The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) accused the Palestinian Authority’s soccer league director Jibril Rajoub of “outrageous deviation from our values, principles and efforts to expose the Israeli occupation’s crimes and to oust Israel from international organizations.”
Rajoub on Friday backed down from trying to oust Israel from FIFA and settled for an amendment adopted by FIFA to discuss his complaints.
Rajoub previously had insisted there would be “no compromise” on his demand that Israel kick out five teams from Judea and Samaria. The new committee will discuss the issue as well as complaints of Israel delaying Palestinian Authority soccer players, more than one of whom previously having been caught running errands for Hamas.
But that is racism, in Rajoub’s book.
The PFLP called on the PLO to hold an emergency meeting to “settle accounts” with those who made the decision, meaning Rajoub. Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas reportedly was not consulted.
Rajoub’s decision was a “slap to Palestinian sport,” according to the PFLP, quoted by the Ma’an News Agency, which wrote that the terrorist group pointed to his action being “a waste of the blood lost by all those who have sacrificed for Palestinian movement and independence from Israeli occupation.”
“This behavior poses multiple question marks about the Palestinian efforts to join international organizations,” the PFLP wrote in a statement.
