Fifa should show the red card to Israel

Football is described as the ‘Beautiful Game’ for good reason: bringing together players and countries from all over the world, football has the ability to transcend boundaries. For Palestinians, however, playing the Beautiful Game entails manoeuvring Israel’s ugly racist system. This week, as the Fifa Congress meets, they should finally pass a resolution suspending Israel for its systematic violations of Palestinian human rights and international law.

For years, Palestinian football players have endured Israel’s unrelenting campaign against them. Take, for example, the case of Mahmoud Sarsak, from Gaza, a member of the Palestinian national football team. In 2009, he was detained by Israel and held for more than three years, without charge or trial in — a procedure denounced by human rights advocates worldwide. After his detention was renewed for its third year, Sarsak embarked on 97-day hunger strike to secure his release. And Sarsak is not alone: last year Israeli soldiers shot two Palestinian football players at an Israeli checkpoint as they returned home from a training session. In addition to being shot, the players were mauled by dogs and beaten by soldiers. So brutal was the Israeli attack that these two men will never again be able to play professionally. No action was taken against the soldiers. The abuses do not stop there: Israel has routinely denied Palestinian football players the ability to travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip or abroad; it has bombed Palestinian football stadiums in the Gaza Strip and has barred international teams from entering Palestine to play opposite the Palestinian team.

Moreover, in violation of Fifa rules, Israel’s Football Association (IFA) continues to support football clubs in Israel’s illegal colonies, allowing these teams to join its leagues and compete in its competitions. The IFA has never once disciplined Beitar Jerusalem FC for that club’s long-standing ban on hiring Arab players, nor has any serious action ever been taken to curb the anti-Arab violence of its supporters, whose chilling chants of “Death to Arabs” are commonplace.

Sepp Blatter, the head of Fifa, and others have pressed Palestinians to seek a diplomatic solution to Israel’s violent actions and indeed the Palestinians have sought to do so. For two years, at the request of Fifa officials, Palestinians have put off presenting resolutions to Fifa condemning Israel’s actions. Rather than end its discriminatory treatment of Palestinian football players, however, the Israeli government and its complicit Football Association continue to carry out the same abuses. And this is not simply about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian football team for the abuses against the Palestinian football team are emblematic of Israel’s treatment of all Palestinians.

Fifa’s Blatter and others implore Palestinians not to “mix politics with sports”. But for Palestinians, it is impossible to ignore Israel’s apartheid - nor should we, nor should anyone demand for us to do so. On a daily basis, Palestinians must confront the system of racial discrimination prevalent in Israel, where Jews are afforded superior rights to Palestinians.

Today in Israel, more than 50 laws discriminate against Palestinians and Israel’s insatiable appetite for Palestinian land to build Israeli-only colonies and roads is unending. Whether to travel to football training or to work, Palestinians must manoeuvre a Byzantine network of Israeli checkpoints, are barred from travelling on certain roads and, most recently, have been relegated to a separate bus system at the request of Israeli colonists. Nearly 10 months after Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including 539 children, more than 100,000 Palestinian homes remain in ruins due to Israel’s policies barring the entry of construction material into the Gaza Strip. And, to cement its apartheid, early this month Israel’s highest court paved the way for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Al Naqab to make way for the construction of a Jewish-only town.

By imploring Palestinians not to “mix politics” Fifa is, in effect, turning blind eye to Israel’s abuses and, indeed, encouraging them to continue. At present there is no incentive for Israel to end its apartheid policies – for Israel it is “business as usual.”

Now is the time for Fifa to take punitive actions and to stand by its Charter, which it states that “[d]iscrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of ethnic origin, gender, language, religion, politics or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.” Just as Fifa took strong action against South African apartheid in 1976, sending the unmistakably clear message that it would not condone South Africa’s racist policies, so too Fifa must take strong action to condemn Israel’s apartheid. Now is the time to give Israel a red card for its apartheid. Only then, will the Beautiful Game, be beautiful once again.

— Diana Buttu is a Ramallah-based analyst, former adviser to Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian negotiators and policy adviser to Al Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.