FIFA security staff at Los Angeles’s SoFi stadium are caught on video confiscating an American fan’s Star of David flag
The Los Angeles soccer fan who had his Israeli flag forcibly confiscated by event staff during a recent World Cup match at Los Angeles’s SoFi stadium says he is prepared to sue the FIFA soccer organization for violating his civil rights and endangering his family’s safety before a crowd of rabid pro-Palestinian fans, according to a document preservation letter sent late Wednesday and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.
Rony Abishoor and his family were thrust into the spotlight early last week when videos showed FIFA staff aggressively seizing his Israeli flag during a World Cup match between Iran and New Zealand. As seen in the video, the Star of David flag was pulled from Abishoor’s hands by security guards, while Palestinian and Iranian flags remained in the hands of nearby fans.
The National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC), which is representing the Abishoor family, says Swiss-based FIFA breached multiple American civil rights laws and is demanding the organization immediately “instruct every United States host venue and every stewarding and security contractor, in writing, that national flags, including the flag of Israel, are permitted on the same terms as any other flag,” according to the letter. “Should FIFA decline,” the lawyers make clear, “the National Jewish Advocacy Center is prepared to file suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California seeking the full penalties and damages … along with injunctive relief governing flag enforcement through the remainder of the World Cup.”
Abishoor’s tense face-off with FIFA staff garnered national headlines as the World Cup is grappling with numerous anti-Israel protests at its events and calls to bar the Israeli team from participating. Washington Jewish Week, the D.C. area’s leading Jewish publication, described the incident as a “double standard in which Israeli symbols are deemed provocative while other political displays are accepted without objection.” Jewish fans, the paper added, “are asked to make themselves smaller so that others can feel bigger.”
Attorneys for Abishoor—an American whose brother is Israeli-American—say FIFA jeopardized his family’s safety at a time when violence against Jews is skyrocketing across the nation, bolstered by anti-Israel protests around the World Cup games.
“Stripped of his flag and singled out as one of the few Israeli supporters in his section, Mr. Abishoor and his family were cursed at, shouted down, and subjected to threats of violence by surrounding spectators,” the NJAC detailed in its letter to FIFA. “The steward did nothing to calm the section; he instead inflamed the crowd. Security and staff then failed to protect Mr. Abishoor’s family from the hostility FIFA’s own steward had triggered.”
“Seated nearby,” the letter goes on, “Mr. Abishoor’s sister and her children remained in place at his instruction and because they were too frightened to rejoin the family.”
The cameras caught all of it.
Stadium staff—who are separate from FIFA personnel—who saw what happened “apologized and admitted to Mr. Abishoor that the seizure was wrong.”
Abishoor’s attorneys say FIFA itself gave numerous—and often conflicting rationales—for seizing the Israeli flag.
First, Abishoor was told the flag “had to be removed for safety,” though FIFA “did not explain how an Israeli flag endangers anyone while a Palestinian flag displayed two rows away does not,” according to the NJAC. The family was then told that “the directive to remove the flag came from FIFA.” Afterward, Abishoor was informed that “only the flags of teams playing in the match were allowed,” yet as the footage confirms, “the Palestinian flags remained in place.” Last, officials maintained that “flags of countries outside the tournament were banned.”
“One flag. Four rationales. Not one holds,” the NJAC wrote. “Your own published stadium regulations permit flags that satisfy size and fire-safety specifications and prohibit only material that is political, offensive, or discriminatory. A national flag is none of those things.”
The conduct violates both California civil rights laws and similar federal regulations, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting “discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ancestry, and national origin,” according to the NJAC’s lawyers.
“Replace the Israeli flag with a Ukrainian one. Send a steward to grab it from the holder’s hands. Leave a Russian flag in place three rows back and offer the same four explanations. No court, and no honest official at FIFA, would call that a safety measure,” the NJAC maintains. “The analysis does not change because the flag was Israeli. That is precisely what civil rights law exists to prevent.”
Abishoor and his lawyers have given FIFA 14 days to provide written guarantees that other fans will not be subjected to similar action.
FIFA, they demand, “shall state publicly that the June 15 seizure did not reflect its rules and that Israeli flags are welcome at World Cup venues on equal terms with all others.” Abishoor also wants his Israeli flag returned and for FIFA to provide “the full measure of compensatory damages” of no less than $4,000 for each violation of his rights. The NJAC additionally instructed FIFA to preserve “all evidence relating to this incident” pending potential litigation.
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