At the Rondebosch Golf Club, the gardener tells me there is a problem with the water hazard on the course: The level is low and the water is not very clean. But other than that, everything is fine. On a hot workday morning, the spectacular course is bustling with beautiful women and men in sport-elegant attire. And there is also some old fashion- world: Women pay 25% less. Welcome to one of the 13 golf courses serving Cape Town.

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Some 6 miles from Rondebosch Golf Club lies Barcelona. A few years ago it had about 6,000 residents. Since then it has grown. This Barcelona has no Gaudi buildings or a famous football team. It is called by the euphemistic name "informal settlement." A cluster of shacks where economic refugees who had been drawn to the city live. There are 437 such settlements around the city.

Along the way from formal Cape Town to informal Cape Town you can see hundreds of people walking. That's the main visual difference between apartheid South Africa, which I visited in my childhood, and the present one. The grandeur and luxury, the mansions and golf courses, remained. What was added was the masses of people walking along the roads.

Do they walk because they have work, or because they don't? Unclear. According to the data, 25% of Barcelona's residents have no income at all. More than 90% of families survive on less than $200 a month. And there's also a water story to be told. Various reports show that in Barcelona there is less than one faucet for every 20 families. Most of the residents had never known life in a developed city and brought their farm animals with them, goats and chickens. And the animals also need to drink from the few faucets.

"Cry, the Beloved Country," is the name of the classic on life in South Africa published by Alan Paton in 1948. One of the iconic sentences in the book deals with arrogance and water: 

"Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire." There is a small lake on the golf course, but there is one faucet for every 20 families. And the country's government, a greedy kleptocracy that has imaginarily enriched itself in 30 years of rule, is the one that goes out to war for justice far away at The Hague. It's not surprising. Between the 2001 Durban conference, which was a painful blow to Israel, and The Hague 2024, the South African government has become the world's leader in the anti-Israel camp. How did this happen?

The South African solution

Not far from the Rondebosch club and the dwellings of Barcelona, ​​I meet Terry Crawford-Browne, one of the first to protest the outrageous corruption. Already in the 1990s, during the euphoria of Nelson Mandela's presidency, he warned that money intended for education was being stolen and that South Africa was dirtying its hands in the arms industry. His voice mattered a lot: As an international banker, he played a significant role in bringing down the apartheid regime when he was one of the initiators of the banking boycott on South Africa.

He got his sensitivity to human suffering, he says, in his childhood. He was born in the British protectorate area of ​​Tripoli, Libya, and remembers the mob burning down the synagogues of the Jews as they fled for their lives in 1948. He also hates the State of Israel. Crawford-Browne is one of the most important BDS spokesmen in South Africa, and that's a problem for Israel. Because, unlike the current government, he is not corrupt. He knows Israel and has visited it twice as an observer at checkpoints and in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem. I ask him if he witnessed unusually cruel behavior by soldiers. He replies that the soldiers are mostly frightened.

He says the attacks on Jews that he witnessed in his childhood can be attributed to Zionist agents who wanted to bring Arab Jews to the land so that they would serve as cheap labor and cannon fodder in wars. He sees Israeli or Jewish involvement in keeping the corrupt Arab rulers in power, and even in the civil wars in Congo.

He accepts the figure of 1,400-1,200 Israeli casualties on October 7 but attributes a large part of them to the "Hannibal Protocol" in which the IDF is tasked with firing on kidnappers even at the risk of hurting the captives.

When I ask him about the raped women, he says, "I haven't seen evidence of that. It's like that ridiculous story of beheading babies, which is a complete fabrication." I note that Hamas uploaded videos to the networks in which women are led through the streets. To that he responds with a question: "Were they innocent civilians or soldiers?" If he is disgusted by the massacre, it is because he is a pacifist.

He initiated the banking boycott on South Africa "as a last resort before violence." That is the move he would like to see against Israel: freezing money transfers with the IL prefix in the global SWIFT system.

The only place where he shows any moderation is the solution. He advocates a one-state solution. By the way, this is common to both haters and lovers of Israel, simply because it was the solution here. "What will you do with 800,000 settlers in the West Bank? How will you move them?" he asks surprisingly.

I ask him if the war might not kill the idea of a single state. Israelis will not agree to a population transfer from Gaza, and perhaps by default, Gaza will get a seaport or other gateway to the world. He thinks the opposite: "Nothing is left in Gaza. 2 million people will now migrate into Israel."

Israel will never agree to that. Not only Netanyahu, but Israeli society as well, I tell him. 

"Then there will be starvation and international pressure will prevail."

Q: Won't the international community simply deal with it through aid?

"Maybe the Americans. But this war is the end of the American empire. They have an election between a madman and a war criminal. Gaza will be for the US what Suez was for Britain."

Israel channels anti-globalist hopes onto itself even from bankers.

