With the recent US arrests of top FIFA officials making a vote much more difficult at any rate, the Palestinian mission to the soccer body announced a compromise by which it will drop its bid to suspend Israel from international play.
The Palestinians had been seeking the vote before, citing Israeli move to restrict the movement of Palestinian footballers, as well as incidents of Israeli troops maiming and crippling soccer players. Under the new deal, FIFA will form a committee that will examine ways to increase freedom of movement for Palestinians in international competition.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had angrily threatened to see FIFA destroyed outright if the vote went through, but after the US arrests of FIFA leaders for corruption, there was so much distraction a vote seemed hugely unlikely at any rate.
Soccer is hugely popular in Israel, as in most of the world, and any FIFA ruling keeping them out of international play would be a huge blow. This likely encouraged Israel to agree to the compromise on the committee, though it remains to be seen if this will lead to any further reforms.
Lawfare worked. Arresting so much of the leadership deterred them from voting against Israel. Timing was perfect, arrests just two days before the vote.
Now the US acts like Singapore and Malaysia, at least in service of Israel.
I still have hope this will happen eventually, but the international reach of Zionism ("antisemitic trope" alert!) must not be underestimated. I was hoping it would happen last summer when Mohammed Assaf sang at the FIFA Congress opening.
Meanwhile, Alison Weir fights back against JVP's smears:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid…
angrily threatened to see FIFA destroyed outright
?
" “… the result will be FIFA’s collapse,” […] “The Athenian Assembly thousands of years ago collapsed when they started ousting people. They cancelled its universality. The same will happen with FIFA. We’ll fight against it.” "
That'd be a deniable threat. I think he's trying to mime Ahmadinejead–saying it's demise is inevitable-due-to-it's-actions/nature. Coming from Bibi, though, that means a pair of 'lone wolves' implicated in Kiddie Porn may whack dozens of FIFA staffers and leave their IDs.
Other bit is: what does this 'universality' (and even inevitables & imperitives) schtick mean coming from Israel? Same folks who'd give speeches saying "The World Must" eat Iran. It doesn't mean what you or I would mean by it…
I wonder if there were any mysterious deposits to Abbas' bank account just before Palestine dropped the FIFA plan to oust Israel.
You can bet your last dollar on that one.
Looks like the US/Israel undermining of FIFA worked.