More Noble Than War by Nicholas Blincoe

Author:Nicholas Blincoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

The Palestine Sports Federation managed to run a nationwide league and knockout cup in 1938. The league comprised just four teams: Jerusalem’s al-Araby Sports Club, Jaffa’s al-Qawmi, Haifa’s Islamic Sports Club, and Haifa’s Scouts. Al-Araby beat al-Qawmi in the final to take the title. In the finals of the knockout tournament for the Ghazi Shield, the al-Qawmi Club lost again, 3–1, to Jerusalem’s al-Rawda club. This would be the last year of Palestinian football until the 1940s, as the British Army shut down the PSF in 1938.

The lack of football led Palestinian sportsmen to look abroad. Teams played in Lebanon and Syria while it was impossible in Palestine. Haifa’s Islamic Sports Club (winners of the 1937 Ghazi Shield) led the way. The club’s owner, a businessman named Shafiq Addik, tried to re-establish a national side to play neighbouring countries. This idea immediately ran into problems with FIFA. The Palestine Sports Federation responded by exploring the possibility of playing internationals with FIFA’s permission.

The PSF’s new secretary, Khader Kamal of Jerusalem’s al-Araby Sports Club, wrote to Paris asking for local and national teams of the neighbouring countries to be allowed to play FIFA-affiliated countries. Kamal was unaware of the history of communication between Paris and Tel Aviv. Indeed, Kamal’s letters to FIFA were immediately shared with Yosef Yekutieli and his board. The idea of Palestinian teams touring the region so alarmed Tel Aviv, the PFA secretary demanded FIFA ban any game between Lebanese teams and teams from the Palestine Sports Federation. The letter again asked for the right to veto matches between Syrian and Lebanese teams, and between any other FIFA member in the region. The only other FIFA members in the region were Egypt and Turkey, so Tel Aviv was effectively demanding that they approve internationals between these teams. The Lebanon Football Association had an application to join FIFA pending, and in 1937 FIFA sent Beirut a formal letter instructing the Lebanese Football Association to run any games with Palestinian sides by the Tel Aviv association. The letter acknowledged that the ‘situation’ was making life difficult in Palestine but assured the Lebanese that the PFA officials in Tel Aviv were talking in a ‘broadminded way’ to bring all the remaining Palestinian teams into its sphere. No such talks ever took place, and there is no sign that FIFA ever enquired if they were. The letters between Tel Aviv, FIFA, Beirut and Damascus were uncovered in FIFA’s library by the sports historian Issam Khalidi. They make dramatic reading. Tel Aviv insisted throughout the 1930s there were only three Arab teams in Palestine, and of such poor quality that they could not win a place in the PFA leagues. The letters also claim, however, that there were no Palestinian teams in the leagues because their political masters had forbidden them to join a Jewish organisation. The claims that Palestinian teams were both too feeble to be included and too political to play nicely were accepted by FIFA, without investigation, though clearly both could not be true.

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