There have been numerous opportunities to raise what Israel is doing. The Maccabi fans in Amsterdam was a huge news story, bigger than anything Squires addressed that week, but the reporting on it in Western media, as so often with anything Israel-related turned the truth on its head. The BBC reports for example, spoke about "a pogrom" and "Kristellnacht" and Jews being hunted like it was Nazi Germany all over again, because some of the local Muslim community came looking for retribution, but based solely on the facts they were Israeli and celebrating a genocide, nothing to do with their religion. A bit of run of the mill fan violence where no one sustained serious injuries would have been absolutely dwarfed by chanting about the mass slaughter of children if these were fans from any other country. That stuff should be absolute gold for a satirist, but nothing from Squires.
When Russia invaded Ukraine he dedicated a week's edition to football's reaction. Israel's far, far more brutal invasion of Gaza - again nothing afaik ( and I state again, I'm open to correction and would genuinely like to be proven wrong if such a piece exists and someone can link it).
Russia was hit with severe sanctions by UEFA but the same governing bodies have taken absolutely none against Israel, and along with the clubs themselves, have suppressed protest on it. Israeli teams being allowed to compete at all is an egregious example of sportswashing . We had the ICJ ruling that there was a "plausible" case of genocide against them and ICC arrest warrants out for it's PM and former Minister of Defence, but still not a footballing sanction in sight. A piece on Israel's destruction of Gaza and football's non-reaction would surely have been satirical gold and right in Squires' wheelhouse if his motives for highlighting rights abuses are genuine.
South Africa's ambassador to the US called what is being to the Palestinians "apartheid on steroids" and it's been doing it to them for 8 decades. Many SA commentators have echoed these sentiments that Israel's version of apartheid is actually a much more brutal version of what was done to them. Sporting sanctions played a huge role in ending that. Several players from the Palestinian national football team have been killed, stadiums blown up and their team endures massive struggles just to train and fulfil fixtures due to Israel's restrictions on their freedom of movement, one of thousands of breaches of international law that Israel is guilty of. There have been several examples of kids being blown up while having a game of football and a kickabout turning to carnage. The lack of sanctions on Israel allows it to carry on the lie that it is not a completely rogue state - that is the very definition of sportswashing, a more successful version than the Saudi one which leads to the highlighting of their human rights abuses as much as the concealing of them.
Not only does Zionist-influenced Western media whitewash Israel's crimes, it seeks to dehumanise Muslims and lump them all in together. When there were articles recently about Iraq considering lowering its age of consent (to 9 🤮 absolutely disgusting if true) it was being retweeted by every pro-Israel account on social media, as though that somehow justified their treatment of the Palestinians. It would be like blowing up Irish people and pointing to something unsavoury that the Portuguese are doing as justification, sure those Western European Catholics are all savages. There's statistical evidence and studies have been done that show the media bias and attempts to dehumanise. Muslim crimes are much more likely to be reported on and the person's religion is far more likely to be mentioned if they are Muslim, even where the crime is not religiously motivated. It makes slaughtering their kids more palatable to a Western audience I suppose.
By highlighting human rights abuses in Islamic states while ignoring Israel's, Squires is helping that propaganda machine that enables Israeli war crimes. I'm not denying the crimes of the Saudi or Qatar regimes or saying he shouldn't cover them, but he relentlessly accuses Newcastle fans of ignoring the elephant in the room (which most of us don't imo) when he's well able to ignore a giant one s**tting all over his own one.
