#israeli untimate frisbee team

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By Steve Janoski

A group of Israeli teen Ultimate Frisbee players were banned from an international competition in Belgium last week after a vandal scrawled antisemitic statements near their playing field — and the heartbroken kids and coaches are wondering why.

The Israeli delegation — which included 33 players between the ages of 13 and 16, as well as nine adults — had been practicing and preparing for years ahead of the European Youth Ultimate Championship in Ghent, Belgium, according to Chen Bankirer, president of the Israeli Flying Disc Association.

But just as the team — which traveled thousands of miles to get to the tournament — was getting ready for Tuesday morning’s inaugural games, the tournament director told them that somebody had spray-painted “Boycott Israhell now!” near their field.

6A vandal scrawled antisemitic statements near a playing field in Belgium — and got the Israeli team banned from the competition.Hope For Israel Alliance/Facebook

6The Ultimate Frisbee team had traveled thousands of miles to participate in the tournament, but was banned before it could play.Hope For Israel Alliance/Facebook

Daniel Ben David, a 22-year-old assistant coach who lives near Tel Aviv, said the Ghent police chief told the adults, “This is your war, not mine,” before saying their presence would cause problems in Belgium.

“It’s just very antisemitic, honestly,” the coach added. “We just want to let our kids play. We aimed to win this tournament, we’ve been working for three years just to prepare. And to have it robbed from the kids is horrible.”

Bankirer told The Post that the local officials tried to claim they were concerned for the team’s safety.

“Basically they said to us, ‘You’re not going to play.’ The claim of the police and the city is that the fields are too open, and they cannot protect the fields [or] ensure the safety of the tournament,” he said.

“We heard the news on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m.,” he said. “We were sad. We were waiting for [the kids] to wake up. And then we gathered all of them together, and we broke the news to 33 kids that they cannot play because they’re Israelis. And they were heartbroken.”

The Israeli Foreign Affairs and Culture and Sports Ministries tried to intervene, but the final decision banning the teams was made Tuesday night, according to the Jerusalem Post.

To add insult to injury, the city also banned the kids and coaches from even watching the games as spectators.

“I think they did not want people around to know that there were Israeli Jewish people there,” Bankirer said.