This statement is also available in Hebrew and German.
Imagine it’s the cup final: the head of your country’s police is standing right next to your section, ordering the arrest of fans with a simple hand gesture – fans who were merely suspected of insulting his colleagues in a relatively harmless way (“You Zero”). Meanwhile, the Minister for National Security is standing on the rival team’s stand, smiling blissfully into the camera. What followed after the game was rampant police violence against people of all ages and genders, as well as insults from officers, which took on a sexualised note in case of female fans.
Conditions like these are what fans across Europe have been protesting, more or less successfully, for years – most recently in Germany during the Conference of Interior Ministers – and are currently the order of the day in Israel.
In early December, even a T-shirt was enough as a pretext to trigger mass arrests, house raids, and detentions of mostly very young fans. The shirt displayed three crossed-out symbols labeled “Scum”: those of the police, the city rival, and “Kahane Chai,” a far-right organization that is banned even by the state itself. This was followed by pre-trial detention and convictions based on highly questionable evidence and without due legal process — the list goes on, and the details are harrowing.
Ultras Hapoel are members of Alerta and are antifascist, left-wing supporters of the workers’ club Hapoel Tel Aviv. It is precisely because of the latter that they are subjected to repression by the fascist and racist Israeli government. Football stadiums in Israel are no longer a democratic space with freedom of expression — they have become a place where the Israel Police sets its own rules and acts as judge, legislator, and enforcer. We express our full solidarity with Ultras Hapoel and stand by their side.
Alerta Network, December 2025