Why a Soccer Super-Fan Taken Hostage by Hamas Is a "Ray of Hope" in Israel

EPISODE 41: A sports story about right-wing politics and war.

I usually try to write a pithy description here to set up the stakes of the day’s episode — in this case, an assignment we gave to correspondent Amos Barshad, who works for the investigative news outlet The Lever.

What I’ll tell you instead, very simply, is that this is a story about two rival pro soccer teams that share a stadium in Jerusalem.

One team, Beitar, is explicitly favored by Israel's right-wing, which uses the extremist, anti-Arab fanbase as government thugs.

The other, Hapoel, is their hated opposite, preaching Arab-Jewish cooperation.

And one of their super-fans has been taken hostage by Hamas.

I strongly encourage you to take the 42 minutes to watch; this episode, for several reasons, isn’t exactly what you might expect.

And I thank Rachel Goldberg, in particular, for not only taking the time to talk to PTFO, but inspiring us to find a laugh, at the end.

Thanks for listening,

Pablo