May
11
2016
  
By Daoud Kuttab
RAMALLAH – Since the beginning of the year, the French government has been building support for an international conference to restart the Israel-Palestine peace process. France deserves applause for its brave effort to revive a process that has been going nowhere for the better part of a decade. But success will require more than courage. Any international bid to resolve the problem of Palestine depends on six factors.
The first is seriousness. When France first made its plans known in January, many dismissed the idea as little more than a diplomatic stunt. Palestinian officials were at first suspicious of the initiative. They feared that it would merely give the Israelis another photo opportunity: After the handshakes, ordinary Palestinians would continue to suffer under the occupation.
When it became clear that the French effort was in earnest, and a date was announced for preparatory talks on May 30, the clear timelines encouraged Palestinian officials to sign up to the process. This good faith must continue no matter what obstacles arise.
The second key ingredient is multilateralism. Israel, the stronger party in the conflict, prefers bilateral talks, which put it in a better position to dictate terms. The weaker side in such talks does, of course, have a sort of power: the power to say no. But the exercise of that power usually comes at a high price. Continue Reading »
May
11
2016
By Daoud Kuttab
The president of the Palestinian Football Federation (PFF), Jibril Rajoub, plans to raise at the FIFA congress in Mexico the status of five soccer clubs based in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. The five teams located in the West Bank are Beitar Givat Ze’ev, Beitar Ironi Ariel, Ironi Yehuda, Beitar Ironi Ma’aleh Adumim and Hapoel Bik’at Hayarden. All five teams play in the Israeli Football Association, a clear violation of the statutes of the world football governing body FIFA.
 Palestinians want to remind the world that the
Crimean sports clubs were banned in 2014 from playing in the Russian League by FIFA’s Europe’s regional association UEFA after the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
Article 10.1 of the FIFA statutes states, “Only one association shall be recognized in each country.†FIFA has recognized both the Israeli Football Association and the Palestinian Football Association, and therefore neither is allowed to play in the territory of the other without permission.
The case of the five settlement clubs was raised during the contentious May 2015 FIFA congress in Zurich when the PFF requested the ouster of the Israeli association for multiple FIFA violations, including the settlement teams. At the time, a compromise was brokered that allowed the Palestinians to withdraw their request, and in return a FIFA committee headed by South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale was asked to study all the Palestinian complaints. Continue Reading »
  