A UEFA Champions League match was held today in Glasgow, between Celtic and Atletico Madrid.  The match was a draw, with both sides scoring 2 goals each, but that is not why pictures from this football match are going viral today.  Despite a ban by UEFA on bringing in flags to the stadium, certain sections of the crowd brought with them numerous flags supporting Palestine. Not only that, the official Twitter handle of the club, which is based out of Ireland, is seen supporting the ’cause’ of Palestine / Hamas. Fans of the club belonging to different ethnic backgrounds, belonging to the same faith, were seen talking about this achievement all over social media.

With a 5% Muslim population, Glasgow has the largest chunk of people belonging to the faith in all of Scotland.  In fact, some of the wards of Glasgow have up to 26% Muslims living in them. Add to this the fact that Glasgow has been predominantly a Labour governed city, which has a reputation of being over appeasing. People of Palestine descendance have a notable presence here, in addition to which they have the support of Pakistani and Indian Muslims of the area too.  Over the last week, Scotland saw huge turnouts at pro Palestine protests organised by Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).  People were seen out on the streets of Scotland, some holding flags of Hizb ut Tahrir and even Al Qaeda.  There have been scuffles between the protestors and the police during these protests.

Coming back to the football match, many would argue that the supporters of Palestine were not violent, and under the secular rules of freedom of expression, they could carry as many flags as they wanted to show their support for the oppressed people of Palestine.  This would all be true, but some of the members of this crowd were also seen carrying the flag of PLFP, Popular Front of Palestine.  This notorious organisation has filmed itself taking part in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, which resulted in over 1000 deaths of Israeli citizens, since the attack of 7th October.  A still from the video released by PLFP with Hamas tanks etc in the background can be seen here.

To know the background, one just has to do a little research on this organisaiton, and they will find horrific crimes carried out by them.  According to BBC News, in 2014 “Two Palestinian cousins wielding axes, meat cleavers and guns turned morning prayers at a Jerusalem synagogue into a bloodbath, killing five people — including three American rabbis. […] The two cousins who carried out the bloody attack that killed four rabbis were from the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), which claimed responsibility for the massacre in Jerusalem. A statement by the wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, praised the “heroic operation” by Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal.”

Those taking the side of Palestine try to draw distinction between supporting Palestine and standing with Hamas, and argue that these two are completely separate entities.  However, the fact that none of these people have condemned the presence of PLFP in Glasgow, or the flags of Hizb ut Tahrir as well as Al Qaeda in the pro Palestine processions proves that 9 out of 10 times, pro Palestine stands for pro Hamas and anti-Jew.Featured

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