JERUSALEM – Argentina’s national soccer team announced Wednesday it was cancelling a friendly match against Israel’s national team amid political pressure and after facing death threats, which the countrys foreign minister said were “worse than ISIS.” The announcement brought bitter disappointment for some 30,000 Israeli fans who had purchased tickets to the highly-anticipated game set for Saturdayand drew condemnations from Israeli leaders who accused the Palestinians of using “terrorism” to halt the game. For Palestinians and their supporters, however, there was jubilance. The decision to withdraw from the game was seen as the biggest victory yet for the boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) movement. They praised the Argentine team for taking a stand against Israel and its often lethal treatment of the Palestinians. But the official reason for the cancelation, given by Chichi Tapia, head of the Argentine Football Association, was that his players had faced serious threats, which forced them to cancel. He said the team would try to play in Israel at another time. In an interview with Agencia Judia de Noticias, a Jewish news service, Argentinas Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie said that the threats had exceeded those of ISIS. Images on social media showed protesters outside the teams Barcelona practice facility waving Palestinian flags and soccer jerseys dabbed with red paint resembling blood stains. In a press conference on Wednesday, Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sport, Miri Regev said that it was threats on Messi’s life, against his family and other members of the team that had prompted the team to cancel the game. “The decision for cancelation is down to one reason, terrorism,” she said. “This is not a BDS event, we are talking about serious threats.” Regev denied it was because she had politicized the game by moving it from Haifa to Jerusalem, which she said, as Israels capital, was a more appropriate location. On Sunday at a protest outside the offices of the Argentinian representation in Ramallah, Rajoub had called on “everyone to burn their Messi shirts and pictures and renounce him” if the game went ahead. Argentina face Iceland, Nigeria and Croatia in what is considered to be one of the hardest groups, Group D, in the tournament.