Westside FM's broadcaster Bafana Modise explains to me how pro-Palestinian preaching works at local universities. He himself studied public administration in Krugersdorp near Johannesburg and became president of the student union.

"I started organizing protests and marches to protest the economic conditions," he recalls, "and then representatives of the ANC student organization approached me. They said they would help me get messages to the right places. So I joined them. We started going through seminars on communism and Marxism. Che Guevara, Samora Machel (leader of neighboring Mozambique; ed.). I started speaking that language. Even my accent changed. I sounded like a Chinese revolutionary. And then suddenly a new narrative appeared: Palestine. We are taught that their struggle is our struggle. That our struggle will not be complete until we bring freedom to Palestine. We started demonstrating over that too. 'From the river to the sea' and all that."

He is 30 today, and in addition to his popularity as a media personality, he is also a member of the South Africa Friends of Israel. "They do it in a very clever way. They link things. They say that people came to Africa from Europe. Took the land and robbed the locals of their freedom. They let you make the connections yourself. They link different events in the history of the anti-apartheid struggle to the history of the Palestinians. If the Israeli army shoots at protesters they compare it to the Sharpeville massacre. They ostensibly are only anti-Zionist, but very quickly it comes down to Jewish money."

Modise is not a blind supporter of Israel. For example, he is critical of house demolitions. He thinks the number of casualties in the current confrontation is a tragedy that will only breed more hatred.

I ask him if he was angry at Israel, which during the Rabin and first Peres administrations supported the apartheid regime. "Yes I'm angry," he replies. "People from previous generations died from weapons that Israel supplied – but to blame Israel? Israel traded with colonialism, other countries were actual conquerors. How can you blame Israel and not Britain? France? Belgium?"

A movement that betrayed its values

Modise makes me suddenly understand an important component in South Africa's official obsession with the Palestinians. The ANC (African National Congress), South Africa's ruling party, was a liberation movement that largely betrayed its ideas. Led by Mandela, it brought democracy and took power, but gave up on an economic revolution in favor of moves of affirmative action in the civil service and "black economic empowerment."

While Mandela prevented civil war and brought stability and growth in the post-apartheid years, "black economic empowerment" was actually a cover for top government officials to grab shares in major companies, fill their pockets, and appoint their cronies to positions. The Palestinian flag it waves is largely a return to the role of a romantic liberation movement, instead of the failing and corrupt government it has become.

The link between local tensions and the Palestinian issue is also evident in Bo-Kaap, a vibrant and exciting area of ​​Cape Town. During apartheid, the neighborhood was the "ghetto" of the Malays, Muslims mostly of Asian descent. Right after apartheid, it became popular. Among the Muslim shops, galleries, and cafes quickly appeared. Quite a bit of resemblance to London's Bethnal Green or Harlem in Manhattan, and even Jaffa.

"The original residents feel they are not wanted," says Sharon, a native who conducts private tours for tourists, "so they identify with what is happening in Palestine." How do you see this identification? In an unusual burst of creative energy. On dozens of houses, there are colorful pro-Palestinian murals. Some of them, it must be said, are magnificent. In the main street, at least, they remain "pro-Palestinian." You will not find swastikas, Star of Davids, or signs of hatred towards Jews.

But you shouldn't let the main street confuse you. The Herzlia Jewish-Zionist school canceled uniforms for a while out of fear of violence against students. Government and BDS spokespeople describe the school as an IDF training site, and this is in a country where "IDF soldier" is a synonym for baby killer, that some call to put on trial, or even revoke their citizenship. "They talk in numbers that even if every graduate of ours made Aliyah and enlisted, we wouldn't come close to them," Daniel Bloch, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the city, tells me.

The fruit and the root

Reverend Kenneth Meshoe is probably the most consistent supporter of Israel in parliament. His party is small, but his personal influence is probably greater. He was one of the fighters against defining South Africa as a secular state in the constitution and succeeded in preventing it. Once, Mandela gave a speech in parliament and asked MPs to set an example of proper behavior. Meshoe stood up and told the legendary president that he lived in sin. After being released from prison, Mandela divorced his wife, Winnie, and lived out of wedlock with Graça Machel, the widow of Mozambique's president. Parliament fell silent.

"He accepted my words and married her," he laughs.

He meets me at his office in Alberton, not far from the airport. Jews of modest economic status once lived here. I tell him that my family members, who lived in South Africa after the war, always described the Malays as moderate people. "That's very true, but after independence, Mandela brought Arafat here. He told people that he had helped us with weapons during the struggle. Arafat took advantage of this and started coming here frequently and speaking to Muslims. And they became extremists."

And so, as the ruling party collapsed in national and local election polls – it began targeting the Cape, which is ruled relatively successfully by the Democratic Alliance. And that is one of the few areas in the country where the Muslim voice – less than 2% of South Africa's population – can be decisive.

