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 sactions 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."
Dpa understands that FIFA is looking into whether it can refer the matter to its Council instead of a congress debate among the 211 FIFA member federations.
Israel began its military campaign to eliminate militant Palestinian group 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.
