, it was.
You. Yeah, and actually and.
And then and then the the policewas Aben and Somerset, wasn't
it, who were like speaking to the their colleagues in
Amsterdam and they're saying like these guys are seriously
racist. We have provision in in Britain

(47:44):
to to ban fans from attending ifthere's serious concerns around
violence and hooliganism. It happens as it has happened on
countless occasions in this country.
But because it's an Israeli teamagain, and I refer to what I
said previously, right? Anything that you say that
criticizes something to do with Israel, Oh, maybe it's
anti-Semitism. It's like, no, they're just
racist thugs. There's like Zionists, Many of
them have served or previously served in the Zionist military.

(48:05):
These people are deeply racist, anti Arab, fascist,
sympathising. Even within the cesspit of
Israeli football, they're regarded as as Zionist ultras.
And so the the police made a decision to, as they often do,
and suddenly it's Oh no, actually, oh, the football thugs
are the real victims. Be serious.
It's ridiculous. Oh God, on that point exactly,
There's a video that sums up howthe world deals with Israel and

(48:29):
the world. It's for the former Israeli
footballer Yael Berkovich, and he's talking about Not innocent
in Gaza and Wipe the Arabs. Let's watch it together.
Yeah. So how was this received in?

(48:57):
That thing that goes back to Gary Lineker's comment about the
language of 1930s Germany. But we're not allowed to say
that there he is that that obviously racist.
Exactly. He's fascist.
Genocide the language, wipe out all Gaza it.
Makes me think of the Israeli president, Isaac Kurtzog,

(49:18):
because he he was quoted, right?His speech was directly quoted
by the ICJ. Yeah, in January 2020. 4.
And he said something very, verysimilar, right?
There are no innocents in innocents in Gaza.
They could have risen up and overthrown that Hebel regime.
An entire nation is responsible,right?
That's. What exactly?
Not just Gaza, the entire Palestinian nation.
Yeah. It's it's collectively

(49:38):
responsible. There are no innocence.
So this is, in my opinion, this is a fascist society in a death
viral. Like I just I think that there's
an interesting double movement that seems to happen with the
demographics within the Jewish Israeli population, which is
that anyone with any kind of even liberal and certainly left
wing politics. And I've spoken because so many
of my friends are like, they identify as X Israelis and I've

(49:59):
met them in London or Berlin or wherever because they're like, I
can't live in that society because it's fascist.
They want to Co-op me into a fascist military that enacts
constant colonial violence. I can't do it.
So anyone with sensible politicsis thinking, I think I'm going
to leave this place. And many Jewish Israelis have
second or third passports. So they're in a position to
simply leave if they want to, incircumstances, of course, where
many Palestinians have no passports.
Exactly. And the, and the double movement

(50:21):
is that all of because of Israel's Law of Return 1950,
every Jew may return to Israel as an Ole.
It's the most fanatical, psychotic, fascist minded who
are now thinking, oh, I want to go to Palestine because of the
violence. So you get this double movement
where all of the right wing people are being attracted into
it and all of the sensible people are leaving.
And so I think for the longest time, the Zionist project tried

(50:42):
to observe this delicate balancebetween a Jewish and democratic
state, right? That was their big tagline.
We're both Jewish and democratic.
And if you think about it for a second, it's an obvious
contradiction, right? It's like choose, choose one.
You can't have both. They've made their choice in my
opinion, Right. They're no longer pretending to
be democratic. That's been the case since long
before the genocide, right? 2018I.
Don't think you can. Be a democracy if you put one

(51:06):
group above all other other groups.
The democracy for me is about equality.
We're all the same. Absolutely.
And I think you mentioned some international judgements about
genocide and so on. I think the crucial judgement
that not enough people have mentioned, but the sort of
kryptonite when you go into an English court and just mention
it. The advisory opinion from July
2024 confirmed that Israel is inbreach of Article 3 Convention

(51:29):
on the Elation of Elimination ofRacial Discrimination, which
means that Israel is committing racial segregation and
apartheid. That's a settled matter of
international law. It's, it's over.
I just don't see how you come back from that.
It's an apartheid state. And don't take my word for it.
The ICJ has confirmed it. So I just think their position
is completely unraveling. A lot of these politicians, like
like we said, these people, UK lawyers for Israel, members of

(51:50):
the House of Lords, barristers, Keir Starmer, the United States,
like it's all unravelling. But it's, you know, the night is
darkest before the dawn. I know that's a cliche, but I
really think this is the the death rattle of a failed
experiment in in ethno nationalism.
And I think that football is an important site in the struggle
against that fascist failed project.