His support for Israel is religiously motivated. "A Christian who does not love Jews is a hypocrite. You can't love the fruit and not the root," he says. He rejects apartheid rhetoric outright and was even in Israel on a delegation to investigate the matter. "I saw in hospitals Jews and Arabs and Muslims together. It's not apartheid." He also gives an example that demonstrates his grasp of what is happening in Israel: "When your president (Moshe Katsav) was put on trial, the judge, among others, was an Arab judge. That cannot happen under apartheid."

With all the love for Israel, his solution, in the end, is South African: one state from the river to the sea, and everyone has the right to vote. To a large extent, a similar solution to that proposed by Zionist-hater Crawford-Browne. Meshoe gets quite a few threats for his support of Israel, but he is not bothered. It's been like that for 20 years. "I refuse to live in fear," he says.

While waiting for the meeting, I talk to some of his office staff and ask them if it is difficult to be part of the pro-Israel minority. One of the assistants almost rebukes me for this and reminds me of the biblical story of Gideon. "Gideon had 10,000 fighters, but he sent the fainthearted away and was left with 300 brave fighters. We are Gideon's men," he tells me. Gideon is alive and breathing here.

What sound does apartheid make?

Avi, who ran the Herzlia High School, studied at the University of the Wits University in Johannesburg. Like many Jewish students, he attended lectures by a young, intriguing black leader named Nelson Mandela. It is an excellent university that has produced four Nobel laureates – Nadine Gordimer for literature; Aaron Klug for chemistry; and Sydney Brenner in physiology. Outside the university is a long line of young people standing in line. Today is registration day. All students in line are black. They come in person because of limited access to the internet, or to consult on financial aid programs.

Klaas Mokgomole, a law school graduate, works a lot at the university as community relations manager for the South African Zionist Federation. "The belief that education is still the only legitimate way out of poverty is still fervent here," he says, introducing me to a friend, a cop who is bringing his 18-year-old daughter who wants to study astrophysics. Make no mistake: The end of apartheid did change millions of lives so that people could live with human dignity and realize their dreams.

But Mokgomole does not sugarcoat reality. He shows me heartbreaking photos of homeless students. They sleep in libraries. Others go to sleep hungry. The BDS movement is also thriving here, and he himself was active in it, which almost cost him degree eligibility. "The Israeli embassy organized a recital, and my friends and I rioted and I even damaged the piano. They wanted to suspend me.

"I came from a poor family and almost lost my degree – all because of things I heard from some BDS activists. So I decided to read about Israel myself. I read writings by Jews across the spectrum: from Noam Chomsky to Alan Dershowitz. I also traveled to Israel and formed my own views."

He works for the Zionist Federation, even though he is still a member of the ANC. "The anti-Israel stuff is in the corridors of power. At the grassroots level in South Africa, we hardly talk about it," he explains how he reconciles the two.

He is also critical of his employers and feels that sometimes he fights Israel's war with one hand tied behind his back. "They hide a lot of Jewish activity. Jewish organizations send food packages to students without indicating they come from a Jewish organization. There are students here studying on Jewish scholarships demonstrating 'from the river to the sea.' And then suddenly we're organizing an olive tree planting ceremony here for peace. It seems disconnected."

Mokgomole, like Modise, believes Israel has not yet lost the war on campuses here. The two point out a very important reason why it is important for Israel to win in South Africa: to fight over the meaning of the term "apartheid." Hatred of Israel converges around a term that was actually the election slogan of a white party that took power in 1947. Therefore, it is important for them that a message comes out of South Africa in particular that there is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict with its own characteristics – but it is not apartheid.

A bullet for every Zionist bore

I catch the broadcast of the International Court of Justice's decision in the winegrowing village north of Cape Town. The event does not interest anyone here. Here Israel does not need to win any propaganda war. This is the homeland of the Afrikaners, who are sometimes called "Boers." Descendants of Dutch and French refugees persecuted Huguenots and Calvinists in Europe. Their love for Israel is rooted in the past and present. They draw a parallel between the tribulations they endured in their wanderings from Europe to Africa and the Boer War and the persecution of the Jews. And a practical matter: The area is thriving with spectacular desert agriculture, with an abundance of Israeli technologies.

They are still threatened. Julius Malema's populist EFF party, with its charismatic leadership, a Marxist antisemite who calls to arm Hamas. As for local politics, he talks about confiscating land without compensation. Even Crawford-Browne is appalled by the idea. "What will we eat if the Afrikaners are dispossessed?". The old slogan "One Boer – one bullet" got a new iteration in the form of "One Zionist – one bullet."

