PA sports: Prohibiting peace building and glorifying terror

Palestinian Authority Sports

Glorifying terrorists, prohibiting peace building,

celebrating the Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes 

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Introduction

Section 1

Part 1: PA uses sports to glorify terrorists

Part 2: PA prohibits using sports as a bridge for peace

Part 3: Jibril Rajoub, head of the PA Olympic Committee, promotes terror

Part 4: PA glorifies terrorists responsible for Munich Olympics massacre

Section 2

Documentation in detail

Click to view full report in PDF 

Introduction

This week, the Palestinian Authority is asking FIFA to suspend Israel's participation in FIFA sports activities. It is ironic that the PA is making such an aggressive request, when in fact it is the PA and Fatah who routinely disrespect the basic values of international sportsmanship, and the spirit upon which Olympic sports are founded.

The Palestinian Authority's abuse of sports is a concrete example of how the PA chooses to further entrench the conflict rather than work to resolve it. The Palestinian Authority uses sports to send the message that murdering Israeli civilians is honorable and heroic, that all of Israel is "Palestine," and that peace building or "normalization" with Israel is prohibited and even criminal.

Jibril Rajoub, Head of the PA Olympic Committee, has organized and is promoting the request to FIFA. He is also one of the driving forces behind this abuse of sports and continues to promote terror himself. Even the terrorists responsible for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics in 1972 continue to be glorified by the PA and Fatah.

PMW documentation clearly shows the irony of the PA's request. If any sports association should be suspended from FIFA for fundamental violations of the spirit of sports, it is the Palestinian Authority.

PMW therefore calls on FIFA:

1. To suspend the PA until it:

A. Publically commits to stop naming sporting events after terrorist murderers.

B. Publically commits to stop glorifying the Munich Olympics terror attack and the terrorists.

2- To sever ties with Jibril Rajoub until he retracts his statements calling for terror and "slaughter."  

Click to view full report in PDF  

Section 1:
 

Part 1: PA uses sports to glorify terrorists

The Palestinian Authority uses sports to educate its children that terror against civilians is heroic "resistance." The PA and Fatah have named many sporting events after terrorist murderers, including those who were involved in the most lethal terror attacks in Israel's history.

During the PA terror campaign (the Intifada, 2000-2005), as the PA's terror promotion intensified, so the PA's honoring of terrorist murderers through sports grew dramatically. Among many examples, the PA Ministry of Education named a football tournament for 14-year-old boys after the suicide bomber who attacked a Passover celebration, killing 31 Israelis.

This PA terror glorification continues today. Last year, the PA Ministry or Education named a football tournament after the "Martyr" Abu Sukkar, who in 1975 detonated a refrigerator filled with explosives in Jerusalem, killing 15 and injuring over 60. In 2015 alone, PMW has so far documented at least 10 tournaments sponsored by the PA or Fatah named after terrorists. For example, Fatah ran a "sports festival" named the "Martyr Raed Al-Karmi and Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Tournament" in January 2015. Al-Karmi was responsible for the murder of 9 Israelis, while Mughrabi led the most lethal attack in Israel's history, in which 37 civilians were murdered, including 12 children.
 

Part 2: PA prohibits using sports as a bridge for peace

The PA uses sporting events to express the view that authentic peace building between Israelis and Palestinians is criminal. One of the principles of international sports and especially the Olympics is that sports can and should be a bridge of peace between peoples. The Israeli Peres Center for Peace, for example, has organized and promoted joint sporting events for Palestinians and Israelis for many years. However, the PA absolutely prohibits this and threatens legal measures against Palestinian athletes who participate in matches against Israel, condemning these sport activities as "normalization."

