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To explain further the reason the Celtic football team supports Palestine is because the nationalist community in general supports Palestine. Mainly owing to th

To explain further the reason the Celtic football team supports Palestine is because the nationalist community in general supports Palestine. Mainly owing to the fact that they see broad similarities between NI and Israel/Palestine. Israel and Palestine flags can be seen around NI. Unionists supporting Israel doesn’t have much basis other than “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” unless there’s some deeper meaning I’m not aware of.

smcl 4y ago
That's the historic reason, it makes sense, sounds good and fans on each side will happily justify their respective positions. But for the Old Firm I think the more important thing is to both be in opposition to each other. Consider an alternate history where the British Mandate of Palestine being turned into Israel somehow caused Rangers to immediately declare solidarity with the people of Palestine. I don't think this would be an issue both sides of the Old Firm would be happy to share and come together on, and I can almost guarantee we'd instead be seeing Israeli flags proudly being flown at Parkhead on match day. Sorry I have a fairly cynical view on this and having known and dealt with many fans of either side I have a fairly good idea what motivates them, and it always seemed to boil down to conflict above all else. Edit: Just realised that my views may be coloured by being outside of the country for a decade, it could be that I only remember the worst encounters or conversations or that things are better now, or that I’m just sour every team I wanted to do well this year didn’t (Aberdeen were woeful, Montrose and Arbroath didn’t get promoted) :-)
- simonh 4y ago
  I think some of it also comes from the IRA and PLO, as well as various other European independence groups such as ETA having a lot of similar backers and similar problems to solve and so working with each other. The Soviet Union, Libya, Castro, etc backed them all and to some extent they helped each other out.

smcl 4y ago

That's the historic reason, it makes sense, sounds good and fans on each side will happily justify their respective positions. But for the Old Firm I think the more important thing is to both be in opposition to each other. Consider an alternate history where the British Mandate of Palestine being turned into Israel somehow caused Rangers to immediately declare solidarity with the people of Palestine. I don't think this would be an issue both sides of the Old Firm would be happy to share and come together on, and I can almost guarantee we'd instead be seeing Israeli flags proudly being flown at Parkhead on match day. Sorry I have a fairly cynical view on this and having known and dealt with many fans of either side I have a fairly good idea what motivates them, and it always seemed to boil down to conflict above all else. Edit: Just realised that my views may be coloured by being outside of the country for a decade, it could be that I only remember the worst encounters or conversations or that things are better now, or that I’m just sour every team I wanted to do well this year didn’t (Aberdeen were woeful, Montrose and Arbroath didn’t get promoted) :-)

simonh 4y ago
I think some of it also comes from the IRA and PLO, as well as various other European independence groups such as ETA having a lot of similar backers and similar problems to solve and so working with each other. The Soviet Union, Libya, Castro, etc backed them all and to some extent they helped each other out.