The Afrikaners are identified more than any with apartheid because they created it. On the other hand, they are probably more committed to the country than other whites. Black residential areas also sprouted up near their cities after apartheid, and they are in much better shape compared to other black communities – they may not be the stunning colonial estates of the winery owners, but simple housing structures with gardens. Their children also march long distances in the sun but in a nice uniform. What is a bit funny is to see black South Africans blending Xhosa, the "click language", with Afrikaans, which is basically an ancient Flemish dialect.

"God will punish South Africa for turning its back on the people of Israel," says Anton Alberts, one of the Afrikaner leaders in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. This is their uncompromising theological stance. But from here he moves on to the practical implications. I ask him about the situation where the ANC would fall below 50% support levels and opt to form a coalition with the extremist Malema. Bad for Israel and bad for Afrikaners. He believes the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, would turn to major Opposition parties rather than the EFF, as they are mainly engaged in provocations.

In any case, he suggests that Israelis take an interest in local politics: "Our constitution allows districts to pursue independent foreign-economic policies. I believe we are close to taking Gauteng (the Johannesburg area and the mines; R"D). If we take it and already have the Cape (in a coalition with the 'Democratic Alliance'), we will control the country's economy. There will be no boycott on Israel, and we will pursue a friendly policy towards all our natural trade partners. Israel is a very beloved partner for us."

In the name of the father

Helen Maisels shows me an original copy of a rare photo. We are at her home in an upscale neighborhood near Johannesburg's cricket stadium. Stunning gardens surrounded by sophisticated barbed wires. The photo shows the leaders of the ANC, the fathers of the nation, including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, carrying the president of the South African Zionist Federation out of the Pretoria synagogue on their shoulders.

This man was her father, Israel "Isie" Maisels, a legendary lawyer who was the lead counsel in Mandela and his men's 1956-1961 treason trial. They were acquitted of charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. A few years later he was tried again for high treason, this time convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, from which he was released after 27 years to lead the country. Without Maisels, Mandela might have reached jail half a decade earlier. The liberation movement might not have survived. Mandela named one of the groups of the Johannesburg Bar in honor of Maisels. At his funeral in the Jewish cemetery, Maisels' coffin was draped in the ANC flag.

The trial itself, by the way, took place in a Pretoria synagogue. The building was not in use, and the trial required a large hall. "Somewhat ironic for today's South Africa," I suggest.

"Thank you very much," she answers sarcastically. "Naledi Pandor, our foreign minister, who is an outspoken anti-Zionist, her father was among the accused. He owed his freedom to my father."

Q: Do you feel betrayed by how South Africa has acted toward Israel?

"Absolute disgrace."

Her father was often called the "King of the Jews" in South Africa. He headed every major Jewish organization and was on the Jewish Agency's board. Revered by the ANC, he was respected by the white government as well. And so Helen got a front-row seat to history. Mandela and Sisulu, David Ben-Gurion, and Yitzhak Rabin – they were all guests at their home. Golda Meir was a good friend of her parents.

Q: Was Mandela a nice guy?

"Yes very much. Winnie was also very beautiful and a very nice woman. But then she was brutally attacked by the regime and became a monster herself. She 'killed that boy'." She refers to Winnie Mandela's murder charge at the end of apartheid.

She also saw the development of the ANC's relations with Jews and Zionists after the end of apartheid from up close. "When Mandela got out of jail, he called my dad and said, 'I understand the community is angry with me because we took weapons from the PLO.' 'You took weapons from whoever you could. I understand,' he replied. He was always practical, and set up a meeting between him and the Jewish community."

The advice to Mandela, by the way, resembled his advice to Israel. Rabin asked Isie if Israel should enter into an arms deal with the apartheid regime. His answer was: "You don't abandon friends".

She has something to offer Israel. "In the Hague context, when Mandela and Sisulu came to my father, he told them: 'If we conduct the trial emotionally – we'll lose, and you'll all go to jail. If I conduct the trial on points of law – we have a chance. And they agreed."

She feels a deep disgust also from some prominent Jewish anti-apartheid opponents. One of them is Ronnie Kasrils, who even served as South Africa's intelligence minister. He praised Hamas's operational conduct on Oct. 7 and denied that there were rape and baby killings. He believes uniformed personnel are legitimate targets.

"He's an idiot," she says. "He caused the deaths of dozens of people during an idiotic invasion of Transkei he organized during the anti-apartheid struggle. Many Jews who opposed apartheid renounced their Judaism. My father used to tell them, 'Where do you think the identification with the weak comes from? From where does the social sensitivity come from, if not from the pogroms we went through in Lithuania?'"

Q: As long as Mandela was alive, relations with the Jews were fine.

"Yes. Everything became chaotic during President Jacob Zuma's tenure."

Q: There were so many Jews in the struggle against apartheid. Why did they abandon us?

