The continued repression by Israelis of Palestinians and of Palestinian football and the almost total failure for FIFA’s initiatives to improve the situation has obliged the Palestinian FA to take action.

On Friday 20th March Palestinian FA President Jibril Rajoub submitted a motion for inclusion in the agenda of the 28-29 May FIFA Annual Congress. This calls for the Congress to suspend the Israeli FA from FIFA until a number of conditions are satisfied. Briefly, these are:

Football people and goods can move freely into, out of and within Palestine.

Football facilities can be developed in Palestine without hindrance.

Football clubs established in the illegal settlements in the West Bank are banned from playing in IFA competitions.

The IFA successfully eliminates racist actions and human rights violations against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Independent monitoring of the situation will be essential.

The report by the Palestinian FA is in Arabic: http://www.pfa.ps/index.php/news/et7ad-news/1789-2015-03-20-18-38-46.html. It also says that the motion is “draft”; we may only know the exact wording when the Congress papers are produced, shortly after 29 March, the last day for submissions of motions by member associations.

The Palestinian FA could have called simply for “expulsion” of the Israeli FA, but use of the word suspension has the advantage of being explicit on what the Israelis must do to resume FIFA membership.

As we observe the thinly veiled racism of Israeli leader Netanyahu revealed in his pre-election comments, which are unsurprising bearing in mind his support for the racist Beitar football club, we resolve to redouble our support for Sports Boycott of Israel in football. In particular, we call on all 209 members of FIFA to support this motion.