Egypt’s World Cup dilemma: Pay TV or free Israeli broadcast?

For World Cup fans in Egypt, it’s a dilemma: Many are torn between their love of soccer and an abiding distaste for Israel.

Rather than paying hefty subscriptions to watch the matches on a Qatar-owned sports channel, Egyptian viewers can access Israeli TV for free. But fans’ hand-wringing over doing so illustrates the coldness of ties between Egypt and Israel, despite the two countries having formally made peace with the 1979 Camp David accord.

While the government has normalized political relations with Israel, many ordinary Egyptians openly despise the notion of any dealings with the Jewish state. For millions of fans, though, the $300 subscription fee for Qatar’s beIN channel is out of reach.

Israel’s state-run Israel Broadcasting Authority, or IBA, easily caught by any cable receiver across Egypt, is showing all World Cup matches at no charge. The commentary is in Hebrew. Some fans have even gone onto its Facebook page to ask for match commentary in Arabic.

“I’ve watched all the World Cup games on that Israeli channel, may God forgive me,” said Ahmed Saad, a 35-year-old baker who said the Qatari subscription fee was exorbitant. “I’m completely against buying or using any Israeli product whatsoever, but what can we do? ... It’s better to spend $300 on my kids.”

The choice of which channel to watch isn’t the only dilemma facing Egyptian fans. There’s the matter of which team to support. Egypt’s national team was knocked out in the qualifying round by Ghana.

For some, the decision to watch Israeli TV has been made easier by the fact that Qatar is extremely unpopular over its support for Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president who was removed from office last July by the Egyptian military.

Egypt has responded with diplomatic measures and heavy pressure on Qatar’s Al Jazeera news channels. Three journalists from its English-language service were sentenced last week to seven-year prison terms on terror-related charges.

Egypt’s main sportswriters’ association even blamed Al Jazeera for a “conspiracy to force Arab nations to watch Zionist channels,” and called on viewers to abstain rather than watch the IBA.

“There is no big difference, really — Qatar is as bad as Israel when it comes to their political views of Egypt,” said Osama Khalifa, a 26-year-old fan. “I don’t feel any guilt over watching the games on an Israeli channel.”

Hassan is a special correspondent