"My father had to fight to include Helen Suzman in the Apartheid Museum [Suzman was a lone parliamentarian in the anti-apartheid camp]. She no longer suits them now because she was a liberal white. Even when it comes to Joe Slovo (a Jewish communist leader), the brightest of the Jews who fought against the regime, they are trying to erase his memory. This is the new fascism. The fascism of the woke. They want to erase all the Jewish help they got from history."

South Africa's problems are its own, but it seems here is exactly where the Palestinian issue comes into play. Israel is not struggling here against a hostile public. There is no troubling European-style antisemitism here. It is fighting against the ANC: What was once a courageous liberation movement had become a rotten government that betrayed its people and adopted the Palestinian struggle as a substitute.

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PARIS (December 18, 2022) —

The atmosphere at Saint-Denis north of Paris is exhilarating. The afternoon of the World Cup final. Hmmm … but not exactly what you were expecting. No flags on the houses and no honking in the streets. They are just playing soccer. Dozens of soccer fields full of amateur players, teams of boys, even girls. I almost rubbed my eyes in astonishment before the opening of the final, when the referee whistled to open the girls' game. "Each half is only twenty minutes. We'll get home shortly after the opening of the game," says one of the fathers.

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The French indifference was apparent everywhere. The best soccer player in the world for 2022, Karim Benzema, tweeted that he doesn't care about what is happening in Qatar. Without a spot of patriotism, the most famous sports magazine in the world, L'Equipe, split its front cover between Messi and Mbappé, even though it must be noted that they might not have any spirit of patriotism, but good journalistic senses, they most definitely do have!!

The viewing event for local fans failed. "Poor publicity," says one usher. "You can't start only with the final game," explains another. All that remains is to see whether the indifference has infected the national team, or the national team has infected the public.

It was 2-0 Argentina in the first half. But just then the plot takes an unusual emotional turn. The TV broadcast showed the French exchanges that brought about the change, but here we noticed something else. Five players who got up off the bench were Parisians – Koeman, Muani, Konaté, Disasi and Fofana – and for the spectators in Saint-Denis, who grew up within a radius of no more than a few miles from here, these are people who look and talk and feel like them. This is the second generation of France in every possible sense: Almost all the spectators here come from Africa. Northern Africa, or the areas south of the Sahara.

And they turned the game around. And the legend of Mbappé developed before our eyes. He was compared to Pele, Zidane, Vavá and Breitner as scoring the goals in two finals. He was compared to Pele and English Hearst, as the scorer of a triple goal. And then he surpassed all soccer players in scoring the number of goals at a World Cup Final. I never saw Raimundo Orsi's wonderful goal for Italy in 1934, but from what was broadcast on television, Mbappé's 2-2 goal was the most beautiful ever scored in a final. And he will soon be 24.

What has passed in the meantime are the assumptions of soccer fans that a soccer player has to win either way to be a winner or a loser. Every player – whether Argentinean or French – who was on the field, can forever walk down the street and say that he played in the World Cup Final of 2022. Messi shows us why he is one of the greatest in history. Mbappé shows us time and time again why he will also be one.

The second half, ending in 3-3, is the most important and this teaches us a lesson. Vive la France. Viva la Argentina. Long live soccer!

After the extra time, France loses on penalty kicks. The crowds fold up their flags. France is no more the world cup soccer champions, but they won something that is much greater than the cup. The love of their people. The French will no longer show indifference to their wonderful team.

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"WON LOVE" said a headline by the British tabloid The Sun after Bukayo Saka led the national team to a 2:6 victory against Iran, in a clever play on words of the One Love armbands in support of Qatar's queer community that were banned at the World Cup. 

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But The Sun, in a rare show of journalistic wisdom, also remembered that there was no need to look as far as Qatar when it comes to rights abuses. 

You see, Saka was subjected to horrific racist attacks on social media when he missed the opponent's penalty kick at the 2020 European Championship in a game against Italy and has since had to deal with chants of "You let your country down" from the stands. 

Three more black players scored goals that day: Marcus Rashford, whom the public loves thanks to his campaign for hungry children during the coronavirus pandemic and Jude Bellingham, who might lead the team to victory one day, on the one hand, and Raheem Sterling, who is often disliked in the press for criticizing the gap in the coverage between black and white stars, on the other. 

Compare this to France, where football fans adore Kylian Mbappé, who did not disappoint when scored the most spectacular goal against Australia and utterly destroyed the team's defense. When Viv Anderson became Britan's first black player in November 1978, it happened a few months after Guadeloupe-born Marius Trésorbecame France's first black captain at the World Cup. There have been blacks in the French national team since 1938 when "Black Pearl" Larbi Benbarek joined. 