For example, after the Gaza War in 2014, the official PA daily printed a report by AgenceFrance - Presse that "Palestinian and Israeli children participated in friendly football matches" organized by the Peres Center for Peace. The event was an overwhelming success achieving sincere peace building:

"Ofer, 11, from Sderot, a town in southern Israel where many rockets had landed, said: 'It's great to come back here and enjoy our time, after weeks of being stuck at home during the war.' And [Palestinian] Qusai, 11, said: 'I love it when we play together like this. I hope that one day there will be peace between Arabs and Jews and that there will be no more wars and death." [From Agence France-Presse, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 3, 2014]

The PA's response to this authentic peace building activity indicates how adamantly the PA opposes peace:

"Abd Al-Salam Haniyeh, Palestinian Olympic Committee memberdenounced the match held between Palestinian and Israeli children.He considered it a crime and an unpatriotic and immoral act... Haniyeh said these matches are completely unacceptable to the sports community, the Olympic Committee, the Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs and the Palestinian Football Association... Haniyeh demanded that Chairman of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril Rajoub immediately interrogate the [Palestinian] organizers of the match, settle the account with them and prosecute them on charges of serious treason."

[Sama, independent Palestinian news agency, Sept. 3, 2014]

Three days later, Rajoub viciously condemned the peace building football matches. He posted on his personal Facebook page: "Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity." [Kooora.com, Palestinian sports site, and Jibril Rajoub's official Facebook page, Sept. 6, 2014]

This is not new rhetoric from Rajoub. In 2013, he threatened to throw anyone off the PA football team if they engaged in joint sports activities with Israelis:

"Anyone who joins any joint [sports] activity with the Israelis -- I'll take him off the [Palestinian Football] Association's lists, whether he is a player, coach, judge or, God forbid, a team... I won't allow and won't agree to any joint game between Arabs and Israel." [Official PA TV, July 1, 2013]

On another occasion, Rajoub stated that "the term normalization does not exist in the Palestinian sports lexicon" [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 18, 2012]

 Indeed, Jibril Rajoub, Head of the Olympic Committee, is the very man behind the prohibition of using sports to build peace - a basic principle of the Olympics and of FIFA. Part of FIFA's mission statement says that "FIFA's primary objective is 'to improve the game of football constantly and promote it globally in the light of its unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values, particularly through youth and development programmes.'" And later it states that "football can inspire communities and break down barriers."
 

Part 3: Jibril Rajoub, head of the PA Olympic Committee,
promotes terror

The great irony of the PA's request of FIFA is that the person spearheading the request is head of the PA Olympic Committee, Jibril Rajoub, who regularly uses sports to entrench the conflict with Israel (some of which is documented above) and to glorify terror. Rajoub is also Chairman of the Palestinian Football Association and Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee.

Rajoub was behind a "Dalal Mughrabi Table Tennis Tournament":

At the tournament, Vice President of the Palestinian Table Tennis Association Radwan Al-Sharif "conveyed the greetings of Chairman of the Olympic Committee Jibril Rajoub." He also mentioned "the glorious deeds of hero Martyr Dalal Mughrabi and noted that the Table Tennis Association acts in accordance with the Olympic Committee's agenda." [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 1, 2013]

It should be noted that the "glorious deeds" carried out by Mughrabi is a reference the terror attack that she led, in which 37 civilians were murdered.

In addition, Rajoub himself is a convicted terrorist who was sentenced to life in prison for throwing a grenade. Rajoub, who served 15 years of his prison sentence, continues to call for the murder and "slaughter" of Israelis: 

"I'm telling everyone: Fatah has decided that our relations with the Israelis are relations between enemies... am I stopping you from slaughtering a settlement? No one is stopping anyone. Don't lie and tell me: 'The [PA] Security Forces and Mahmoud Abbas,' and so on [stop you]. Drop it, OK? No one is stopping anyone. Our political decision is resistance in the occupied territories in order to bring an end to the occupation [using] all forms of resistance." 

