ZFA weighs in on soccer spat
THE Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) has called on soccer’s international governing body FIFA to show the red card to Palestinian attempts to get Israel and Israeli teams banned from international competitions.
The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) is calling for FIFA to pass a motion this month suspending the Israeli Football Association (IFA) claiming Israel hampers its activities by restricting the movement of its players between the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel cites security concerns for any restrictions, but notes that it has eased travel for Palestinian athletes.
Last weekend, FIFA president Sepp Blatter met with IFA president Ofer Eini and PFA president Jibril Rajoub, to discuss the issue in the hope of resolving the dispute ahead of upcoming Congress.
However, while both sides agreed to continue talks with Blatter, Rajoub said, “It’s clear that the Israeli Football Association is not willing to recognise the PFA as a federation with equal rights and obligations, just as they continue to violate their commitments made before FIFA. We are therefore determined to continue our path to suspend the Israeli Football Association during the next FIFA Congress.”
In a letter sent to Blatter last week, ZFA president Danny Lamm described the PFA proposal as “merely another manifestation of the unjust and immoral anti-Israel boycott campaign that seeks to isolate and marginalise both the Jewish State and the Jewish people”.
He added, “The United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) defines sport as: ‘a recognised instrument for promoting peace.’ But the suspension proposal advanced by the PFA constitutes an anti-peace initiative intended to politicise that which should be above politics – sport, The Palestinian proposal is also afflicted by a high degree of hypocrisy in light of the blanket ban imposed by a large number of Middle Eastern nations on entry by Israeli athletes.”
Urging FIFA to “avoid this political ‘own goal’ that will undermine the credibility of both the organisation over which you preside, and the sport to which you have devoted so much of your life,” Lamm called on Blatter “to use all the parliamentary procedural means at your disposal to prevent the inclusion of this politically destructive motion in the agenda of the FIFA Congress.”
AJN STAFF
ZFA president Danny Lamm. Photo: Peter Haskin
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