Football is very measurable. Within the past four decades, when England was just beginning to integrate black players, for France, it was commonplace – it won two tournaments and the European championships. Its football stars have always been the symbol of French integration – Just Fontaine and Raymond Kopa in the 50s, and since then Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Karim Benzema – and the list goes on and on. And now Mbappé, whose parents are from Guadeloupe and Martinique. Meanwhile, during the same period of time, England reached one European final, last year, and lost. 

Although this reasoning does not necessarily translate to life, as Britain is headed by a prime minister with a Hindu-African background, while France is about to be led by a far-Right anti-immigration party. 

I am watching the Britain-Iran match at a bar in West Finchley. Iranians, Brits, blacks, whites, Indians – we are all watching it together, and everyone agrees on one thing: that FIFA, Qatar, the Iranian government, the referee, and the VAR can all go to hell. 

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The British press on Monday felt the pressing need to deal more with the question of whether Harry Kane would pay a huge personal price for being a civil rights fighter, than with the statement by Iranian captain Ehsan Hajsafi on the situation in the Islamic republic.

It was reported that there was a chance that the England captain would receive a yellow card if he wore the captain's armband in the colors of pride in a (justified) protest against the position of homosexuals in Qatar. Hajsafi, by the way, previously refused the Association's order not to play against Maccabi Tel Aviv, but this is our world, where well-publicized gestures are given tremendous attention, and true courage, it seems, is not as interesting.

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Ballards Lane, Finchley, is a stronghold of Iranian exiles. The area, once heavily Jewish and Margaret Thatcher's constituency, has become home to thousands of Iranian emigres to London, and there is even an Iranian-speaking primary school on this street. This has brought about another surprising landmark – this is probably London's most interesting and best food street. Now Ballards Lane has also turned into a very political street. The stores are full of advertisements for fundraising, demonstrations, and donations for legal and humanitarian aid for a nation struggling with a government turning on its people. Incidentally, last Saturday, 22 Iranian women in Westminster demonstrated without head covering near the Iranian Embassy.

When I ask where a journalist can watch the game in a good atmosphere, Moodi recommends a pub called Annie's. There, I find out, that even after many years of living in England, and a woman named Sofia who is sending her grandchildren to an English-speaking kindergarten – they still support the ayatollah's regime on the pitch. "We are also ordinary people," they say. This is a very well-known phenomenon around the world, apparent in Israel as well – of people who support their countries of origin, even if they have a personal grievance against that country.

The pub is split between the pro-England and the pro-Iran camps and everyone is in very good spirits, and a surprise awaits your diligent journalist – more diligent journalists. Al Jazeera in English has sent a camera crew to document any Iranian outbursts of joy in the event of a sensational victory over the English. While the English fans are singing their national anthem, the Iranians in the pub decide to do what their players and fans in Qatar do – just show their support for the players, but not sing the national anthem. By the way, they also applauded any close-up picture of an Iranian woman.

The game goes wrong very quickly. The Iranian goalkeeper, Alireza Beiranvand, who in the last World Cup games stopped a penalty by none other than Cristiano Ronaldo and brought his country a sensational draw against Portugal, was hit in the head. After a long time, he is taken off the field injured, and the well-known professional footballers in the land of exile make the most of this situation to gain an overwhelming and undisputable 6:2 victory.

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If you were to go back in time and ask the average person in 1926 – just as a young princess who is not in the direct line to the throne was born in Mayfair, London – whether the monarchy would reach peak popularity some 100 years later, the man would think you are nuts. 

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After all, during that part of the 20th century other royal households were on their way down: The German kaiser died in the Netherlands after fleeing; the emperor of the Austria-Hungary Empire died in Madeira. Those two, as well as the last Russian Czar, are all buried in unmarked graves, and they are all related to the late Queen Elizabeth. 

Things could have gone the same way in England. When, in 1936, the prime minister essentially forced the king – her uncle – to abdicate, and her father became king, people did not expect the monarchy to last, figuring it was all but obsolete. The empire was already showing signs of falling. Even the stories of the British spirit of unity during the war have been embellished. For example, when the Queen Mother visited East End she residents hurled trash at her. This attitude changed when Buckingham Palace was hit by the Germans. 

So who needs a queen when there is no empire? Well, the princess-turned-queen who died in September 2022 may go down as the most popular monarch in history, and with a very robust monarchy. There are many reasons for that, but perhaps the most interesting thing is the way the Queen and the royals responded to the empire's disintegration and the subsequent influx of immigrants. 

That response started with how the UK handled its foreign relations. When the young queen visited Ghana in 1961, she danced at a special gala with the nation's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who was the father of African nationalism. She could not care less that he was African, and he might as well have been the king of Sweden or an Austrian duke. That foxtrot dance resonated all across the continent and made people view the British Commonwealth as a worthy and decent institution rather than an extension of the British Empire. 

