Executive director Robert Singer of the World Jewish Congress has sent a letter to President Florentino Perez and CEO Jose Angel Sanchez of the Real Madrid soccer club to protest the festive visit of teenaged Palestinian Authority propagandist Ahed Tamimi, who served eight months in prison this year for striking an Israeli soldier in the Samarian PA village of Nabi Saleh.
Noting that the team shares the WJC's message that the spirit of sport must be tolerance and respect, building bridges and not division, he expressed disappointment in the invitation to Tamimi after her call in France for the elimination of Israel. He added that anti-Israeli sentiments have become synonymous with anti-Semitism, and the whole process that drives these feelings is a real danger of encouraging anti-Semitism, and expressed hope that Real Madrid will keep politics out of sports in the future.