Palestinian Football Association chief Jibril Rajoub is one of the main reasons Argentina's national soccer team decided to cancel its final World Cup warm-up match against Israel. The assistant to late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas suggested that Palestinians burn pictures and shirts of star striker Lionel Messi, organized protests outside Argentina's representative office in Ramallah, and turned a soccer game into a political event.
There can be no doubt he succeeded in bringing terrorism into the world of sports. Only in Ramallah can a man whose only sports-related expertise is throwing a grenade be appointed a senior sports official.
It was embarrassing and disturbing to see Rajoub, Joint Arab List MK Hanin Zoabi, Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay, Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, and, of course, Zionist Union MK Zouheir Bahloul – who serves as a mediator between the Zionist Union and the Joint Arab List – rejoice at the news of the cancellation. In their shared joy, the members of this strange coalition demonstrated why recent polls show the Zionist Union winning fewer mandates than the Joint Arab List and Yesh Atid losing support among voters.
The Israeli public can easily differentiate between opposition to the government and opposition to the state. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and not one humanitarian organization has risen to avenge their deaths.
A Jewish state that is an enlightened and flourishing democracy and world power contradicts 2,000 years of dogma. A world that has always seen the Jews as eternal victims is now incapable of internalizing that the Jews have returned to history big time. For Israel's detractors, it makes no difference whether the Right or the Left is in power or where the game was to be held. Claims that the game was canceled because it was moved to Jerusalem from Haifa are fictitious propaganda and nothing but a weak excuse.
It is precisely at this time that one would expect the leaders of the Israeli Left to unite against the waves of hatred instead of settling petty political scores. Only a fool would believe those that threatened Messi did so because the match was moved from Haifa to Jerusalem.
And even if the change in location was the cause of the cancellation, one would expect any and every Zionist political party to reject outright such a boycott of Jerusalem. The acceptance of the Israeli Left, led by Lapid and Gabbay, of the boycott of Jerusalem and the threats to soccer players are a strong tailwind to all those interested in preventing Israel's capital from hosting other international events, including next year's Eurovision song contest.
