Screenshot from a Lajee Center video thanking Celtic fans. The center is a Palestinian cultural organization in the Aida Refugee Camp.
The news comes as Celtic gear up to play in Israel on Tuesday night against Hapoel Be'er Sheva. Israeli authorities have promised to arrest and prosecute any actions involving Palestine solidarity. And in Scotland, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is mulling what consequences Celtic fans should face for showing solidarity with the "illicit" Palestinian emblem. The Green Brigade, the hardcore cadre of Celtic fans who raised the Palestinian flag, responded to the threat of sanctions with a call for donations for Palestinian medical aid and a refugee camp.
"In response to this petty and politically partisan act by European football's governing body, we are determined to make a positive contribution to the game and today launch a campaign to #matchthefineforpalestine. We aim to raise £75,000 which will be split equally between Medical Aid Palestine (MAP) and the Lajee Centre, a Palestinian cultural centre in Aida Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem. From our members' experiences as volunteers in Palestine we know the huge importance of both organisations' work and have developed close contacts with them," the group writes on its GoFundMe page, MatchTheFineforPalestine. The total the group is seeking to receive has since been raised to £110,000.
The Lajee Center, which provides extracurricular art activities for youth, posted a YouTube clip on Sunday thanking the Scots for their help.
"Celtic!" the children and young adults, some wearing Celtic jerseys, chant in unison in the video. "We all love Celtic!"
"Thank you Celtic, we appreciate all that you have done. Thank very much," one woman, wrapped in an Irish flag, tells the camera.
A Scottish-Palestinian activist group, Palestine Alliance, was behind the distribution of the flags, which flouted both Champions league regulations and Scottish law.
The head of Palestine Alliance, a Palestinian Scot named Dr. Issam Hijjawi, spoke with Mondoweiss about what the Celtic act of solidarity means to him. He said it was evidence of the deep solidarity between every level of Scottish society, from unions, to churches, to the Scottish National Party, and the cause of Palestinian rights. There are about 1,200 Scots of Palestinian origin, Hijjawi said.
It also shows a common determination to oppose the British brand of white supremacy, which Hijjawi said expresses itself in Israel as administrative detention of Palestinians like Bilal Kayed, as well as the British Empire's Balfour Declaration that promised to create a Zionist state in Palestine.
Dr. Issam Hijjawi of Palestine Alliance holds up a Scottish banner during a Skype interview with Mondoweiss.
Millions of Scots, like Palestinians, resent the colonial imprimatur that lets the Crown have final say over Scottish affairs, despite the semi-independent Scottish legislature at Holyrood. One major issue for Independence-backers is London's stowing in Scotland of submarines armed with nuclear warheads.
Hijjawi said that the link between Scottish and Palestinian groups has grown stronger in the wake of Brexit earlier this year and the close vote over Scotland leaving the UK in 2014 (Scotland voted to stay). He praised Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for telling minority groups, like Palestinians and Poles, in Scotland that they would be safe despite simmering nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment in England.
Hijjawi said that Celtic solidarity with Palestine isn't just a gimmick, but rather deep rooted in Scottish society, part of the "common cause" of standing up to the withered Empire emeritus.
"The Scots are much friendlier than the English. They are more social. We feel at home here because of the pro-Palestinian atmosphere," he said, remarking that Scots also flew the Palestinian flag during Israel's 2014 assault on Gaza, which claimed over 2,000 lives, including at least 500 children.
Support for Palestine is strong among fans of the Celtic team in heavily Catholic Glasgow, and that sentiment has long had an corollary in Irish Republicanism across the Irish sea in Belfast and Derry. But similar sympathies exist among progressive Protestant Scots as well. The Church of Scotland has championed cause of Palestinian rights and has supported the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. An American branch of the church, the Presbyterian Church USA, also in 2014 moved to divest from companies that aid in Israel's military occupation.
But the Church of Scotland has made an even stronger stance against Zionism itself, especially Christian justifications for Zionism. A 2013 document entitled "The Inheritance of Abraham? A report on the 'promised land'" shows how the Scottish Church interprets the Holy Land as a matter of analogy, not an ironclad justification for inhumanity.
"Christians should not be supporting any claims by Jewish or any other people, to an exclusive or even privileged divine right to possess particular territory. It is a misuse of the Bible to use it as a topographic guide to settle contemporary conflicts over land. In the Bible, God's promises extend in hope to all land and people. Focused as they are on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, these promises call for a commitment in every place to justice in a spirit of reconciliation," the text reads.
Another Church of Scotland pamphlet describes the denomination's involvement in Palestinian affairs as a Christian imperative to promote the dignity of human beings. The pamphlet, called "Peace and Justice in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory," also mentioning Kairos Palestine, a 2009 declaration by Palestinian Christian groups to end the occupation.
"Christians have a calling to stand on the side of the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalised, and to warn against oppression," the pamphlet reads. "In Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, we are asked to stand in solidarity with our fellow Christians and all those who are oppressed. The presence and experience of the Church of Scotland in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, added to the call of the rest of the Christian community, has made this international issue a major focus for the Church's General Assembly in recent years. Kairos Palestine says: 'The mission of the Church is prophetic, to speak the Word of God courageously, honestly and lovingly in the local context...Our vocation as a living Church is to bear witness to the goodness of God and the dignity of human beings.'"
While Scots seem to have no trouble using the word "occupation" in their description of the plight of Palestinians, the term is toxic to some Americans, especially politicians who'd rather not pop their heads up on the issue.
Hijjawi hopes that Americans will learn to mimic the Scottish spirit of courage on behalf of justice for Palestine. At the very least, Hijjawi hopes Americans, billions of whose tax dollars go to aiding the Israeli military, will learn more about the subject and come to their own conclusions.
"We hope that the American public will start to check the facts of what is happening in Palestine, and take the Scottish attitude, as some sort of inspiration and to learn from it and to not be afraid of the terrorists. That's what I call them, the terrorist campaign against people voicing their opinion against what's happening to the Palestinians," Hijjawi told Mondoweiss. "My appeal to the American people is to be brave as the Scots have proved to be brave."
Screenshot from Lajee Center video thanking Celtic fans.
Comment: Lots of people shared this video of supporters of Scottish premier league football club Celtic waving Palestinian flags before a match with an Israeli team. The supporters were asked not to show support for Palestine, and took that as a good reason to do so, along with the obvious reasons to do so.
But what a lot of people perhaps don't understand is that Celtic football club was founded by and for Irish immigrants in Scotland and has always had strong links with the Irish struggle for independence, especially over the last 40 years in Northern Ireland.
The natural affinity between those who have struggled for Irish independence and those who struggle for Palestinian independence is obvious. To illustrate the division, we need only look at both Celtic's 'enemy' in Scotland - Rangers football club - and the enemies of the struggle for Irish independence - the Pro-British Protestant ascendancy in Northern Ireland, both of whom are wont to raise the Israeli flag (as bizarre as that may seem) when caught up in a fit of imperial right-wing fervor.
Historically, the alliances between Irish nationalists and Palestinian resistance on the one hand, and die-hard supporters of British imperial injustice and Israel on the other, are the product of the decision by British governments in the early 20th century to promise, in perpetuo, Palestinian land to Jews and Irish catholic land to Protestant settlers.