Background

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Recipients Address

Background

Tottenham Hotspur is travelling to Hayfa in Israel to participate in a friendly match against AS Roma. The game, which is scheduled for the 30^th of July, is shameful and disregards the crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist regime. The sports boycott played a decisive role in the battle against apartheid in South Africa, and should also be employed against the apartheid in Palestine. This is especially relevant at the moment, when many sports bodies, including FIFA, have boycotted Russia in response to their invasion of Ukraine. The hypocrisy between the reaction to the Ukrainian crisis and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been pointed out many times. Still, it appears to have been ignored by many within the mainstream. This is when we should start to pressure our sports teams and athletes to boycott Israel and for BDS to enter the sports arena.

Action required

1. Write to Tottenham Hotspur complaining about this issue.
2. Please forward any responses you might have to us at info@ihrc.org so we can continue developing this campaign further.
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6. Keep visiting our website (https://www.ihrc.org.uk/) to see any updates on this case.

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[Your name]

[Your address]

[Date]

Re. Match against Roma in Haifa

Dear Sir/Madam

It has come to my attention that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club are scheduled to play in apartheid Israel on the 30^th July, in a friendly game against Roma. The charge of apartheid should not be used lightly. Yet, it has been used to describe Israel’s policies by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, and former South African anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Since 1948 the Palestinians have been systematically ethnically cleansed from their native land to build and then expand the apartheid state of Israel.

This fixture is entirely unacceptable, especially when the world is still in shock at the brutal murder of prominent journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh and the most recent attacks against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in the world to over a billion Muslims. These events have been coupled with the continuation of assassinations of Palestinians and the arrest of many children. It has taken the sports World a month to boycott Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, yet in 75 years of ethnic cleansing, Palestine has been ignored. The life of Arabs matter just as much as those of Europeans, and those engaging in the mass killing and oppression of people should be held to account whether the people they are killing are white or not.

I urge you to take a more moral stance on whom you choose to organise friendlies against, and don’t allow your team to be used to whitewash Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. As a team named after a multicultural neighbourhood, Tottenham Hotspur should be a team that represents multiculturalism and people living together in peace, not division and apartheid.

Yours Sincerely

[Your signature]

[Your name]

Recipients Address

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
Lilywhite House
782 High Road
London
N17 0BX

Alternatively, you can email them at supporterservices@tottenhamhotspur.com and/or tweet your disgust on Twitter to Tottenham at @SpursOfficial