Football is a field of resistance that is both symbolic and material for
the Palestinian people, the cement of its unity despite itsfragmentation. As such, it is regularly attacked by the Zionist state,
in Palestine and internationally. ---- Any Palestinian national
aspiration has been fought since the creation of Israel: Palestine does
not exist! Therefore, it is out of the question to see its colors
represented in football stadiums. For this reason, Israel harasses local
teams: on November 10, 2012, during the "pillar of defense" offensive,
the Gaza stadium was deliberately bombed and 4 young footballers aged 6
to 18 were killed. On January 1, 2014, soldiers opened fire without
warning on two new recruits of the Palestinian national team... aged 19
and 17. Having been shot in the feet, the two young hopefuls will never
be able to play football again. Blockades, checkpoints and roadblocks
prevent athletes from meeting up to play together, bans on travelling
abroad are recurrent, matches are regularly cancelled.
The Palestinian national team is made up of players from the West Bank,
Gaza, Palestinians from 48 or from the diaspora. This geographical
fragmentation leads to numerous trips and uncertainties, as confirmed by
coach Jamal Mahmoud: "I never know which player I will be able to
use[...]in general I make up three possible teams and at the end we see
who we can take"[1].
Nicknamed the lions of Canaan by its supporters, the Palestinian men's
football team recently qualified for the third round of the 2026 World
Cup qualifiers.
PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION
Multicultural origins
The first Palestinian football federation was created by a Belarusian
Jewish immigrant in 1928. It brought together Jewish and Arab clubs, but
from the 1930s onwards, Jewish leaders were in the majority on the board
of directors, and from 1934 onwards, Arab clubs no longer had a say. For
the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, no Arab players were part of the
selection. The Arabs then created their own structures but they were
dismantled during the Great Palestinian Arab Revolt of 1936-1939.
Since 2005, the Palestine Football Federation has also managed a women's
team. In 2022, it finished fourth in the West Asian Championship.
PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION
After 1948, the State of Israel took control of football clubs in
Israel's Arab villages in order to control them. Tensions quickly arose;
in 1964, a match between two teams from Jewish and Arab villages ended
in clashes between players and supporters; the next day, hundreds of
Arab workers went on strike. Two months later, Hapoel Bnei Nazareth, the
first Arab team to make a name for itself in the Israeli championship,
celebrated its rise to the second division by crushing the Jewish team
from Kiryat Shmona 8-0. In response, Israel dissolved the same year a
network of football teams that were trying to form an embryonic Arab
championship between several cities.
But many Israeli Arab players, fed up with the racism of the Israeli
leagues, were attracted to the newly created clubs in the West Bank.
Red card to Israeli racism
The founding of a Palestinian league was enacted after the Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian Football Federation was integrated into FIFA in 1998,
becoming the first international organization to recognize Palestine as
an independent state. On October 26, 2006, a match was held between the
"lions of Canaan" (name of the first Arab team founded in 1947) and the
Jordanian team. The match ended in a draw, but the result does not
matter, the important thing is elsewhere, as footballer Murad Ismail
Said said: "a team that comes to play on our land is a way of
recognizing the Palestinian state"[2]. Three days later, it will be the
turn of the Palestinian women's team to face its first international
match at home, still against Jordan.
Each match of Palestinian teams has a strong symbolic dimension: the
flags do not have the same meaning when they concern a State whose
existence 46 countries still do not recognize, including France.
PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION
In terms of international solidarity, football is also a space of combat
with the sports boycott led by the BDS campaign. Concerning football,
the campaign "red card to Israeli racism"[3]will be created, recalling
that FIFA had suspended South Africa for 30 years.
FIFA recognizes Palestine
On 23 July 2009, Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian footballer from the
Balata refugee camp, was arrested on his way to his new club and was
imprisoned for 3 years without trial or charge. He went on a 92-day
hunger strike to be released, but his career was ruined by the
after-effects of his internment and torture. A petition was then
launched and signed by Eric Cantona, among others, who, in a letter,
urged Michel Platini, then president of UEFA, to take a position: "It is
time to end Israel's immunity and insist on the same criteria of
equality and respect for international law that we demand of states"[4].
The former Manchester United striker will also oppose the holding of the
European Under-21 Football Cup in Israel in 2013. In 2010, Michel
Platini will threaten Israel with no longer being part of UEFA for all
its abuses, but from words to actions...
While FC St Pauli has held pro-Israeli positions in recent months, some
of its supporters' clubs are showing their support for Palestine, here
on the walls of Hamburg.
MANCHESTER ST. PAULI
In 2016, the Palestinian federation, supported by around sixty MEPs,
protested to the body against 6 football clubs set up in the colonies.
FIFA then became a political arena for the Palestinian cause. Football
is also a field of inventiveness for the symbolic resistance of the
population. In 2010, the Gazans launched their own World Cup, the Gaza
World Cup, with the motto: "if you can't go to South Africa, the World
Cup will come to you"[5]. For two weeks, sixteen teams from the Gaza
Strip, including 14 professional clubs, will be renamed after several
countries. "We want to draw the world's attention to our isolation and
show that there is life here," said Tamer Qarmout, one of the organizers
of the event[6]. The final will pit "France" against "Jordan" in the
Yarmouk stadium in Gaza, broadcast on Al Jazeera, and the winners will
receive a trophy made by local craftsmen from metal found in Israeli
bombings. To conclude with Mahmoud Darwich, "we will be a people when
the Palestinians only remember their flag in the stadiums"[7].
Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Montreuil)
NO GENOCIDALISTS AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES!
Israel uses sport to promote and whitewash itself, particularly with its
regular participation in recent years in the Tour de France under the
brand name "Israel startup nation" (while Israel does not have a
national cycling federation!). The BDS France campaign has regularly
targeted the Tour de France in recent years to denounce this
participation. While the great "party" of the Olympic Games will take
place while people continue to die in Gaza, the BDS campaign hopes to
invite itself and disrupt the celebrations somewhat by denouncing the
participation of Israeli teams, demanding that the colonial state
endorse the same sanction as Russia, excluded from the Olympic Games for
its invasion of Ukraine.
Don't hesitate to join this fight this summer, comrades!
Validate
[1]Mickaël Correia, A Popular History of Football, La Découverte, 2018.
[2]Ibid.
[3]"We Can't Give a F*ck About Football", BDS brochure, 2014.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Mickaël Correia, op. cit.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Mahmoud DARWICH, The Butterfly's Trace - Pages from a Journal (Summer
2006-Summer 2007), Actes Sud, Arles, 2009.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Palestine-Le-football-palestinien-dans-la-resistance
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