In Could Israel Get Booted Out of Soccer?, which is published in the June 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine, assistant editor Aiden Pink explores the dynamics behind the Palestinian effort to suspend Israel from FIFA, the governing body of international soccer.
The campaign is being led by convicted terrorist Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Association, who once called soccer matches with Israeli and Palestinian children on the same team with Israel in sports a “crime against humanity.” Rajoub, Pink wrote, is “one of the most virulently anti-Israel and anti-peace members of the Palestinian leadership.”
Rajoub’s motion will considered at FIFA’s Congress on May 29.
Such an action has been in the works for the past few years. Rajoub proposed a similar motion before FIFA’s 2013 Congress, though it was withdrawn after mediation by Blatter and promises made by the IFA to help improve the situation for Palestinian athletes. This time, though, Rajoub does not appear to be backing down. His gambit is another facet of the Palestinian Authority’s escalating efforts to isolate and delegitimize Israel in bodies like the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court—politicizing organizations that could theoretically serve a noble purpose if they weren’t so consumed with anti-Israel animus. One of FIFA’s only saving graces over the past few years has been that it has done a decent job at staying neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while successfully working to develop soccer in both countries: In the last two years, FIFA has invested $4.5 million in infrastructure and stadium upgrades in the West Bank, and selected Israel to host the Men’s Under-21 and Women’s Under-19 European Championships. Approving the Palestinian proposal would mean that, like a brilliant goal-scoring run called offside, it was all a lot of effort with nothing to show for it….
[FIFA President Sepp] Blatter, for his part, is spending the weeks before this year’s FIFA Congress meeting with the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian football associations, and even with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to whom he proposed a friendly match between the two national teams. Netanyahu was receptive to the idea, and told Blatter and reporters that sports “is a vehicle of goodwill among nations. The thing that could destroy the Football Association is politicizing it. You politicize it once with Israel, then you politicize it for everyone, and it will cause the deterioration of a great institution.” But a meeting with Abbas and Rajoub was less successful—“We will keep the proposal on the agenda [of the FIFA Congress] for sincere and open discussions by the FIFA member associations,” Rajoub said at a press conference following the Blatter-Abbas meeting. “There will be no compromising on free movement of our athletes and officials.”
Israel has worked with FIFA to allow greater freedom of movement to Palestinian soccer players. But as Pink writes, there are frequent “stories of Palestinian soccer players hailed by international observers as victims of Israeli malfeasance, only for the truth to later emerge that the allegations of participation in terrorism and violent activities were genuine.”
Israel is forced to compete against European teams, rather than Asian ones, because of the Muslim and Arab boycott of the Jewish state. FIFA has tolerated this politicization of the sport. Rajoub is pressing for Israel to be suspended from all competition, politicizing the organization even further.
[Photo: Yonatan Sindel / Flash90 ]