Israel blocks, detains and bombs Palestinian football players

Israel's War on Palestinian Football
amended version of article by Jim McGreevy of Irish PSC

Sport in Israel is often overshadowed by the political, economic and military situation but discrimination in sport against Palestinians is rife. As an Israeli football team - no doubt accompanied by loyal fans - prepares to play in Glasgow on December 2nd, it is worth remembering that Palestinians do not have that right. Israeli occupation and control over all borders and movement have created the conditions where maintaining any Palestinianian sporting life is a formidable affort. Palestinian sporting teams are often unable to represent their country on the international stage because they are denied the right to assemble and travel freely to national and international events.

In the West Bank and Gaza, functioning sports institutions have been closed by the Occupation Forces and leisure centres bombed. Israel bombed the football stadium in Gaza with a missile.

Palestine is a member of FIFA but Israel prevents them from competing freely in FIFA tournaments. In preparation for the 2006 World Cup, Israeli travel restrictions meant players from Gaza had to wait weeks at the Israeli controlled Rafah border to join their team-mates for training - in Egypt!

Half the Palestinian team missed the game against Uzbekistan: the team were also prevented from travelling to play a World Cup qualifier in Singapore in 2007. They were eliminated for failing to turn up. Refusing to allow the team to reschedule the match Jerome Champagne, the FIFA Deputy General Secretary stated that "football cannot go faster than politics".

The team were also barred from travelling to India in May 2008 for the AFC Challenge Cup with possible qualification for the 2011 Asia Cup. The Palestinian National Youth Football Team was barred from re-entering Gaza for over a month after they competed in Jordan in June 2007 and the British government became complicit in the process when in August the same team were refused visas to enter Britain for a three week tour - the official reason being that the Palestinians were ‘too poor to be trusted to return home’.

There are no adequate training facilities for Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza - or in Israel itself. With no pitch, the team have been forced to play "home" matches in a virtually empty stadium - usually in Qatar.

Israel recently did allow the Palestinian national team a single match on home soil, in October 2008. Israel, however, would not allow the game in Jerusalem: it had to be played in Ramallah. Israel only allowed 11 players to travel from Gaza to the West Bank and team captain Saeb Jundiya was barred from leaving Gaza.

During Israel’s assault on Gaza in January 2009 three Palestinian footballers - Wajeh Moshate, Khalil abed Jaber (Palestinian Olympic Committee member) and Ayman Alkurd (a Palestinian national team player) were killed. Football is played in the West Bank but players in Gaza have been grounded. Indeed Israel actually bans footballs from entering Gaza!  Many Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank have been assassinated while playing football by Israeli soldiers and illegal Jewish settlers.

Most Palestinians are refugees, victims of earlier waves of Israeli ethnic cleansing, and exile means they are unable to participate in the national sporting institutions of their country.

Inside Israel itself, apartheid reigns: the Hebrew University allowed Sports Association membership to Jewish members of the public but banned Arab citizens of Israel. Palestinians with Israeli ID cannot access anything like the same resources, materials and funding as Jewish citizens.

The Israeli propaganda machine skilfully exploits and extracts every ounce of mileage from influential personalities and organisations who allow it to present itself to the world as a tolerant liberal democracy - ‘the only democracy in the middle-east’. Sport is just another one of these areas. Ex-England footballer John Barnes promoted an “anti-racism” campaign for Israel – rather ironically given that Israel was born out of the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population who are still excluded from huge areas where only Jews may live, build houses or, often, sleep overnight.

In 2006 Arsenal Football Club endorsed a two year sponsorship deal with the Israeli Tourism Ministry making Israel Arsenal's "official and exclusive travel destination" at the same time that Israel was slaughtering hundreds of people in south Lebanon. Such acts try but fail to mask the smell of blood that most people now detect from Israel's occupation and ethnic cleansing.

After the Israeli Cup Final on 23 May 2009, the cloak slipped off to reveal the true nature of Israeli sport; despite its shallow claims to be an inclusive society that ‘even has Arabs representing the national team’, victorious Beitar Jerusalem players were caught on camera with fans singing popular anti-Arab racist songs. Among them was current Israeli player Amit Ben-Shushan who admitted singing about his fellow Israeli team-mate Salim Tuama, an Israeli-Arab - “This is the land of Israel Tuama…I hate you Tuama…you and all the Arabs”. Ben-Shushan is still in the Israeli national team.

The freedom enjoyed by Israeli sportsmen and women comes with official Israeli State harassment, detention, and murder of of Palestinians who are deprived of the right to fully participate in sports from local up to international level.  Discrimination in sport is part of Israel’s broad repressive policy towards the entire Palestinian

Jim McGreevy