Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin expressed disgust Sunday over a Saturday night incident in which fans of the Beitar Jerusalem football (soccer) team protested the team’s plans to add two Muslim players. “As a Beitar fan, and a former administrator of Beitar Jerusalem, I am deeply pained over the calls over the weekend to keep Beitar ‘pure’ Jewish,” he said.

“These calls are infuriating… I think that we have moved on after seeing racism of this type too many times,” he said. He added, “Imagine what would happen if in England or Germany teams would decide that a Jew could not join the team.”