(52:12):
You ever signed? We said be together when you
divide on on whatever you want together.
Divide, if not together. You know, I'm, I'm still shocked
that FIFA still allows us to play because, you know, even
after the genocide, Israel killed 344 Palestinian

(52:35):
footballers. 344 Palestinian footballers were killed
deliberately by Israel because Israel does not want
Palestinians to play football. But moreover, they killed over
100 or 800 Palestinian athletes.And you're these athletes were
assassinated. They were not killed because
they were in the wrong place as Israel claims.

(52:57):
They were assassinated because Israel wants to destroy sports.
Yeah, I see this. They wants to destroy the
athlete world in Gaza. They want, they bombed all of
the football stadiums, every oneof them as and, and FIFA knows
about all of it. They know that their their
colleagues of Fatah, Paras and Gaza were killed, but they still
allow Israelis to play there. But also, I mean, you know,

(53:19):
it's, it's really funny because what we're talking about
division, because the Palestinians in Gaza, FIFA
recognizes only one team for Palestine, national team for
Palestine. But how can you get this
national team together? Because Palestine is the the the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, and they're separated from each
other. They can't work with each other.
They can't meet with each other.They can't play with each other.

(53:40):
Not in Palestine at least, but. Not only that, how many players
that have died for whatever reason, do you see English
football clubs, world football clubs, celebrate what they did
for their clubs? You know you have.
Many footballers have celebratedat matches because they've died.

(54:02):
And that's why I think what is very political, I mean, if
football wasn't political, is that we didn't go after
footballers and Gaza and kill them.
And that is footballers were very political because how come
we, as someone who works in a sport, as someone who is a
footballer, maybe in the UK, howwould you be silent when you see
your colleagues being killed just because they're

(54:24):
footballers? There was that incident with and
his name escapes me with the Palestinian Pele right, was
murdered by yes, the Zionists and then FIFA put out some kind
of. That's his.
Suleiman, Abdullahman. Suleiman Abedius, his.
Photo here. Yeah, yeah, he's the Pele of of
Palestine, so. Murdered by the Zionists.
And then I think FIFA put out some, some awful tweet, just.
Sort of like. Oh, he seems to have died or

(54:45):
something. And then it was Mosala, wasn't
it? Who said he killed him?
Like, like did he just. Yeah, he got.
Pulled. He was called.
He didn't die by himself. It's not.
Yeah. And I think it's.
Insane, all that. But they talk, they like the
Zionists target any symbol of Palestinian cultural identity
because obviously I don't need to tell you their central
strategy is the fragmentation ofthe Palestinian nation, which is
why they divided it into 48 Palestinians, E Jerusalem, West

(55:07):
Bank, Gaza, diaspora. They're they're consciously
trying to chop it up and split it up because the existence of
so many non Jewish Palestinians in the land of Palestine is an
existential threat to their grotesque colonial project.
And from the start they've knownthat.
But it, it genuinely seems like it's all unraveling because it's
that the war criminal Henry Kissinger famously said it in

(55:28):
the context of Vietnam, right? He said the colonizer wins if
you just if you wipe out the colonial population, the
colonized population wins if they survive.
And the Palestinians have survived, like despite the
horrific ongoing genocidal onslaught, the Palestinian
people are still in their land resisting by existing as non

(55:49):
Jewish Palestinians and for as long as a single Palestinian
continues to exist, designers. And that's why they tried to
rewrite history. They will try and change history
because I don't want Palestinianthere.
Yeah, and in that remark, you know, the is not over.
But it's very important to remember when we speak about
sports and when we speak about footballers, the football scene

(56:12):
now inside itself. So let's watch this short video
together. I.