[Fatah-run Awdah TV, Aug. 13, 2014]

Rajoub also told Lebanese TV:

"Listen. We as yet don't have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we'd have used it this very morning." [Al-Mayadeen (Lebanon), April 30, 2013]   

Even after Palestinian Media Watch exposed Rajoub's incendiary statements, he refused to retract his call for mass murder of Israelis:

"True, the interviewer asked me and I answered in the same manner and with those words and even now I say to the Israelis: If there won't be a reexamination of your conduct on your part, a saying in Hebrew states: 'kill or be killed.' We won't be killed, we're not Jesus, true, we come from Jesus' apostles but we, our future and our government and our identity are being trampled under the criminal terrorist settler dogs' feet. I'm certain that if Hitler would come again he would learn from them the art of breaking the will of the people, humiliating the people, [making the] people suffer, destroying the people and massacres." [Official PA TV, May 23, 2013]   

Rajoub has also compared killing Israelis to building a school: 

"Building a school and throwing a hand grenade, in my opinion, are resistance. I build the school in order to strengthen the reasons for my people's resolve, as one of several aspects of the resistance, and when there is a need to throw a grenade [or launch] a rocket, I'll do that as well out of my belief in the inevitable victory of my cause and its justness." [Official PA TV, May 12, 2010]

Finally, Rajoub has expressed Antisemitic views:

"Under no circumstances will there be normalization [with Israel]. Next time we are prepared to bring the Executive Committee in helicopters [so they won't go through Israel]... they will see no Jews, no Satans, no Zionist sons of bitches. Come by helicopter and go back by helicopter."  

[Official PA TV, May 17, 2012]    
 

Part 4: PA glorifies terrorists responsible
for Munich Olympics massacre

Another affront to international sports by the PA is its ongoing glorification of the massacre by Palestinian terrorists of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The PA and Fatah actively glorify the attack and the five men who they credit with planning and organizing the Olympics terror attack: Ali Hassan Salameh, Amin Al-Hindi, Salah Khalaf, Abu Daoud, and Abu Yusuf Al-Najjar.

This is how Amin Al-Hindi, a leader of the Black September terror organization that was behind the attack, was eulogized in the official PA daily:

"Everyone knows that Amin Al-Hindi was one of the stars who sparkled at one of the stormiest points on the international level - the operation that was carried out at the [Olympics] sports stadium in Munich, Germany, in 1972. That was just one of many shining stations." [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20, 2010]

Mahmoud Abbas said about Abu Daoud:

"He was at the forefront on every battlefield... What a wonderful brother, companion, tough and persistent, relentless fighter." [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2010]

Recently Abbas and his Fatah movement chose to honor Abu Yusuf Al-Najjar and Fatah honored Ali Hassan Salameh:

"The Fatah Central Committee held a meeting headed by President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday [April 19, 2015]... The Central Committee addressed the 42nd anniversary of the Martyrdom-death of commanders Kamal Adwan, Kamal Nasser, and Abu Yusuf Al-Najjar. The Committee emphasized its loyalty to their path, and that it would continue in their path of struggle..."

[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 20, 2015]

"Ali Hassan Salameh, the Martyr Commander, the Red Prince. The glory in his name is enough."

[Facebook, Fatah - The Main Page, Feb. 17, 2015]

The PA has named three schools after Salah Khalaf. [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 8, 2009]

Conclusion

PMW's documentation clearly shows that the PA and Fatah habitually disrespect the basic values of international sportsmanship. The PA and Fatah use sports to glorify murderers of civilians, and prohibit the use of sports to build peace. In addition, Jibril Rajoub, head of the PA Olympic Committee, is a major driving force behind these policies and continues to promote terror. Finally, the PA and Fatah continue to present the terrorists behind the Munich Olympics massacre as heroes.

Clearly, if any FIFA member should be suspended from FIFA for fundamental disrespect for the values of international sportsmanship - it is the Palestinian Authority.

PMW calls on FIFA:

1. To suspend the PA until it:

A. Publically commits to stop naming sporting events after terrorist murderers.

B. Publically commits to stop glorifying the Munich Olympics terror attack and the terrorists.

2- To sever ties with Jibril Rajoub until he retracts his statements calling for terror and "slaughter."  

Section 2: "Documentation in detail" - can be seen as part of the full report in the PDF.