What Football Means To Israelis, The Power Of Boycotts, Biorhythm Monsters

We already knew this is going to be an international football week, unlike anything we'd ever experienced.

And just in case we needed reminding, then, the side of the Ireland football manager accepting the support of the Taoiseach over derogatory comments made about him by another country's football association.

I think it brought it all into sharp focus.

Welcome to your weekly World Service Highlights.

Hey Murph.

Hey Eoin, how are you? It was Monday night the Israeli FA came out swinging at Hamer, calling him ignorant, hypocritical and stupid over his comments that the Irish football team is not playing with genocide, we are playing against genocide in these games against Israel.

By Tuesday, Neil Martin had come out and described what the Israeli FA had said as unacceptable remarks that should be withdrawn.

Then at Wednesday's press conference, Hal Grimson said he was grateful for the support while looking like a man who just desperately wants to get this international window over with.

so we cover all that on the world service this week we also wanted to get a broader view on these games against israel so we got in touch with elan pape elan's an israeli historian living in the uk working as a professor with the college of social sciences and international studies at the university of exeter he's best known for his books on the history of palestine in the middle east which challenged the official israeli version of history really interesting guy he's spoken in the past about the power of sporting sanctions in amongst all this And as, in fact, I argued that one thing that really frightens a lot of Israelis is if Israel was thrown out of international football.

We asked him on the podcast to expand on those thoughts.

We already knew this is going to be an international football week, unlike anything we'd ever experienced.

And just in case we needed reminding, then, the side of the Ireland football manager accepting the support of the Taoiseach over derogatory comments made about him by another country's football association.

I think it brought it all into sharp focus.

Welcome to your weekly World Service Highlights.

Hey Murph.

Hey Eoin, how are you? It was Monday night the Israeli FA came out swinging at Hamer, calling him ignorant, hypocritical and stupid over his comments that the Irish football team is not playing with genocide, we are playing against genocide in these games against Israel.

By Tuesday, Neil Martin had come out and described what the Israeli FA had said as unacceptable remarks that should be withdrawn.

Then at Wednesday's press conference, Hal Grimson said he was grateful for the support while looking like a man who just desperately wants to get this international window over with.

so we cover all that on the world service this week we also wanted to get a broader view on these games against israel so we got in touch with elan pape elan's an israeli historian living in the uk working as a professor with the college of social sciences and international studies at the university of exeter he's best known for his books on the history of palestine in the middle east which challenged the official israeli version of history really interesting guy he's spoken in the past about the power of sporting sanctions in amongst all this And as, in fact, I argued that one thing that really frightens a lot of Israelis is if Israel was thrown out of international football.

We asked him on the podcast to expand on those thoughts.