Nir Bitton

No doubt there would, but when you sit back and read bits and bobs about bitons past, like I've been doing on here, then it's only common sense given his background to see where his loyalties will be..

You know what, i was just thinking this earlier but he must hate looking and seeing our away sections covered in Palestine flags and our support in full support of the Palestine people and totally against the Israelis.. He must do, don't you think?
It probably has triggered his opinions coming out so publicly, i think..

 

The whole area is Palestine, not just Gaza and the West Bank. You have to think about what it means to "recognise Israel's right to exist". Hamas are what they are because of oppression. Do you think people would vote for Hamas if they hadn't been * over for years when trying to find peaceful solutions. Israel and Washington have no intention of giving any peaceful solution, they only ever intend to impose heir will through violence and, lo and behold violent groups like Hamas get voted into government by desperate people. Remove the violent oppression and you remove the violent response.

 

It really has nothing to do with helping the people of Palestine and more voicing our disgust and opposition to the actions of the Zionists.

If Biton wishes to support such an organisation, then that's up to him. In much the same way as I'm sure we have footballers in the UK who are against gay marriage, homophobic and racist.

If they keep such feelings private they'll have no problems, but if they posted them on social media they would have to deal with the repercussions, and rightly so.

Biton is in the same boat.

 

Well, if he'd visited Celtic Park for a few games before he signed, done some research online and suchlike he'd have known exactly what kind of club he was signing for.

If not, then that's his own fault.

 

Their soldiers do get killed, though. It's still understandable that Biton feels concern for the wellbeing of his loved ones. Hopefully you know me well enough to know that I am not arguing for a moral equality between a desperate people fighting for survival and a high-tech, modern, US funded army involved in both maintaining an apartheid state and state terrorism. I'm just saying Biton won't see it that way and Israeli soldiers do sometimes get killed.

 

Do you think if he did, he'd have signed for us?

 

There's a big difference here and that is that (at least in the west) we have more than ample opportunity to see why racism and homophobia are evil. What if you were brought up in a homophobic family, in a homophobic country, exposed to constant homophobic propaganda in the media and protected from ever learning about the suffering caused by it, all of your friends were homophobic, you yourself spent a year in the army risking your life in the homophobic cause and now your loved ones were doing the same. How many of us would be able to break out of that bubble and see the truth? I'm not that confident that I would, anyway. Maybe you are stronger than me.

It's still wrong, absolutely, but it's understandable and not deserving of abuse IMO. We shouldn't pretend to like it, we should even make it clear that most of our support strongly disapprove, but abuse achieves nothing.

 

I have just seen Nir's tweets

What a sick, twisted scumbag this lad is..
I would be ashamed and disgusted if a player like this ever played for my own club, it was bad enough that he once served in the IDF, which i gave him leeway for over time.

I would like to think that no Celtic fan will ever support this player again, why does he not * off to the huns? There supporters seem to have a love in with the Israel these days.

 

Also I worry that one of our players recieving abuse over a political issue will have repercussions for the GB getting their section back. The abuse has, I assume, nothing to do with them; but when did that ever stop our board?

 

Maybe it would have been better if he hadn't signed for us then.

 

There're a couple of players who I'd be happy never to see pull on the hoops again.

 

Possibly. Shame as he's a good young player.

 

zionism is evil anyone who supports these * are evil or too * stupid to know any different. the sooner the rest of the world stands up to these * and americas veto of any action against these * the better

 

*sigh* He could have been a 1st team regular.

Now he's a *.

Can we get#FuckOffNir trending?

 

I can name a few myself.:smiley-laughing002:

 

I think it's blatantly obvious that the feelings of a fair chunk of the Celtic support don't fit with his beliefs.

If he'd done his research he'd have known this.

Now, I'm not saying he shouldn't have those beliefs, but he should have known at the time when he signed that in order to come to Celtic, make good money and play at a Champions League level he'd have to be prepared to keep certain views of his own private.

If he's not prepared to do that then he'll have to be prepared to face the criticism.

 

Or better if the club hadn't signed him ?

 

That is fair enough..

How many youngsters do that though, I'd say a majority of young footballers either know who they are going to or leave it to agents, who fill them in after..

 

Disgusting

 

It raises an interesting question, though, doesn't it? I mean look at those Nike swishes on CP: that's a company that was accused of knowingly subcontracting work to companies using sweatshop labour in deceloping countries (remember why we were founded!). What about our refusal to pay staff a living wage? Remember when we had John Reid on our board?
Does having players with views like Biton and Griffiths really make that big a difference anymore?

To what extent does Celtic even exist anymore?

I would suggest that the real Celtic is now to be found only in things like the GB food drives and anti-discrimination tournaments and in the charities we are involved in.