FC Barcelona – one of the world’s greatest soccer teams, led by Argentinean soccer divinity Lionel Messi – traveled this week through Israel and through Palestinian controlled territories in the West Bank. When they played in Israel’s Jaffa, Israeli officials invited 400 to 500 Palestinians to watch the game. When they played in the West Bank, Palestinian officials banned Israelis from attending the exhibition. The Palestinians also vetoed the idea of a mixed Israeli-Palestinian team playing an exhibition, a proposal that was floated as a potential good-will gesture.

The result has some questioning whether the Palestinians, with whom Israel is currently seeking to negotiate a final status arrangement, are actually for peace:

This no way to run a peace train, Israeli government officials suggested Sunday, bewailing the Palestinian Authority’s failure to let Israelis attend the FC Barcelona soccer exhibition in the West Bank town of Dura on Saturday night… “Despite public proclamations about the desire for peace and reconciliation, the Palestinians refused to entertain the idea of a joint football team, and refused to have Israelis go to the West Bank to watch a match,” the official said. “This just shows the challenges we face now in moving the process forward.”

The dispute over the matches comes just days after Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas triggered controversy by declaring that a future Palestinian would be cleansed of Jews.

Another session of peace talks has been set for the second week of August.

[Photo: IsraeliPM / YouTube]