Gaza Mom by Laila El-Haddad

Author:Laila El-Haddad
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781935982296
Publisher: Just World Books
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) on Gaza Air Strikes3

Gaza City, Palestine, April 7, 2006

Last week, I wrote about a series of powerful Israeli F-16 air strikes against Gaza City that shocked us awake, rattling our windows and leaving our ears ringing.4 One of these attacks was against a soccer field in the middle of Gaza City, just two streets down from where I live. The bomb left an enormous crater in the middle of the stadium (one of Gaza’s best and only stadiums), which is located in the middle of a densely populated residential neighborhood.

Now, FIFA, the world’s football association, is effectively condemning the attack, saying it was “without reason.”

“[T]he field was not being used by Palestinians as a missile launching pad, as Israel’s ambassador to Switzerland had claimed,” said Jerome Champagne, FIFA deputy general secretary in charge of political issues.

“FIFA has been fighting for more than a century to make this game universal. To hit a football field is really the wrong signal…. [F]ootball should remain outside of politics …”

Champagne has taken the matter up with FIFA President Sepp Blatter, and the two will announce a “decision” next week.

Not that it will have much consequence, but at least someone (FIFA of them all) is taking notice of an increasingly ignored situation in Gaza and the disproportionality and immorality of Israeli “reprisals” against the civilian population.

Well, at least this way, if we starve, we’ll always have football.

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