jerusalem | Israelis are euphoric that Europe’s basketball championships will be played here despite security fears, with some hoping the games might be a step back to a tenuous normality.
Euroleague’s reaffirming the plan to hold its “Final Four’ tournament in Tel Aviv might also help end a ban on international soccer matches in effect here for most of the last 3 1/2 years of violence.
Years of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars in preparations were threatened when Euroleague officials called an emergency meeting to reconsider the Tel Aviv venue.
The meeting convened after Israeli forces assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Gaza leader of the militant group Hamas, which pledged bloody revenge. That raised fears of a wave of violence that could endanger players and fans along with Israelis and Palestinians.
A Spanish team refused to come to Tel Aviv to play Israeli champions Maccabi Tel Aviv in a championship league game leading up to the European “Final Four.’
But in their meeting last week, Euroleague leaders decided it was safe enough to hold the tournament, a decision that cheered battle-scarred Israelis.
So Europe’s top four basketball teams will take to the court Thursday, April 29 to Saturday, May 1 at Tel Aviv’s Yad Eliyahu Stadium for the first finals in Israel since 1994. Maccabi Tel Aviv is among the favorites to qualify.
“It’s nice to have a slam dunk instead of a slammed door,’ said Jerusalem lawyer and Maccabi fan Daniel Seidemann.
The front-page headline Wednesday, March 31, in the Maariv newspaper — “For the Glory of the State of Israel’ — reflected the eagerness to grab a rare moment of bliss and a diversion from the Palestinian conflict.
“I can’t put it down in words,’ said Helina Lezy, 15, a Maccabi fan club member who updates an Internet column about its youth team. “It’s an amazing feeling.’
She and many others are hoping for a repeat of the team’s win in 2001, its first European championship in 20 years. The victory prompted thousands of Israelis, many still reeling from the start of the Palestinian uprising months earlier, to celebrate in the streets.
Even Prime Minister Ariel Sharon got in on it, calling Maccabi coach Pini Gershon to offer his congratulations. “We won this war and we will win all the wars!’ Gershon said at the time.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is something of a national symbol, even though its starting line-up includes only one native-born Israeli, Tal Burstein. Maccabi has topped the Israeli league for three decades and won its first European title in 1977. The team is a European record-breaker, drawing the most consistent sellout home crowds of about 10,000 and making the most money from ticket sales and TV broadcasting rights.
After a key win that led to the 1977 championship, U.S.-born Maccabi star Tal Brody uttered a cheer that has since entered Israeli folklore: “We’re on the map, and we’ll stay on the map!’
Some hoped the decision to bring the games to Tel Aviv would be followed by a return of other international sports, especially soccer. A delegation from European soccer’s governing body was to visit this week to decide whether to end a nearly three-year ban on international games in the Jewish state, a blockade that has added to a deep sense of isolation.
In a column last week in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper with the headline, “Basketball Beat Politics,’ Brody wrote that singling out Tel Aviv for a sports boycott was unfair because terror attacks have hit other world cities as well.