City and Israel

[Skashion]

Plenty of Arab countries, especially the oil rich ones who will always be prone to criticism for not sharing their wealth amongst the rest of the Islamic world - remembering that one of the pillars of Islam is Zakat (charity) and that many Muslims do not feel this applies only within national borders and in effect Arabia's oil belongs to Arabs and Muslims not to Emiratis, Saudis or Bahrainis (they are quite correct about this by the way as many Arab borders were drawn up in the west with explicit consideration of oil). So to avoid some of the inevitable criticism that would follow from lack of serving a common Arab and Islamic cause in terms of economics, they over-embellish in areas where it's a piece of piss to keep up appearances and has very little real cost. One of those over-embellishing acts is that they don't recognise Israel officially as a superficial show of solidarity with the Palestinians. In reality it's total bollocks and there is no solidarity with the Palestinians, not for a long time anyway - if that (there's a good cause to believe the oil crisis in 1973 which quadrupled oil prices forever was driven by economic self-interest rather than political ones and that the Yom Kippur War was simply an excuse).

 

[ccr]

So we have Jews, Arabs and Gays supporting and playing for us. Mark my words they will be letting Catholics play for us soon. Got a 4 match ban for lighting a burning cross in the bogs. Where will it end ?

 

[dronefromsector7g]

Tal Ben Haim disappeared rather sharply

Pity he couldn't turn sharply

 

[Second Skin]

Tal Ben Haim disappeared rather sharply

Unfortunately most of the time this was on the pitch.

 

[inbetween]

I'm not totally knowledgeable on this so maybe fellow Blues could post on this subject but do our Owners (ADUG/Mansour) have something where they don't acknowledge Israel as a country? and or Judaism as a religion?

If this is the case, would they be against possibly signing a known Jewish player?

Officially, the UAE and any Muslim country for that matter do not recognise Israel as a proper country because of the whole Palestine issue. Whether they recognise that Judaism exists as a religion I really don't know because that is a different thing, however I don't think they care too much. As for anything else, I seriously doubt they would have any problem if a player was to be Jewish, maybe if they were Israeli and Jewish it would be different. There aren't many decent Israeli players to make this a problem for us but I can't see religion being a mooting point when players are signing contracts.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

I certainly don't believe they have any problem with Jews as such. At least one of the non-executive directors they appointed is Jewish and I know that Jews have been heavily involved in a number of projects in Abu Dhabi.

They don't have diplomatic relations with Israel but as I understand it, there are commercial relationships with Israeli companies, who do business there. There was an incident a few years ago when a leading Hamas member was assassinated in Dubai and they banned all Israelis from entering the UAE as a result. However, an Israeli cabinet minister is due in Abu Dhabi shortly (later today I think) and it's entirely possible that Israel has been working to repair relations, as both countries see Iran as a problem. They have far more in common than divides them.

I would say the very tiny number of people in power in Iran. Iran in general is probably most like a western country in it's thinking that any other in that area. The problem being is that they have nutters who can rig elections in charge.

Bit like us then ....being governed by two parties who together received a total 17.5 million votes from a population eligible to vote of 46 million

 

[ell]

Seem to remember a dutch club went for winter training and had to leave an Israeli behind. They got quite a bit of stick for it

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

Tal Ben Haim disappeared rather sharply

Unfortunately most of the time this was on the pitch.

True....PMSL

 

[pirate]

Tal Ben Haim disappeared rather sharply

but he was shit

 

[blue5ter]

In the UAE, if you have an Israeli passport, you won't be allowed in, as they don't officially recognise Israel as existing. I suspect a lot of that is to do with them needing to be seen to show solidarity with some of their neighbours because as others have said, they do plenty of business with Israel & Israeli companies, however in many instances they use a non-Israeli 'front man' so the links are not so blatant - effectively UAE on the whole don't care but have to keep up a certain image to their neighbours

If you have an Israeli visitors stamp in your passport, there is a chance you won't be let in, however evidence as to what percentage of those with an Israeli stamp aren't let in is rather thin on the ground - I've heard everything from once in a blue moon (no pun intended!) to a significant chance of being refused entry

Theoretically however, you could visit UAE wearing full orthodox outfit, be called Shlomi Cohen, have a British passport and be let in. I wouldn't advise it though ! I have a number of Jewish friends who live/have lived in the UAE and they don't like to flaunt the fact they are Jewish to the point they are wary about bringing it up, but they don't live in worry either - they just think it's sensible to be low key about it there

Within the UAE, you see policies that are anti-Jewish rather than anti-Israel (such as boycotting of books by Jewish academics) but I honestly don't think our owners give a monkeys. There have been Israeli players, they will know we have a decent sized Jewish contingent of fans, half the club's life/honorary presidents are Jewish and they certainly wouldn't choose New York if they had an issue with Jews ! Put bluntly, I think they take a pragmatic & commercial view.