While it is easy to think of that dance as another diplomatic gimmick on the part of UK diplomats, the fact of the matter is that within Britain the images of the dance were just as powerful. It happened during a period when a picture of a black man with a young white woman could trigger violence in many places in the UK. Even British football rarely had black players. The queen would occasionally discard protocol and embraced non-whites – from Nelson Mandela and  Pelé to various chieftains and ordinary folks – applying the same exact rules to every race. 

"To many Black Britons, the Queen could do no wrong," activist Patrick Vernon wrote in the Guardian this week. This was also how many Indian immigrants viewed her, in part because of Louis Mountbatten – her husband's uncle and the last viceroy of India – who took it upon himself to integrate displaced Indians into the UK. 

At her accession, she ruled 34 countries; at her death, she was only the head of state of 14. But in the process, she managed to create a whole new multi-ethnic empire in London, between Brixton and Brick Lane. 

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More than a decade ago I met Attila Mandi, a Jewish lawyer from Budapest, son of Gyula Mandi, coach of the Hungarian "miracle league" Harnicsek in the 1950s and the Israel national soccer team in the 1960s.

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Mandi the son told me the following story: When he played in the MTC. youth league, his father came to practice one day. The excitement from the national team coach's visit was immense. His father watched for about 20 minutes and then called his son aside: "You have a choice, either you stop playing soccer or you change your last name. No one named Mandi will play such a mediocre level of soccer." The son smiled proudly, while talking about his legendary father.

I published this story in an article that appeared in the Name of the Game magazine about the family – the father, son and mother were saved during the Holocaust by a football fan, who was a Hungarian Nazi. What can I tell you? Israeli readers were shocked by the father's attitude towards his child? Who does not support his son and tell him that he is the best in the world. This does not meet any standard of modern education. Hungarian Jews who hear the story laugh. They know all about this.

Whatever your opinion on raising children is – here are the statistics: after the last victorious Olympic Games, Israel has won three gold medals.

The Hungarian Jewish community – numbering about 600,000 before the Holocaust and 80,000 today – boasts more than 50 medals. For them, "the boy loves to loves to play ball" or a "European runner-up" is equal to a "failing" grade. Similarly, Hungarian Jews have been awarded more Nobel and Oscar prizes than the State of Israel. These are always the standards.

An exhibition launched a week ago near the National Stadium in Budapest focuses on this success. The exhibition, initiated and curated by Adi Rubinstein, also a sports reporter at Yisrael Hayom, includes about 15 top Jewish Hungarian and world athletes , along with Hungarian footballers – Istvan Pisont, Istvan Salloi and others – who greatly contributed to Israeli soccer in the 1990s. Rubinstein suggested to the Foreign Ministry and the Ambassador of Israel to Hungary, Yaakov Hadas, to hold this exhibition. The Embassy of Hungary in Israel said "yes."

Displayed in the exhibition, among others, are Agnes Keleti, winner of the Israel Prize and the Hungarian winner of most Olympic medals (10 in all, 5 gold), is obviously there. She also merited being present at the Olympic opening at the age of 101. Bela Guttmann, manager of the legendary Benfica. Lili Kronberger, a four-time world Hungarian figure skating champion. Alfred Hajos‏, the first Olympic champion swimmer – after whom dozens of streets, schools and swimming pools across Hungary are named.

But if you want to know something about the impact of Jewish-Hungarian sportmen – pay attention to who is not there: the best ever players of water polo in history – Gyorgy Karpati and Dezso Gyarmati. Jeno Fuchs, winner of four Olympic gold medals in fencing, or Roland-Garros champion Zsuzsa Körmöczy. The bar is set very high.

Some have introduced dramatic changes to sports around the world. Kronberger was the first to accompany her skating performance with music (she simply asked the orchestra what they were going to play). Guttmann and Mandi sent their defenders forward and brought the message of the 2-4-4 to the world. Eva Szekely "founded" the butterfly style – which, when she won the Olympic swim, was still permitted in the breaststroke heats.

Occasionally they are also part of the historical tragedy of Hungary and the Jews. When Attila‏ Petschauer, the popular fencer and favorite of many women in Budapest, stood on the Olympic podium with the Hungarian team in 1928 and 1932, he certainly did not consider the possibility that he would die as a forced laborer in the Hungarian army during the Holocaust.

Jozsef Csibi Braun was a hero figure in children's books in Hungary and author Bela Szenes (Hannah's father) used his character to tell of a Jewish boy who integrated into Hungarian society and defeated antisemitism. He too would later die in the same labor battalions.

But when considering historical events, one must also remember Istvan Toth: the non-Jewish coach of Ferencvarosi, who saved the lives of many Jewish soccer players and paid for this with his own life after being betrayed by informers.

And if anyone needed to be convinced of the importance of the exhibition to the Hungarian public, as contemporary Hungary displays true intent to show their respect to Jewish heritage, they should look no further than extreme right wing websites. The exhibition has already been dubbed: "The Exhibition of the State of Terror" and also "Bringing Harm to Hungary."

