Palestinians' bid to suspend Israel from FIFA

It would be the first time since apartheid South Africa that a country was asked to leave FIFA because of its practices. Israel is already relenting on what has been a blockade preventing players in Gaza from travelling freely to the West Bank. And that's what the Palestinian Football Association is charging Israel with. They're saying that Israel is choking their ability to develop football because of the impediments to the free movement of players and coaches.

The most damning accusation towards the Israeli Football Association is that they have created and formed five or six (depending on reports) clubs in the Occupied Territories in the settlements of the West Bank. It's the Israeli Football Association using football as a way to take land that should rightfully be part of a possible Palestinian state. And they're saying that the Israeli Football Association should be removed from FIFA unless they agree to cease these practices.

In fact, the Israelis are repossessing parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that they had pulled out of, occupying it again to “destroy terrorism.” What they're actually doing is destroying everything the Palestinians have painstakingly built for the last ten years--their roads, water system, houses, schools, lands, refugee camps, police force, government and all its services.