Way To Go, Beitar!

By Moshe Feiglin

Cheshvan, 5768
November, 2008

This article was translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper, after the Beitar soccer team fans in Jerusalem jeered during the moment of silence in memory of Yitzchak Rabin this week.

Soccer games in Israel have turned into a sort of energy outlet amidst our country's despotic reality. In a way, the games have become reminiscent of the gladiator battles in the Roman colosseums. It is easy to understand why. The Israeli citizen has no political influence over his nation's fate. When he votes Left, he gets Left and when he votes Right he gets double Left. He also has no significant way to express himself within the one-dimensional consciousness that has been forced upon him. The media is completely captive to "Rabin's legacy." The judicial and educational systems represent no values other than "Oslo values." But there was one place left where an average Israeli could still express himself -- at soccer games.

It used to be that all sorts of talking heads would explain the importance of going to soccer games on Shabbat; donning the team colors, cursing the referees and afterwards, returning home to normalcy. The Israeli dictatorship likes that. You can choose to attend the game and you can even curse the referee; who said that this is not a democratic country?

But then the games became more and more violent. When a fan was crushed to death in a post-game riot a number of months ago, I suggested halting all games for a few months until they would once again become competitive sporting events and not war scenes. But modern culture sees the venting of dark urges as a basic privilege that is apparently more important than the value of life (just look at what goes on in Israel's night clubs).

And now, we have been introduced to a new value, even more important than the value of venting basic drives. Some people thought that the freedom in the soccer arenas was absolute. But they were wrong. It is fine to curse the referee, when fans throw firecrackers onto the playing field we will look the other way, and when a fan is trampled to death, we will send more police to the games. But to boo Rabin??? The soccer arenas are supposed to be a place where anger against the Israeli dictatorship is channeled elsewhere. To turn the rage against the dictatorship? Enough is enough!

I am not a Beitar fan, or a fan of any other team. Actually, I prefer to participate in sports rather than to watch them. I am not a Beitar fan, but I am a big fan of Beitar fans. When the Beitar fans jeered Rabin they showed the entire country that there are still a lot of people out there who have not turned into Rabin Robots -- even after even twelve years of pagan brainwashing. These people still have a problem with worshipping Rabin's legacy of hatred, terror and civil war. They still don't have it in them to praise the emperor with no clothes who continues to destroy Israel. They understand how the assassination is used to sell off whatever is left of our country. They see that even the jeers were used by Olmert as a spin to justify selling Jerusalem down the river.

Rabin's legacy is alive and devouring our entire nation. Before the expulsion from Gush Katif, the Left explained that "In the life of every nation or state there is more than one Altalena" (Ami Ayalon) and "We will have to neutralize them by shooting them." (Avshalom Vilan). The people who made these remarks are not the deviant, pariah, radical Left. They are the most legitimate mainstream of Israel's current leadership. This is Rabin's legacy, boiling just under the surface and exploding with the fire of hatred for brothers and obsequiousness to Israel's enemies.

If we need the up-front style of the Beitar fans to burst the bubble of hypocrisy and the devastating march of the emperor with no clothes, then all I can say is "Way to go, Beitar!"