Palestinian football and national identity under occupation

ABSTRACT

National and international sporting competitions have become important sites in establishing, maintaining and celebrating expressions of national identity and nationhood. Research question: This article aims to show how sport and national identity are manifest in Palestinian football, the difficulties faced by Palestinian footballers, and how football is being used to draw attention to the Palestinian struggle for a homeland. It begins with a brief outline of the origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict and of Palestinian national identity. A brief summary of the literature on sport, football and national identity is given before outlining the history of Palestinian football. Results / Findings: The article then discusses contemporary issues within Palestinian society, before examining the actions of the Israeli state in limiting the development of Palestinian football. Support for Palestinians from non-Palestinians is noted before concluding with the suggestion that football represents a promising opportunity to promote Palestine on an international stage. The intention is to stimulate a discussion on the role of football for a people under occupation.

KEYWORDS:

• National identity
• nationalism
• Palestine
• football
• Israel

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful, constructive and insightful comments in relation to this work. I believe their comments have helped to make the article much clearer.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Jon Dart http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6118-7118

Notes

1 “Eretz Israel” (“the Land of Israel”) is the idea of a modern Jewish state that replicates the biblical land of Israel at its greatest expanse.

2 While there are different strands of Zionist thinking, there has been support from Christian Zionists who see Israel as the natural home of the Jewish people and one that was promised to the Jewish people by god (i.e. they have a biblical mandate, see Spector, 2008).

3 The Gaza Strip is 25 miles (41 kilometres) long, and at its maximum 7.5 miles (12k) wide. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, and Israel. Initially governed by the Palestinian Authority, it has since 2007 been governed by Hamas. Approximate 1.85 million Palestinians live in Gaza making it the third most densely populated area in the world. The closure of exit and entry points (by Egypt and Israel) and decade-long blockade have led to it being described as “a 140 square mile open-air prison” (see Baconi, 2019; Pappé & Chomsky, 2011).

4 As Bregman (2014) notes, the terms one uses to describe “the land” is often indicative of one’s political leaning: “Palestine” is used by those who are pro-Palestinian, the “Occupied Territories” by those on the broad left, the “Liberated Territories” and/or “Judea and Samaria” by right-wing Jewish supporters, and the “Administrative Territories” and /or Territories beyond the Green Line’ by those who sit on the fence.

5 There are an estimated two million Palestinians in Jordan. Syria, Chile, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia each have an estimated Palestinian population of around 500,000.

6 The Yishuv was the Jewish community that existed in Palestine during the nineteenth century, before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

7 Although Palestine played in qualification matches for the 1934 FIFA World Cup the team contained no Palestine Arabs.

8 A Palestinian league was re-established shortly after the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s. The resurrected Palestinian league was set up as semi-professional and consisted of two regions: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The intention was for the champion of the West Bank to play against the champion of the Gaza Strip, with the winner declared as the national champion.

9 Many of the clubs in Gaza represent little more than small, claustrophobic neighbourhoods with the Gaza league, unlike the West Bank league, not allowing foreign players (Khaled, 2015).

10 This was ten years before the United Nations recognised Palestine.

11 Jerusalem remains the unambiguous “Capital of Palestine”.

12 Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” was a 50-day assault on the Gaza Strip which resulted in the deaths of more than 2000 Palestinians and significant damage to the infrastructure and living conditions.

13 Glasgow Celtic FC is a soccer club born out of Irish-Catholic immigration to Scotland; for a discussion of its ethnic and religious identities, see Bradley (2006, 2011, 2015). In opposition to Celtic Fans support for the Palestinians, fans of Glasgow Rangers display Israeli (Star of David) flags at matches (Rkaina, 2016).