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Israel hosts international matches in Jerusalem and holds a lot of home games in the capital. Even the Union of European Football Associations has opted to hold a major international match in Jerusalem – the final of the 2013 junior championship. This happened not because it was forced, but because of a vote in which Israel and Jerusalem beat out the Czech Republic, England, and Bulgaria, who were also vying to host the game. True, one or two Muslim players muttered something about refusing to play, but they were shut down by their local soccer federations. It's not the place and it's not the debate.

The perception that hosting a soccer match outside the capital is a problem is detached from any understanding of the essence of soccer. Most European countries – including Germany, Italy, and Spain – play home matches in different cities, and generally not in their respective capitals. Israel, by choice, hosts its official matches in a few different cities. We played Italy in Haifa, and Belgium in Jerusalem. We never asked anyone about it, and no one asked us.

What's more, if the now-canceled Argentina match had been held in Haifa, as originally planned, Israel's would have achieved its publicity goals. Israel, unfortunately, is a too weak a soccer team for the play itself to make headlines, but the photos of Argentinian stars, many of whom are devout Catholics, touring Jerusalem and other holy sites, would have gone out to the world media. Anyone who tried to kick up a storm would have discovered that the makeup of the Israeli team reflects the democratic, egalitarian nature of the game: minority players, including the captain, had been on the roster for the match.

Until last week, Israeli soccer – and Israeli sports in general – were in a position that Israeli diplomacy could only dream about: one of total recognition and normalization. But someone decided to exploit the Argentina match to stir up an international debate, dragging Argentina – an internationally renowned team – into a public relations campaign, and right before the start of the 2018 World Cup tournament.

The campaign was not on behalf of Jerusalem's image or the image of Israeli soccer, both of which were perfect until this week. The campaign was a personal political ploy. A few days before the match was supposed to take place, there were rumors about irregularities in ticket distribution. Corruption is a sign of vested interests, and vested interests are personal. But it's Israeli soccer and Jerusalem that will pay the price. The PR fallout could be unprecedented.

In 2002, Palestinian terrorists carried out a combined shooting and grenade attack at the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv, where a few wives and girlfriends of soccer players from the Hapoel Tel Aviv club were dining the night before a scheduled match against A.C. Milan. In Italy, some people fussed over the risk to its team and for a few years, Israeli soccer and basketball teams were forced to host international matches outside Israel.

A few impressive sports victories – Hapoel Tel Aviv against Milan, Maccabi Haifa against Manchester United – were racked up in neighboring countries. But that does not come close to the current low point. First of all, even if the motivation back then was political, the explanation was about safety.

When the Second Intifada ended, Israel went back to hosting games "in-house," unconditional on any peace process, concession of territory or other political act. More importantly, the expatriated games were being kept out of Israel as a whole and had nothing to do with the status of Jerusalem. So this is the lowest point for Israeli sports since it was expelled from Asian sport in 1976.

The Palestinian failure in FIFA

In 2015, the Palestinians made an intense political effort to strike a blow to Israel when they tried to have it barred from FIFA, the international soccer federation. They were sorely disappointed. First of all, they ran up against a diplomatic wall when it came to European countries – some of whom are extremely friendly to Israel. These countries defended Israel as a legitimate, and veteran, member of European soccer. They also defended the most flourishing sport in the world against politicization.

But the Palestinians were much more disappointed to discover that they had very little practical support from influential Arab officials in the soccer world. They found that the Arab world was as interested as western countries in keeping politics out of soccer. Qatar is busy with the World Cup it will be hosting in 2022, and it and other Arab nations own major assets in European soccer. Moreover, Arab soccer players and officials aspire to and reach senior positions in FIFA.

When it comes to soccer, the Arab world tries to present a calm, normative face. Just a few months ago, Saudi Arabia passed a law allowing women to enter stadiums. It was an area it decided not to exploit for political purposes.

Why? Because the world hates politics in sports. It has been many years since there was a political boycott of a sporting event. Political boycotts unrelated to Israel caused immense damage to international sports in the 1970s and 1980s. They have disappeared. The approach in sports is simple: No one wants to be the first to boycott. The last incident – when then-Yugoslavia was kept out of the European Championship in 1992 – was a result of the U.N. and international community's boycott of the country.

So the cancellation of the Argentina game is an incident of which certain countries could take advantage. Countries with problematic human rights records host sporting events and use them to get a public diplomacy boost. Countries with image problems, and Israel is unfortunately among them, come off very well when they host events. The Giro D'Italia and the various championship games held in Israel brought the country an enormous benefit. The principle of keeping politics out of sports has served Israel well in recent years. Then Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev came in and ruined that balance.

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