Liverpool Friends of Palestine, Merseyside Stop the War Coalition, Merseyside
TUC, Liverpool TUC, sacked Liverpool dockers, and many others will join the
demonstration outside the ground.

Many would like to keep politics out of sport. But the war has an unavoidable
impact on the second leg of this match as Haifa is in the war zone. We welcome
UEFA's decision not to hold any European fixtures in Israel until further
notice.

Other football in the region is also affected by the conflict. The Palestinian
national football team pitch in Gaza has a crater caused by Israeli bombardment
in March 2006. The team have to play their home matches in Qatar, a thousand
miles away. They lost an important World Cup qualifier after Israel blocked
several players from leaving Gaza.

We all have the right to an opinion when we see hundreds upon hundreds of
civilian casualties in Lebanon with bombs targeting civil airfields, bridges,
apartment blocks and roads. The beaches are coated with oil after a coastal
power station was bombed. Around a million Lebanese are now refugees, and
around a thousand - mainly civilians - have died.

Away from the cameras, Gaza is under continuous attack which began weeks before
the capture of an Israeli soldier and which has killed 163 Palestinians in July
alone while knocking out power and water supplies.

Tony Blair refuses to call for a complete and immediate ceasefire, and gives
Israel a blank cheque to carry on. We call for a boycott of Israeli consumer
goods and for those who can, to take action to halt trade with Israel while the
carnage in Lebanon and Gaza continues.

John Bowman
Jeremy Hawthorn
Peter Reilly