It’s Time to Kick Israel Out of Soccer

15 August 2016

 - This may be the year in which sport, especially soccer, emerges as the next frontier in the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to isolate Israel over its occupation of Palestine. And the ball is in BDS’s court, so to speak.

For one, Israel is clearly worried about the potential power of a sports boycott movement. Last month, the conservative Jerusalem Post reported that its “Hebrew-language sister publication Ma’ariv Hashavua has obtained a number of diplomatic cables about the growing phenomenon across Europe and the United States” of campaigns to isolate Israel. The cables mark as “a turning point” in this phenomenon the May 2015 request by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) to expel Israel from FIFA, world soccer’s governing body. “This was the point at which [Israeli diplomats] understood and internalized the fact that the rules in battling BDS had changed,” Ma’ariv Hashavua reported, and opponents of Israel “noted that it garnered more attention and was more effective.”