At FIFA Meeting, Israeli And Palestinian Delegates Shake Hands

[oberliner]

Confusion and emotion broke out at Friday's FIFA Congress — and it wasn't over embattled leader Sepp Blatter. The leaders of the Israeli and Palestinian soccer organizations shook hands.

The much-discussed "handshake for peace" happened after the Palestinian Football Association withdrew its proposal that FIFA suspend Israel from international competition.

It was perhaps the only issue that could compete with the wide-ranging accusations of corruption and bribery that have dominated the international gathering of soccer's governing body this week. Those allegations come as FIFA holds a vote for its presidency.

Israel's Ofer Eini and Palestinian Jibril Rajoub shook hands after some parliamentarian maneuvering and impassioned speeches from both sides.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/29/410535318/at-fifa-meeting-israel-and-palestine-shake-hands-and-avoid-suspension-vote

[shenmue]

1. Now that

is what I want to see.

[King_David]

2. Yes indeed...

[Little Tich]

3. Israel's Soccer 'Win' May Come With a Nasty Hangover

Source: The Jewish Daily Forward / Haaretz

Former South African cabinet minister and African National Congress (ANC) leader Tokyo Sexwale figured prominently in Friday’s political drama at international soccer’s FIFA conference in Zurich. Palestinian football chief Jibril Rajoub explicitly mentioned Sexwale as having played a critical role in his decision to withdraw the motion to have Israel expelled.

And FIFA President Sepp Blatter, shortly before being reelected to a fifth term in office, unilaterally appointed Sexwale from the podium to head the monitoring committee that will deal with Palestinian grievances, including the demand that five West Bank teams be barred from participating in official Israeli soccer leagues.

In their rush to declare victory following the frustration of Rajoub’s plan to expel Israel outright, most Israeli politicians and analysts seemed to ignore the potential symbolism and irony of putting a prominent anti-apartheid activist to adjudicate Palestinian claims of Israeli racism and discrimination. The lapse is significant in light of the fact that Palestinians and the boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement view the international boycott of apartheid South Africa – in which sports played a pivotal role – as a precedent and inspiration for their own anti-Israeli campaigns.

In fact, though white South Africans were stung far more by subsequent boycotts in rugby, cricket and the Olympics, soccer was one of the first arenas in which non-white South Africa together with the rising Africa-Asian bloc of non-aligned nations scored initial victories against the apartheid regime. FIFA’s first suspension of South Africa in 1961 was temporarily lifted at the behest of Blatter’s apartheid-condoning predecessor, the English Stanley Rous, but was shortly reinstated thereafter until 1976, when the Pretoria regime was expelled altogether following the Soweto Uprisings. South Africa was only reinstated in 1992, after it abolished apartheid.

Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/309164/israels-soccer-win-may-come-with-a-nasty-hangover/