The Home Ground [dis]Advantage

This June will mark 50 years since the Arab/ Israeli 6 Day War, in which Israel gained military control of the Palestinian West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Over the last 50 years Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian territory on the West Bank have continued to expand. And now the Israel Football Association is sponsoring football activity in those areas, with little to no objection from Fifa.

For the last few decades, the Israel Football Association has fielded six clubs in Israeli settlements in Ma’aleh Adumim, Ariel, Bik’at Hayarden, Givat Ze’ev, and Oranit in the West Bank. The settlements these six clubs are based in are located on land that is occupied by Israel. The land is part of the territory of the Palestinian Football Association and the settlements themselves are considered unlawful under international law. In fact, the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 even says that these settlements have no legal validity, and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of peace.

Not only are the settlements illegal, but the clubs based in them also breach Fifa’s own independent statutes, as article 72 [2] clearly states that "Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter's approval." And before anyone asks, yes. Palestine is a member association of Fifa, regardless of whether it's internationally recognized as a state.

“There’s a clear international consensus that the West Bank is occupied territory." explains Human Rights Watch Director of Israel and Palestine Advocacy, Sari Bashi. "It doesn’t belong to Israel. And international law requires third parties to differentiate between Israel and the West Bank.”

In one case, the "home ground" of one of the Israeli clubs in question is actually the documented property of a Palestinian family who haven't been able to access their land since the early 70's.

So in 2015, when it was decided to appoint a monitoring committee to oversee Fifa’s potential intervention in Israeli/ Palestinian football disputes, then President of Fifa Sep Blatter appointed struggle veteran, turned business man, turned human rights icon, *Tokyo Sexwale, to chair the process.

South African Minister of Sport and Recreation, Thulas Nxesi was never surprised by the decision.

“I think the choice of Mr. Sexwale to lead that particular committee was based on the understanding that he comes from a society that knows these issues of discrimination.” - Nxesi

However, Sexwale’s committee has provided little in the way of understanding and clarity since then. Originally given the deadline of May 2016 to try to resolve the issue of the Israeli settlement clubs, the committee has repeatedly stalled in delivering its report. On no less than three occasions, Mr. Sexwale has postponed or asked for extensions on the deadline, bringing us cautiously to May 2017, two years after the formation of the committee, when Mr. Sexwale is expected to reveal his final recommendations to the 67th annual Fifa Congress in Bahrain.

Struggle veteran, Ronnie Kasrils has been following the development (or lack thereof) of the matter closely. He openly took issue with Sexwale's careless use of language in 2016, when the former Robben Island prisoner referred to the area of contention as "disputed territory". Kasrils penned an open letter to Sexwale at the time, stating his disappointment that his former comrade would so brazenly "ignore the position of his party and the South African government."

“One hasn’t seen anything very convincing emerging." Kasrils told me during a brief patio meeting at his home in Greenside, Johannesburg. "We’ve just seen an awful step back by him [Sexwale]. And we’ll watch, very carefully for the report that’s now imminent.”

Kasrils, among others, hopes that Mr. Sexwale’s final report reflects the prioritization of human rights for which he has come to be globally revered.

“Mr. Sexwale is an interesting figure. He’s obviously somebody who’s fought against terrible forms of oppression and racism that look very much like what’s happening in the West Bank right now," Bashi points out.

Her and I sat alone in her empty, quiet office on the day we spoke because we could only find time to accommodate each other on a public holiday. So we had all the time in the world for her to segue casually into some of Mr. Sexwale's history. Including talk of how he trained, as a young man, with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the former Soviet Union.

“It would be ironic," she concluded, "if an anti-Apartheid activist would uphold the act of Fifa sponsoring games under a situation such as Apartheid.” - Bashi

Kasrils added that he’s been “Very disappointed" with a man who he's liked and admired and had good, warm relations with in the past.

"This is a man who was an MK hero, a Robben Island prisoner and so on with a tremendous record... in the past.” (The last three words followed a lengthy elipses.)

To Mr. Kasrils, the action Mr. Sexwale and Fifa should be taking is clear.