(56:50):
How will? If you haven't looked at it then

(57:12):
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(57:35):
Yeah, so looking at. This video, so I don't know, I
don't have many words to to use and I don't know how to see it.
It's like to say it in a hopefulway that although Israel have
denied them their legs and many of their limbs, they're still
trying and they're creating a community, a club, A football

(57:56):
team, so they can survive. They can have joy of sports as
the rest of the world. Or to see the crime that Israel
have created against those youngwomen and men who love sport and
love football. Well, I think like everything is
contradictory. Right.
It's, it's bittersweet and I felt a range of emotions
watching it, right. I mean, on the one hand, it's

(58:17):
this staggering testament to thePalestinian spirit, to the
Palestinian samud, the the will to resist and to continue to
exist and to play the beautiful game and to find joy amid the
horrors of the Zionist onslaught.
But I, I agree that, I mean, it goes to what we were saying that
the, the notion that football can be apolitical.
I mean, they're describing beingprevented from attending the

(58:39):
tournament because they're trapped in a concentration camp,
right? Gaza, the Zionist entity has
turned Gaza into a concentrationcamp and it has herded millions
of people there because they're,they're deemed to be a
demographic threat because they're not Jewish enough.
And their football teams are prevented, Their amputee
football teams are prevented from leaving that concentration
camp because the concentration camp guards view that as

(59:01):
threatening. I mean, it's, it's unavoidably
political. And the solution to the
political problem is to defeat Zionism, to defeat the apartheid
state of Israel, to dismantle it, just like we dismantled
South African apartheid, and to replace it with something far
more hopeful in which any, like anyone, regardless of their
religion, their ethnicity, can play the beautiful game.

(59:21):
It's the courage and the spirit.Of them, you know, it's
brilliant and as you say, just to carry on because that says a
big message, yeah, and I'm superproud of them but.
You know, it's very important toremember that they shouldn't be
the one standing doing that alone.
So how important is it for like,you know, footballers,

(59:43):
celebrities and people who are like known in sport to speak
about them, to stand for them? Really important.
But because of fear cancellation, they're not.
But to Barcelona, you know, comeout with a Palestinian flag,
yeah, great. And it had a real positive

(01:00:05):
effect. But I did not like it,
especially on the people in Gazalike.
When they see such a stuff in the sports and football matches,
they love it. Yeah, yeah.
It's a simple act that. It takes bravery and I don't
know if Barcelona had said anything prior to it, but he's

(01:00:27):
got up there, waved it happily. Why you need, which is
brilliant. Yeah, I totally agree.
Can we see some some pictures? Because we say football is not
political. It's not.
It is political. And that's the, the, the, the
fans of Arsenal. After Arsenal won, they

(01:00:47):
celebrated with Palestine flags.That's really heartwarming.
You're happy with it? I love the smile you.
Sound you. Have you have some support?
This summer the FIFA will host World Cup in North America, in
Canada, in the United States andin Mexico.

(01:01:09):
And Canada recognizes it of Palestine recently.
But I wonder what does the recognition of the set of
Palestine means? When Canada refused the visa
over 3 delegates from from Palestine, they refused the
their their visa. So they can't go and participate
in in the in this place. What does this?

(01:01:31):
What does this recognition mean?Is it a cheap words?
Cheap words for for. Me if you're going to.
Recognise something why are you denying someone so I I think
that. Zionism is collapsing.

(01:01:51):
I think the Zionist entity is collapsing.
I think the apartheid state is not long for this world.
Prediction is among amongst gameas they say.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I just don't see how
Israel comes back from this. I think we're witnessing the
final death rattle of a failed colonial experiment.
And if that's right, then countries like Canada, so-called

(01:02:12):
United Kingdom and so on coming out and trying to recognize a
Palestinian state is a rearguardaction, right?
It's an attempt to save some version of the the failed
Zionist project in ethno nationalism.
And I think that, I mean, I remember reading Ben White's
book, one of his books when I was in Ramallah in 2019.

(01:02:32):
And he was talking about what many Palestinians have said,
right, about how Zionism comes in different flavours.
But it's all racist. There's no, there's no anti
racist way to be a Zionist, A Zionist and if you if you
choose. Zionism, you're choosing.
Racism, right? And there are some tactical and
strategic disagreements between different types of Zionists and
so-called liberal Zionists, which I think is a contradiction

(01:02:53):
in terms. I mean, I'm, I have my critique
of liberalism, but liberalism? Is supposed.
To believe in universal values, it's supposed to believe in
human rights. That's incompatible with
Zionism, which is an openly racist ideology.
So-called liberal Zionists are open about the fact that they
want a Palestinian state becausethey view it as a solution to
the problem, the demographic problem of having so many non
Jewish Palestinians living in so-called Israel, right?

(01:03:15):
So that's the liberal Zionist solution.
It's like we should create a second state to to shield
ourselves from the demographic problem of so many non Jewish
Palestinians Where the more right wing iterations of
Zionism, their strategy is just,well, we're seeing it being
played out now, right? It's just ethnic cleansing and
genocide. So Zionism might well have a
very interesting internal dialogue with itself about how

(01:03:36):
best to enact its racist project, but those of us who are
anti racist should reject it entirely.
There is no special kind of liberal Zionism that that is
capable of scoring the the circle between a commitment to
universalism and human equality on the one hand, and a
commitment to Jewish ethno nationalism on the other.
It's choose one and those of us who oppose ethno nationalism,
oppose colonialism, oppose genocide should be clear that

(01:04:00):
countries like Canada are no friend to the Palestinian
people, right? That state has long been a
supporter of Zionism. And it's not for me to tell the
Palestinians what their liberation should look like.
But the more I engage and becomeembedded in the anti Zionist
struggle and the more I talk to Palestinian comrades and
organizations, the clearer it becomes to me based on my
reading of history, based on my reading of politics, that the

(01:04:21):
solution will be a one state solution, that the Zionist
entity will never allow a real Palestinian state to emerge.
And the consequence of that willbe that, you know, the Zionist,
as usual, will end up crying because they got what they
wanted and they're going to, they're going to get their
single state. Yeah.
But the problem is there's goingto be all these Palestinians in
it. And at some point, democracy
will prevail and Zionism will collapse.

(01:04:42):
Yeah. So if we looked at.
Viva in like the BDS terms. They should be boycotting
Israel, not allowing it for the ICJ.
Different ruling on Israel. This is a side but another side
is UEFA. They are for Europeans.
Why do they have Israel as they are within?
UEFA, rightly or wrongly, but because it is an apartheid

(01:05:06):
state, they should not be allowed to compete, they should
be kicked out. As I said, sport was an
important site of struggle against the South African
apartheid regime. I think they they should
obviously be kicked out of UEFA,they should be suspended by
FIFA. This is all obvious and I think
there there is organising work going on to try to affect that.
But we we need to, we need to keep.

(01:05:27):
Pushing at. That and making that demand.
I think we were talking about Ireland, the Irish football
team, you know, and this growingcampaign to block the game or
whatever and to boycott the the match against Israel.
And you mentioned Eurovision. I mean, again, I just think
that's a really hopeful sign of the collapse of Zionism, right?
There was evidence, as I understand it, a vote rigging by

(01:05:47):
the Zionist entity, right? Trying to make sure that they
win or come close to winning Eurovision last time.
Now everyone's just done. And what is it?
5 different European countries, including Ireland.
Ireland is beloved of the Eurovision Song Contest, right?
Because there was that spell where we want it three years in
a row, and there was the Father Ted.
Episode with all these. Conspiratorial theories about we
keep winning this bloody Song Contest and then we have to host

(01:06:09):
it and everything. So like, Ireland is like, you
know, iconic European nation, very famously, very good at
singing and song contests. All these other European
countries are like, we won't be in Eurovision if Israel.
Yeah. So this non European settler
colonial, sort of weird British former colony, yeah, gets to
participate. But Ireland doesn't like it's
collapsing. Like no one wants to be
associated with this grotesque failed experiment.

(01:06:31):
No. Look at the polling data.
Like, like, look at their increased isolation.
Look at the arrest warrants. Like their Prime Minister can't
even come to the territory they came second to place.
Yeah. I mean.
Yeah, I believe that. Let's.
Be real, everyone despises either.
But the weird thing are they able to pay?
The price to collapse those by the Eurovision and UEF and all

(01:06:51):
of that only to keep Israel and that have the ICJ rolling, ICC
rolling and all of those scribes.
I think at some point under pressure is going to.
Get too great. I think we're witnessing that
now. It's unravelling it's completely
unravelling. So we get to vote for Israel,
but not these actual European countries.
Like I mean I'm quite skeptical of the concept of Europe and I
think it's MSNR who said Europe is indefensible or whatever.
So like I'm not here to uncritically endorse the

(01:07:13):
European song context or Eurovision Song Contest, but I
just think it's it feels like it's unravelling to me.
It feels like it's like it's becoming so absurd the lengths
to which it's becoming necessaryto go to try and defence Zionism
has become completely unsustainable and I think it's
it it we're we're witnessing theprocess by which Zionism
unravels. Yeah, true.

