Footballer arrested by Turkey after showing support for Israel
An Israeli footballer was briefly detained by Turkish authorities and suspended by his club after showing a message of support for Israel during a match on Sunday.
The player, Sagiv Jehezkel, a 28-year-old winger for top club Antalyaspor, made the message heard after scoring the equalizer in a match.
To celebrate, Mr. Jehezkel jogged to the corner of the field, where photographers were standing, and pointed to a message on a band on his left wrist. The message, handwritten in black marker, included a six-pointed Star of David and “100 days, 7:10” – a reference to the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
His gesture quickly spread on social media, sparking online outrage among fans and even his club's president, who called his action “propaganda.” a series of messages on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Turkish prosecutors arrested Mr. Jehezkel after the match for “inciting hatred and enmity among the crowd.” He was released on Monday, Turkish broadcasters reported, and was expected to return to Israel later in the day.
Mr. Jehezkel said in his statement to prosecutors that his message was a call for an end to the war, according to Turkish news media.
On Sunday, Antalyaspor president Sinan Boztepe said the club's board had suspended Mr Jehezkel from the team. In a rackaccused the club that Mr Jehezkel had “insulted the values of Turkey.” Team officials also said they would seek to terminate the three-year contract that Mr Jehezkel signed when he joined Antalyaspor in September. The Turkish Football Federation also said this was the case disciplinary procedure initiated against him.
Off the pitch, the company that sponsors Antalyaspor's jerseys declared it would withdraw support if the club did not take action against Mr Jehezkel, and a small group of fans gathered outside Antalyaspor's facilities in the southern province of Antalya on Sunday evening and chanted for his expulsion from the city, calling him a “Zionist dog .”
In a separate incident, another top flight club, Basaksehir, initiated disciplinary proceedings against an Israeli player, Eden Karzev, after he shared a post on Instagram calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza.
Turkish society is generally sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but support for Hamas is limited, according to a recent poll. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly expressed his support for Hamas since the start of the war, saying it is not a terrorist organization but a group of 'mujahedeen' fighting to liberate their countryand he has sharply criticized both Israel and the Western countries that support it.