Egyptian attitudes towards normalization with Israel
“The article also mentions the match between the Egyptian and Israeli national teams in the 1992 World Handball Championship in Spain, during which Egyptian goalkeeper Ayman Salah struck an Israeli fan, snatched his Israeli flag from his hands, and trampled it. In 1996, the two teams met again in Holland for a friendly match; in it, Egyptian players injured five Israeli players. The article recounts that one of the Egyptian players held onto the ball with one hand while hitting an Israeli opponent with the other as he shouted “Allah Akbar.”
Goalkeeper Ayman Salah concludes by saying: “Those who withdraw from a match do so because they dread the reaction of the Egyptian public, and perhaps of the entire Arab public, if they lose. This is not a sports competition but a war, and if they lose, the defeat will haunt them forever.”