"This is where Tokyo must show his colours," says Kasrils (at which point, of course, I saw colours of the ANC flag flash across my vision.) "Irrespective of how they deal with them, he must be a voice that comes out and says that this must stop."

Unable to escape his political affiliations, Mr. Sexwale was again held against the ANC mast by Thulas Nxesi, who, with a slow and earnest tone pleaded for Sexwale to take into consideration "the South African position towards Israel."

“We would expect from him that his recommendations should be informed by the principles we have been fighting for,” he said. Notably, with a grey Palestinian Kufiya draped over his shoulders during that very conversation.

Though in a recent interview with Israeli ambassador, Arthur Lenk, it became clear to me that such an intervention would be a hard sell over in Israel.

“I think Fifa’s better off doing football. Not doing politics. And Fifa is safer by saying to the two parties, ‘you need to talk to each other. And if you can’t resolve, talk more’.” - Lenk

In a frustrating interview at the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, I struggled to convince the ambassador of the relevance of Fifa's humanitarian agenda, vis-à-vis the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. How could I when Mr. Lenk insisted on consistently reminding me of Israel's innocence, and of the great public relations hoax of Palestinian oppression?

I became particularly stuck in trying to engage with him on any parallels between Fifa's mandate in the West Bank and the action taken against Apartheid South Africa in 1961 - which is still widely lauded today in having aided in the alienation of the Apartheid government from the global community. Incapable of agreeing on whether Israel is an Apartheid state, how could we ever come to a consensus on an appropriate action against modern Apartheid practices?

Even as recently as 2014, Fifa and UEFA made a strong ruling in the case of Russia – prohibiting the extension of official Russian football activity into occupied Crimea. The UEFA Emergency Panel decided in August 2014 “That any football matches played by Crimean clubs organised under the auspices of the Russian Football Union will not be recognised by UEFA until further notice.” Not long after that was announced, Russia confirmed it would comply with the UEFA ruling and dropped its clubs from the Russian football system.

“That’s what Fifa needs to go back to," insists Kasrils. "That particular human rights, internationalist approach. And apply the same principles against Apartheid Israel.”

And that will be the expectation on May 11th, when lobbyists, human rights groups and Palestinians turn up to observe the upcoming Fifa Congress in the hope of a clear resolution.

“We ask from Fifa the minimum," said the Palestinian Ambassador to South Africa, Mr. Hashem Dajani to me at a meeting in Braamfontein late, on a recent Autumn Monday night. "The minimum is to ban soccer teams from the settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands to participate in Fifa organized competitions.”

Even Minister Nxesi insists that sober attention must be paid in this regard.

“They must be serious in terms of dealing with that situation. As complex as it is, it’s about Fifa’s own rules that must be applied. It’s a question now of consistency.”

Though whether that implies that Fifa should immediately ban Israeli settlement clubs from the West Bank or actually take the action of suspending the Israel Football Association from Fifa sanctioned football activity altogether, Mr. Nxesi preferred to leave that to the committee's discretion.

Ms. Bashi's recommendation is a lot more direct: "Fifa needs to require the Israel Football Association to play football in Israel. That means the Israel Football Association must stop sponsoring matches in the West Bank, on land that doesn’t belong to it." She stresses that:

“If you allow the Israel Football Association to field games in the West Bank, you are essentially pretending the West Bank belongs to Israel.”

And therein lies the rub. It's a spectacular form of erasure. By allowing these clubs to continue authorized league activity under such highly concerning circumstances, you're effectively aiding in an almost Brechtian public relations exercise that aims to normalize an extraordinarily abnormal situation, by masking calls against injustice with celebratory cheers, sporting jeers and the jovial 'spirit' of football.

The internationally recognized consensus is that The West Bank does not belong to Israel. And despite assertions by the Israeli government that these settlement regions may some day form part of Israel in any peace agreement that they’re willing to reach, Fifa’s statutes prohibiting the participation of settler-clubs in occupied territories is already in existence now. As we speak. So surely they must be acted on. Right?

(*Mr Sexwale and his office repeatedly refused to be interviewed during the compilation of this investigation.)

JS.