The Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center is demanding that FIFA expel Palestinian Football Association head Jibril Rajoub, a promoter of terror, from world soccer.
In the latest development in an international controversy between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), an Israeli legal rights organization is charging that Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), who is leading a petition to expel Israel from FIFA, himself be removed from the international football association due to his extensive incitement to violence against the Jewish State.
The Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, which represents terror victims and combats efforts to delegitimize Israel, penned a letter to Sepp Blatter, president of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), demanding that he expel Rajoub for advocating the killing of Israeli civilians and the use of nuclear weapons against the state of Israel.
Rajoub, a terrorist released from Israeli prison in exchange for hostages, also serves as deputy secretary of the Central Committee of Fatah, the ruling party in the PA. Fatah is the parent organization of the arch-terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is responsible for attacks causing countless deaths and injuries among Israelis, said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder and president of Shurat HaDin.
In the letter to FIFA, she notes that Fatah was the PLO faction behind the 1972 Munich Olympics’ terrorist attack that left 11 Israeli athletes dead.
Darshan-Leitner emphasized that Rajoub’s remarks and incitement constitute grave breaches of his obligation to comply with FIFA’s statutes and rules prohibiting discrimination, intimidation and violence against individuals and groups. “It is outrageous that FIFA would allow a senior official of a terrorist organization to serve in a public position,” the letter states.
Rajoub has “promoted, supervised and glorified” a number of terror attacks by Fatah and by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades against Israel, Darshan-Leitner stated.
The letter highlights Rajoub’s statement that Israel is “our enemy and our battle is against them.” Darshan-Leitner further notes that Rajoub has said that in the armed conflict between Israel and “Palestinian irregular groups,” otherwise known as terror organizations, “the resistance should be fought by all means, and using all weapons,” and that “if we had nuclear weapons, we’d be using them.”
After Israel’s summer 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza, Rajoub openly praised the efforts of terrorists in the Strip, who fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli civilian areas, the letter continues.
When Palestinian and Israeli boys met in southern Israel for a football match in September, Rajoub stated: “Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity.”
“To say that such violent, hateful, discriminatory conduct is beneath the high ideals of FIFA for peace, sportsmanship and collegiality is to massively understate the obvious,” Darshan-Leitner asserted in the letter. “Rajoub has no place in FIFA because he has cynically and brazenly flouted FIFA’s standards for conduct in Article 3 of the FIFA Statutes and in Article 53 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code.”
According to FIFA’s standards, violation of the nondiscrimination statute is punishable by suspension or expulsion. Moreover, promoting hatred and violence is punishable by fines of at least 5,000 Swiss francs. If such incitement is committed through the mass media or takes place on a game day or near a stadium, the minimum fine is 20,000 Swiss francs.
“I urge you to preserve the impartiality and good name of FIFA and to expel him from international football’s governing organization,” Darshan-Leitner concluded.
In January, Shurat HaDin formally requested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Rajoub. “As a senior Fatah leader, Rajoub should be held responsible for the actions of his subordinates who act in accordance with the terrorist faction’s policies and goals,” the organization stated at the time.
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel