Argentina game in Israel called off after threats against Messi

ARGENTINA has called off a World Cup warm-up match with Israel after pressure from Palestinian football officials and international campaigners.

The sold-out friendly had been planned for Saturday in Jerusalem. It was opposed by Palestinians, who claim the annexed eastern part of the city as the capital of their future state.

The Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires blamed the cancellation on “threats and provocations” against Barcelona star Lionel Messi. Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian football association, had urged fans to burn shirts bearing Messi’s name if he decided to play.

Messi has expressed support for the Palestinian cause. During the 2014 war, he shared a picture on Facebook of an injured Palestinian child and pleaded for the violence to stop.

The Palestinian Football Federation, which had urged Messi specifically not to take part, welcomed the scrapping of the game. Mr Rajoub said the decision was “a red card from everyone to the Israelis”. It came weeks after Israeli forces shot dead at least 60 Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border.

“In the end, they’ve done the right thing, and this is behind us,” Gonzalo Higuain, the Argentina striker, said. “Health and common sense come first.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, had called Mauricio Macri, the Argentine president, to try to save the game. Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli defence minister, blamed the cancellation on pressure by “Israeli-hating inciters, whose only goal is to harm our basic right to self-defence and bring about the destruction of Israel”.

He called the critics “a pack of antisemitic terrorist supporters”.