Maccabi Germany wants Palestine FIFA motion against Israel rejected
Jewish sports organization Maccabi Germany has called on the ruling football body FIFA to dismiss a Palestine association (PFA) motion seeking sanctions against Israel at its congress later this week.
"The current motion by the PFA is part of a globally observed attempt to isolate Israel and, in our view, should be decisively rejected," Maccabi President Alon Meyer told dpa.
"We hope that the FIFA Congress will once again send a clear signal against such endeavours."
The PFA is calling for "appropriate sanctions to be taken against Israeli teams with immediate effect" at Friday's congress in Bangkok in connection with the Gaza conflict.
It spoke of "unprecedented international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Israel" and said that Israel's FA is "complicit in the Israeli government’s violations against Palestinian football."
FIFA has said the PFA has a right to present its position while at the same time a diplomatic solution is being sought via backroom talks.
Dpa understands that the ruling body is looking into whether it can refer the matter to its Council instead of a congress debate among the 211 FIFA member federations.
Israel portal One has said that their FA will hold talks on the issue to avoid a congress vote which appears not planned so far.
The PFA has said that its motion is backed by Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Yemen, and it is believed its aim is to suspend Israel's FIFA membership and its teams from international events.
It said that other teams could boycott matches against Israel, whose men's team has qualified for this summer's Paris Olympics.
Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that their federation IFA had the right to contest any FIFA suspension in every way it saw fit.
The IFA is part of the European confederation UEFA, with Germany and other members backing Israel in the Gaza conflict.
Meyer said he hopes for support from the German federation DFB at the Bangkok congress where the DFB will in his view "firmly condemn and block attempts to delegitimise the state of Israel with the help of sport."
Katz has named PFA president Jibril Rajoub "a terrorist in a suit" who has backed the crimes of militant Palestine group Hamas.
Israel began its military campaign to eliminate Hamas following the unprecedented October 7 attacks on southern Israel when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians and, according to latest reports in Israeli media, took round 250 people hostage to the Gaza Strip.
Some 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war so far, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled health authority. Israel is being increasingly criticized internationally due to the high number of civilian casualties and the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
The football conflicts dates back longer, with FIFA failing to find a sustainable solution between 2013 and 2017 after the PFA and Rajoub complained about Israel's treatment of clubs and players in the West Bank.
Rajoub was suspended for 12 months by FIFA in 2018 after calling for the burning of Lionel Messi shirts and posters should he play a match with Argentina in Jerusalem. The game was eventually cancelled.
