Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub talks to reporters at the FIFA Congress, held in Vancouver on April 30. (Screenshot youtube.com\/@thebreakernews)<\/i><\/p>\n
While the World Cup doesn\u2019t kick off until June 11 \u2013 at Mexico City\u2019s Estadio Azteca when Selecci\u00f3n de f\u00fatbol de M\u00e9xico faces off against the South African squad, nicknamed Bafana Bafana<\/i> (the Boys, in Zulu) \u2013 penalty cards have already been drawn. Palestinian Football Association (PFA) president Jibril Rajoub, general secretary Firas Abu Hilal and vice-president Susan Shalabi Molano were initially denied entry to Canada to attend the FIFA Congress on April 30, and the Asian Football Confederation confab two days earlier \u2013 both events were held at Vancouver Convention Centre.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) allowed the three sports bureaucrats to attend, and Rajoub, 72, has made the Mondial into a political football. Since 2024, he has repeatedly raised the issue of Israeli football clubs allegedly playing illegal matches in what the PFA argues is occupied territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.<\/p>\n
In March, FIFA (which stands for F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Football Association) issued a report on the issue, ruling it would \u201ctake no action\u201d over the PFA\u2019s claim. The report noted that resolving \u201cthe final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the FIFA annual meeting in Vancouver, Rajoub \u2013 who also serves as secretary general of Fatah\u2019s Central Committee \u2013 snubbed FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who attempted to orchestrate a handshake between the heads of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations. Following individual addresses toward the end of the assembly, both Rajoub and the Israel Football Association\u2019s vice-president, Basim Sheikh Suliman, were summoned to the stage by the FIFA president.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will work together … let\u2019s work together to give hope to the children. These are complex matters,\u201d he said. But Rajoub refused to stand alongside Sheikh Suliman. Instead, he pledged to take his complaints to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. No date has been set for the hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI refused to shake hands. Sport is sport … for me that should be respected,\u201d he told Reuters. \u201cBut, if the other side is representing a criminal like Bibi [Netanyahu] … how can I shake hands or have a photo with such a man?\u201d<\/p>\n
The PFA\u2019s three-member delegation wasn\u2019t the only one held up by the IRCC. Iranian soccer federation president Mehdi Taj said Canadian officials cleared him to enter the country for the FIFA Congress, but Iran\u2019s delegation chose to turn back after being held for three hours and questioned at Toronto\u2019s Pearson International Airport, Iranian media reported on May 1.<\/p>\n
Rajoub, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Rami, has long been connected to Palestinian terrorism. In September 1970, he was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israel Defence Forces bus near Hebron. Tried and convicted of this attack and of membership in an armed group, he was sentenced to life in prison. Fifteen years later, he was one of 1,150 security prisoners Israel released in exchange for three hostages held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine \u2013 General Command.<\/p>\n
Re-arrested in 1987 for his activities during the First Intifada, Rajoub was deported to Lebanon in 1988. Relocating to Tunisia, he served as an advisor to Fatah deputy leader Khalil al-Wazir. After Wazir\u2019s assassination by Israeli agents, he became a lieutenant of Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and was allegedly behind a 1992 plot to assassinate Ariel Sharon.<\/p>\n
Rajoub was allowed to return to the West Bank in 1994, following the signing of the Oslo Accords. He served as head of the PA\u2019s Preventive Security Force until 2002. The following year, Arafat appointed him national security advisor.<\/p>\n
The FIFA Congress was the 76th since FIFA was founded in 1904. It brought together more than 1,600 international delegates from 211 FIFA member associations.<\/p>\n
This summer\u2019s 48-team competition \u2013 the most widely watched sporting event in the world \u2013 takes place in multiple cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian team qualified for the tournament.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gil Zohar <\/b>is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub talks to reporters at the FIFA Congress, held in Vancouver on April 30. (Screenshot youtube.com\/@thebreakernews) While the World Cup doesn\u2019t kick off until June 11 \u2013 at Mexico City\u2019s Estadio Azteca when Selecci\u00f3n de f\u00fatbol de M\u00e9xico faces off against the South African squad, nicknamed Bafana Bafana (the Boys, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2447,6416,24861,24862,3597,3314,1774,584],"class_list":["post-48982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-jibril-rajoub","tag-palestinian-football-association","tag-politics","tag-soccer","tag-terrorism","tag-world-cup"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}