Since 2006, Jibril Rajoub, a former Arafat henchman, has served as the head of the Palestinian Football Association; he is also the chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee. Rajoub, who aspires to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as chairman of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has consistently used his position to conduct diplomatic warfare against Israel by athletic means. But David May argues that his ability to do so may be waning:
Until this summer, Rajoub’s strategy had been a successful one. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other countries have discriminated against Israeli athletes—earning them warnings and fines from international sports bodies since at least 2009. From at least 2013 through late 2017, Rajoub oversaw an abortive campaign to boot Israel from FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, for alleged human-rights violations. Rajoub’s efforts succeeded in creating the FIFA Monitoring Committee for Israel-Palestine. However, the committee’s report in October 2017, showed how weak Rajoub’s claims were against Israel, leading FIFA to dismiss his efforts.
But the bottom truly fell out when Israel prepared to host the Argentinian national team in the summer of 2018, and Rajoub vowed “to target [the Argentinian player Lionel] Messi personally” to pressure the team into canceling the match. Protesters waved Messi shirts stained with fake blood outside Argentina’s training facility and burned pictures and jerseys of the Argentinian soccer phenomenon. In response, FIFA handed Rajoub a $20,000 fine and a one-year suspension. Argentina withdrew from the match—not because it respected the Palestinian boycott call, but because it feared for its players’ safety.
Arab-Israeli normalization deals, now including the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, are making this kind of rejectionism seem more out of touch with reality every day—even with the Palestinians themselves.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/its-time-to-stop-the-palestinian-sports-boycott-of-israel-opinion-651431