Spanish football star Lamine Yamal has been hailed as \u201ca very brave boy\u201d for waving the Palestinian flag in Barcelona\u2019s open-top bus parade following their La Liga championship win.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old held and waved a large Palestine flag as the newly crowned Spanish champions interacted with the thousands of Barca fans lined up on the streets in the Catalan capital on Monday, hours after their 2-0 El Clasico triumph over Real Madrid sealed their second consecutive first division league title.<\/p>\n
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Yamal, who looked relaxed as he stood along the rail on the right-hand side of the bus, missed Sunday\u2019s fixture due to an injury, but joined his teammates in the champions\u2019 parade the following day.<\/p>\n
Video clips of his apparent act of support for the people of Palestine immediately went viral on social media, with football fans, experts, activists, and players praising the teenage icon.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo some, it may look like a simple gesture, but here in Gaza, it reaches the heart in ways words cannot describe,\u201d wrote Muhammed Akram, a Palestinian student in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, Lamine Yamal. From Gaza, you are loved more than you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Bravo Lamine Yamal\u2019<\/p>\n
Palestine\u2019s flag has been raised by protesters and pro-Palestine activists in hundreds of cities worldwide over the past two and a half years. It is seen by many as an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, who have been facing the wrath of the Israeli genocide against them since October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel.<\/p>\n
Israel has killed more than 72,740 Palestinians since October 2023, of whom 854 were killed during a so-called \u201cceasefire\u201d that was signed last October.<\/p>\n
While the frequency of pro-Palestine protests has dropped since the \u201cceasefire\u201d came into effect, activists have continued to raise the Palestinian flag in large public gatherings, such as sports events and celebrations.<\/p>\n
Yamal, too, used the mass celebration in Barcelona to show his support for Palestine, and some activists believe he has done more to raise awareness for the cause with one act than many others.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have a platform, use it,\u201d wrote Lebanese political activist and writer Dyab Abou Jahjah. \u201cWhen you have a voice, speak out. Bravo Lamine Yamal,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick said he spoke to Yamal about the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke with him [Yamal] and told him: \u2018If you want to do that, it\u2019s your decision, you\u2019re old enough,’\u201d the German coach told the media on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Following the celebrations, the Spanish forward posted a photo of himself with the Palestinian flag, along with others from the event, on his Instagram account.<\/p>\n
Yamal has 44.2 million followers on the social media platform, where his post was liked by 5.3 million users and had more than 100,000 shares.<\/p>\n
Prominent Palestinian writer and poet Mosab Abu Toha commented on Yamal\u2019s post, saying, \u201cWe love you, from Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Barca striker\u2019s British teammate Marcus Rashford and Dutch footballer Anwar El Ghazi were among the 166,000 people to comment on his post, which comprised seven photos.<\/p>\n
Gesture \u2018highlights the bond between Catalonia and Palestine\u2019<\/p>\n
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which was launched in 2005 to advocate for Palestinian rights and end Israel\u2019s occupation in Palestinian territory, also appreciated Yamal\u2019s heroics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks for this gesture full of humanity,\u201d the movement\u2019s Spanish account tweeted. \u201cSport has the power to make visible what the world must not forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palestinian football expert Bassil Mikdadi said Yamal highlighted the true spirit of Barcelona football club.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past two decades, FC Barcelona has morphed into a hyper-commercialised entity,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cFirst came the shirt sponsorship, then the stadium naming rights, and then the palancas. Lamine Yamal shows what the club and its fans are really about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a number of pro-Israel social media users attacked Yamal and said he \u201cshould never don the Spain shirt\u201d and that his actions should be enough to ensure he does not win the prestigious Ballon d\u2019Or award despite his on-field performance for club and country.<\/p>\n
Others, though, praised him for not worrying about the consequences and standing up for the oppressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cLamine Yamal raising the Palestinian flag is a powerful gesture of solidarity and human dignity,\u201d said Barcelona-based academic and activist Neus Torbisco Casals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a reminder that sport can also be a voice against genocide, oppression, and in favour of peoples\u2019 freedom,\u201d she continued in a long post on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cA very brave Catalan boy for speaking out when there are a thousand pressures to stay silent. These gestures can inspire millions of people around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people have highlighted the bond between Catalonia and Palestine because we share the same aspiration to exercise universal collective human rights: the right to self-determination, to preserve identity, language, culture, and to live without domination inspired by colonialism or, in the case of Palestine, racial apartheid.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue solidarity rejects domination in all its forms and defends the equality and dignity of all peoples, not just states. The struggle against oppression is universal: when a people defends its freedom and dignity, it also speaks for all peoples who resist injustice. Bravo Lamine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yamal, a Muslim whose father moved from Morocco to Spain, has previously spoken out against racism and Islamophobia in Spanish football.<\/p>\n
Last month, he slammed the anti-Muslim fan chants heard in Spain\u2019s friendly match against Egypt and issued a strong statement on his social media accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a Muslim. Yesterday at the stadium, the chant \u2018The one who doesn\u2019t jump is the Muslim\u2019 was heard,\u201d he posted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I was playing for the rival team, and it wasn\u2019t something personal against me, but as a Muslim person, it doesn\u2019t stop being disrespectful and something intolerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yamal has scored 30 goals in more than 100 appearances for Barcelona and six in 25 caps for his national team.<\/p>\n
The prodigious player has garnered a wide following globally and has many fans in Palestine, from where the outpouring of love for his gesture continued hours after the viral video clips first emerged.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust 14 seconds \u2026 yet they were enough to make me burst into tears,\u201d wrote Haitham el-Masri, a Palestinian student from Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne moment that will remain forever in history, remembered as one of the most deeply human moments witnessed by the world,\u201d he went on to add.<\/p>\n
I cannot fully describe what we felt seeing people who still have the courage to speak the truth, and to stand beside a people enduring one of the most horrific genocides in modern history.<\/p>\n
Thank you to everyone who supported us, everyone who spoke for us, everyone who refused to stay silent and chose humanity instead.<\/p>\n
You cannot imagine how much this love, this care, and this solidarity mean to us\u2026 the feeling that we still matter in this world.<\/p>\n
From the heart of Gaza\u2026
Thank you from the depths of our hearts.
Thank you for making us feel that we are not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish football star Lamine Yamal has been hailed as \u201ca very brave boy\u201d for waving the Palestinian flag…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,11590,11848,66,313,398,274,273,3994,17,314],"class_list":{"0":"post-22266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-boycott","10":"tag-divestment","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-gaza","14":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sanctions","17":"tag-spain","18":"tag-sport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}