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A dispute between Israel and Ireland’s women’s basketball flared into the open on Thursday as they assembled to play the 2025 EuroBasket qualifier.
The Ireland team refused to shake hands with the Israeli team as teams normally do before or after the game. You can see here before the square-off how the Israel team comes out to line up for the normal exchange, but the Irish team just ignores them in a disgusting lack of sportsmanship.
Losers on and off the field 👎🏻
In an incredibly racist & unsportsmanlike behavior, the Irish Women’s Basketball team (@BballIrl) refused to shake hands with their Israeli opponents in the #EuroBasketWomen game.
Oh, and then they also lost to Israel 57-87! pic.twitter.com/RofqT8f20B
— Arsen Ostrovsky 🎗️ (@Ostrov_A) February 9, 2024
The backstory was that there had been a talk of Ireland boycotting the game over the Israel-Hamas war. The Ireland team CEO confirmed that. But then they found out that they could incur big penalties if they did that.
According to the BBC, Basketball Ireland CEO John Feehan said the team was told that they would be hit with massive fines if they boycotted the game.
“I’m pretty sure we’d be hit pretty hard because we did actually ask was there an alternative to playing this game and all the rest of it, and from that perspective there isn’t,” he said.
That earned a reaction from an Israeli player Dor Sa’ar that they were being antisemitic.
We have to show that we’re better than them and win. We talk about it among ourselves, We know they don’t love us and we will leave everything on the field always and in this game especially.
The Irish team decided to prove they were bad sports, and on top of that, they fell for bad propaganda.
“Basketball Ireland informed FIBA Europe yesterday that as a direct result of recent comments made by Israeli players and coaching staff – including inflammatory and wholly inaccurate accusations of anti-Semitism, published on official Israeli Federation channels – that our players will not be partaking in traditional pre-match arrangements with our upcoming opponents,” the statement read.
“This includes exchanging of gifts, formal handshakes before or after the game, while our players will line up for the Irish national anthem by our bench rather than centre court. Basketball Ireland fully supports our players in their decision.”
You don’t exactly look good when you want to boycott the country that has been attacked by terrorists and is fighting back. You look pretty scummy. You look like you’re being supportive of terrorists who slaughtered more than 1,200 people and took hostages that they are still holding. So no, you aren’t being the honorable ones in this circumstance. It’s the delusion that some on the left have here.
But when you take bad positions, sometimes it comes back to bite you in the butt. Israel got the last laugh.
They curb-stomped the Ireland team in the game by 30 points.
After the Irish players refused to shake hands with the Israeli basketball team, the Israeli team won the qualifiers for the European championships.
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) February 8, 2024
That’s the best revenge for the scumminess.
