FIFA braces for Israeli-Palestinian showdown

The Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel from global football goes visible at the FIFA. The Palestinian side hopes the campaign will ease Israeli pressure on local football The scene is set at next month’s World Cup in Brazil for a showdown between Israel and Palestine – albeit off the pitch, given that neither qualified for one of the world’s most important sporting events.

The looming battle in the congress in Sao Paolo of world soccer body FIFA reflects Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel internationally and undermine its legitimacy in the wake of the breakdown of moribund peace negotiations as well as Israeli concern that growing opposition to its policy toward the Palestinians potentially constitutes as great a threat as Iran becoming a nuclear power.

The campaign by the Palestine Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas to gain recognition as a state by joining a multitude of United Nations organizations and pushing for condemnation of Israel if not suspension of Israeli membership includes an effort by the Palestine Football Federation (PFF) to sanction Israel for obstructing Palestinian football.

The effort to persuade FIFA to expel Israel comes as plans to form a unity government that groups the Palestinians’ two rival political factions – Mr. Abbas’ Fatah movement and Islamist militia Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip – is meeting less international resistance than either Israel or Palestine had hoped for or expected.

Israel, which has vowed not to negotiate with Hamas as long as it refuses to recognize the Jewish state and renounce armed struggle had hoped that its allies, the United States and the European Union, would back its refusal to deal...