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Israel looks to make history at under-20 men’s World Cup
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Israel’s under-20 men’s national soccer team has arrived in Argentina and is preparing for its first-ever appearance in FIFA’s under-20 World Cup, which begins this weekend.
Israel has only made the general World Cup one time, in 1970.
“I’m 48, and coming to Argentina to play soccer was my dream since I was 10 years old,” said manager Ofir Haim, a former professional player, referencing the level of play in the country that won the most recent World Cup last year.
On Monday afternoon, the team received a warm welcome upon arriving at a hotel in Buenos Aires. Around 80 members of the local Jewish community joined the team at a two-hour event that included speeches and an introductory video. An organizer said it sold out in person within five minutes.
But at the same time as the welcome event, around 10 blocks away, a group of demonstrators participated in a protest commemorating the Nakba, the term meaning “catastrophe” that Palestinians use to describe their displacement during and after Israel’s founding.
“The [Israeli] national soccer team is the most representative team in the country because it is composed of the diversity that comprises the state of Israel, a state of all of its citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity,” said Alejandro Mellincovsky, the director for Spanish-speaking countries at the World Zionist Organization, which organized Monday’s welcome event. The Israeli team includes three Arab players.
The tournament was not originally slated to be played in Argentina. Former host country Indonesia objected to Israel’s participation, arguing that it had agreed to host the tournament before knowing that Israel would qualify.
In response, FIFA, the global soccer organization that runs the World Cup and its accompanying tournaments, stripped Indonesia of its hosting rights in March.
“We knew that Indonesia would reject us, but we were confident to represent Israel with pride everywhere,” Haim said to applause at Monday’s event.
El Yam Kancepolsky speaks at a welcome event for the Israeli team in Buenos Aires, May 15, 2023. Team manager Ofir Haim is on right. (Leonardo Kremenchuzky/World Zionist Organization)
On the field, the squad will be eager to prove the surprise success that got them to the World Cup — a run to the finals of the UEFA under-19 European championship last year — was not a fluke. In the initial group stage, they will play Colombia on Sunday, May 21; Senegal on Wednesday, May 24; and Japan a week from this Saturday, May 27. The top two teams from each group advance to the next stage.
“We came here to win the trophy,” midfielder El Yam Kancepolsky told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Kancepolsky was born to a surfer father in Hawaii but raised in Israel, where his dad opened the country’s first “surf center” (El Yam means “to the sea”). He will be one of the team’s top players after it was announced that lead scorer and star Oscar Gloukh did not obtain permission to play in the tournament from his club team, Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg.
The only other player on the roster who currently plays on a European team is Tai Abed, who suits up for Dutch club PSV Eindhoven. (Rising Israeli star Manor Solomon, who plays in the English Premier League for Fulham, is 23.)
The team has the opportunity to make history: The only goal Israel scored in a major FIFA tournament was kicked by Mordechai “Motaleh” Spiegler against Sweden, in the Mexico 1970 World Cup.
Israel was kicked out of the Asian Football Conference in 1974 and since 1994 has played in international tournaments through UEFA, the European soccer federation that offers more difficult competition.
Besides the general World Cup, which takes place every four years, and the U-20 World Cup, which takes place every two years, FIFA also holds an U-17 World Cup.
“I’m very proud to represent Israel in a World Cup, it is a huge dream,” Kancepolsky said.
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The post Israel looks to make history at under-20 men’s World Cup appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.