(01:07:34):
So. On that note, it's very
important to remember that people still call what's
happening in Gaza A ceasefire. Yeah, that's that's the laugh
exactly. Yeah.
Who does? The media politician.
The BBC. The BBC.
Yeah, they. Don't even have told.

(01:07:55):
Yeah, that's what they've got tothink.
Thinks it. Anyone with iota of common sense
knows all of this hasn't happened.
Yeah. Ceasefire is when the firing
ceases, like I think. That's pretty, yeah.
On the label, yeah. But it's kind of.
Like an Israeli ceasefire, like what they have with.
Lebanon, right? Like you stop firing, we
continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Francisco has been a ceasefire. For Israelis only when the

(01:08:15):
Israelis. Stop being killed.
Yeah, that's it. And for for the BBC as well.
Yeah, for the moment, all of that, the moment, Israelis.
Are hurt. Then they will go out and say
it's not a. Ceasefire.
But the Palestinians are not important.
And in that you can die in hundreds it will.
Be OK. Yeah, until now, more than 8.
100 Palestinians have been killed, 900 now. 900

(01:08:37):
Palestinians have been killed inGaza since the beginning of the
so-called ceasefire. On average four people are
killed every day. And yesterday we have the image
of Minna. I don't know if Minna A6 year
old, year old child who has beenbombed yesterday.
And the story of this child, this beautiful child is very
painful because a year and two months ago she has her parents

(01:08:58):
killed and she was like a wounded child with no surviving
family and you know the acronym.And yesterday she was herself
targeted, hit and killed after, you know, just a few days, two
days away from the head where she should be celebrating having
her new dresses and all of that.And I don't know why people are

(01:09:20):
calling it a ceasefire while ourchildren are still killed.
And today Israel have sent some of their like, backed militias
into Gaza from the yellow line or from the yellow yellow line
to yeah, to, to, to, to go to Madazi camp and kill people,
Yeah. They're they're making.
More and more of the land and. Also sending their.

(01:09:42):
Militias to kill people, backingthem with aircrafts and bombing,
killing four Palestinians while they were at their homes.
So it's not a ceasefire. And our beautiful children, our
beautiful women and men are unfortunately continue to be
killed in front of the whole world ice.
It's horrifying. And I, I.
Don't really have any words. I can't imagine.

(01:10:04):
Like it's very difficult for me to imagine what what you and
your people are going through. But what gives me some hope?
And I don't want to be crass, right?
The cost of Palestinians is horrifying.
But if you look at other anti colonial struggles, the cost is
often horrifying. You think about the Algerian
struggle, right? By some estimates, 1,000,000
Algerians had to die to drive the French out of Algeria.
But they did. And it's obviously one of the

(01:10:25):
most successful instances of anti colonial revolution in
history. And I think also about the
Vietnamese example, another horrifying example that was
backed and participated by the US, 2 million Vietnamese people
had to tie, but they they defeated the most powerful
empire in the world. So I mean, I think when we come
to write the history books, who again, who can say?

(01:10:45):
I can't predict the future, but I just don't think Israel is
going to succeed. And if that's right, then when
we look back on it, we will see that though it came a horrifying
cost to Palestinians, I firmly believe that the Palestinians
are going to triumph over the failed colonial experiment known
as Zionism, and a much more hopeful single democratic state

(01:11:06):
will hopefully emerge. Thank you very much.
Frank, thank you very much. Thank you.
I'm really enjoyed this discussion.
Our first podcast ever on sports.
Yeah, and we love it, as you could tell.
I wasn't very. Good at it, maybe.
No, I really enjoy talking. Well, no.
You were perfect. Thank you so much for.

(01:11:26):
Coming. Yeah, it was very insightful.
Yeah, So maybe it won't be the last podcast on.
Sports and definitely we will have you again to talk about
other stuff Frank and I hope next time we have you we will
talk about how you won your caseagainst Arsenal.
When would be the decision? What you.

(01:11:47):
Say these things are a better take.
Oh. OK, there'll be an update at
some point. OK, one by the other.
We'll pray. Yeah, well.
Insane so. We will pray for you.
We. Will pray for.
You as well. Thank you very, very much.
Again, thank you for having me. No, thank you for joining us.
And we wish you all the best of luck.
And our audience. Thank you very much for watching
this episode if you watched it at all.

(01:12:08):
And don't forget to stay tuned for all our episodes for our
chat show every Wednesday at 7:00 PM.
Thank you very much and goodbye.See you next week.
Bye.