The Barnet Football Club, based in a heavily Jewish neighborhood of North West London, on Saturday pulled out of a fundraising effort for Amnesty International following a backlash by fans.
Barnet F.C. announced the decision in a statement during a match Saturday where the collection was supposed to take place, saying that “given the large number of comments made towards this collection,” the club has “decided not to proceed in order to avoid any political stance that could cause offence to any supporters or discomfort to those in attendance at The Hive Stadium.”
Representatives of Amnesty International, which recently said that Israel was perpetrating a “genocide” against Palestinians, planned to go around the spectators and collect money at the stadium, where Barnet won against Maidenhead United 3:0.
Barnet’s earlier announcement that it would participate in the donations drive caused an uproar on social media, the Jewish News of London reported.
One fan, Jim Kavanagh, tweeted, “While I have sympathy with what’s going on in Palestine, Amnesty’s view is so enormously one-sided that this will be a huge insult to Jewish Barnet fans (of which there are many). Please cancel this.”
Joshua Jake, another fan, wrote, “56k Jews live in Barnet according to the latest census. I can’t imagine how disgusted they must feel by this decision.”
The genocide allegation by Amnesty International, which already in 2022 accused Israel of practicing apartheid, exposed the group to international criticism that it had betrayed its human rights mission to participate in Hamas’s propaganda push.
It also caused a rift within the movement, when the Israeli branch of Amnesty publicly disputed the parent group’s genocide allegation. The Israeli branch has been suspended for two years from acting as a representative of the parent group, the main office of Amnesty International said.
Israel has squarely rejected the allegations. It also stripped Amnesty International and its Israeli branch, which is legally an independent association, of any tax benefits for its support for boycotting Israel, tax officially said last week.
