By Andrew Warshaw
July 8 – On a truce mission some might describe as mission impossible, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has promised to do everything he can to ease travel restrictions placed on Palestinian footballers by the Israeli authorities and to help resolve the differences between the two sides. Just over a month after backing the Palestinian cause during a speech at the Fifa Congress in Mauritius, Blatter is in the Middle East on a symbolic diplomatic visit partly designed to relax the increasing tension between Palestinians and Israelis.
The Palestinian FA, like Israel full members of Fifa, are angry that Israel’s security forces, who control movement between the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, frequently prevent its players from travelling freely between the two separated territories.
“I will go to defend not only the Palestine Football Association but I will defend the basic principles of FIFA (which are) to connect people and not to separate people…,” said Blatter on the eve of his visit. “The principles are … to recognise each other through football and to live not only in peace but in harmony.”
On his arrival, Blatter continued that theme as he urged Israel to give greater freedom to Palestinian athletes, telling an audience at Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus: “We will help you. Football will help you. I have taken you in my heart. I’m in a sport-diplomatic mission to transmit to the Israeli authorities the problems which your football faces, especially when it comes to the movement of players to get in and out of Palestine. I will fight for your cause. Football shall not create borders; football shall bring people together.”
Palestine FA head Jibril Rajoub has warned that if the matter is not resolved satisfactorily, he will call on delegates at next year’s FIFA Congress to expel Israel, which claims it has no choice but to apply restrictions in order to preserve its own security.
“We hope the Israelis will not lose this chance to reconsider their behaviour with the Palestinians. If they do not … we will ask next year that Israel should be expelled from FIFA,” Rajoub said.
Blatter’s trip, which culminates with a meeting with Israeli officials, began in Jordan where he visited the Zaatari Refugee camp near the Syrian border, accompanied by Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, Asia’s Fifa Vice President. Administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the camp numbers 115,000 Syrian refugees – the second largest refugee camp in the world today.
During the visit Blatter witnessed one of the football-focused Mine Risk Education workshops organized by the Asian Football Development Project (AFDP), a non-profit youth commission founded and chaired by Prince Ali, followed by the inauguration of the FIFA-funded artificial turf pitch in the city of Turra near the Syrian border, which will play host to grassroots activities benefiting Syrian refugees as well as young Jordanians in host communities.