Sharat Hadin demands that FIFA expel Jabril Rajoub, Pres of Palestinian Football League

Organization’s Letter to FIFA Chief Documents Jabril Rajoub’s Support & Incitement to Violence Against Israelis

Tel Aviv (May 26, 2015) – In the latest development in an international controversy between Israelis and the Palestinians over the latter’s call for Israel to be expelled from a world football association, an Israeli legal rights organization in Tel Aviv is alleging that the president of the Palestinian league is deeply involved in supporting terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians and calling for a nuclear strike against the Jewish State.

Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, which represents terror victims and combats efforts to delegitimize the Jewish State, has written to the President of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), Joseph Blatter, demanding that he expel Jabril Rajoub, the President of the Palestinian Football Association, for advocating the killing of Israeli civilians and the use of nuclear weapons against the State of Israel.

Rajoub serves as head of the Palestinian football authority while he also is Deputy Secretary of the Central Committee of Fatah. Fatah is the parent organization of the arch-terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is responsible for attacks causing countless deaths and injuries among Israelis, said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Founder and President of Shurat HaDin. The letter notes that Fatah was the PLO faction behind the 1972 Munich Olympic’s terrorist attack that left 11 Israeli athletes dead.

In the letter to FIFA, Ms. Darshan-Leitner emphasized that Rajoub’s remarks constitute grave breaches of his obligation to comply with FIFA’s statutes and rules prohibiting discrimination, intimidation and violence against individuals and groups. “It is outrageous that FIFA would allow a senior official of a terrorist organization to serve in a public position” the letter states.

Rajoub has “promoted, supervised and glorified” a number of attacks by Fatah and by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades against Israel, Ms. Darshan-Leitner said.

The letter alleges that Rajoub said that Israel is “our enemy and our battle is against them.” Worse, Ms. Darshan-Leitner noted that Rajoub has said that in the armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian irregular groups – otherwise known as terror organizations – the “resistance” should be fought by all means, and using all weapons, and that “if we had nuclear weapons, we’d be using them.”

Moreover, it notes, that after Israel’s summer 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza, he openly praised the efforts of terrorists in the Strip, who fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli civilian areas.

“To say that such violent, hateful, discriminatory conduct is beneath the high ideals of FIFA for peace, sportsmanship and collegiality is to massively understate the obvious,” Ms. Darshan-Leitner said in the letter.

“Rajoub has no place in FIFA because he has cynically and brazenly flouted FIFA’s standards for conduct in Article 3 of the FIFA Statutes (August 2014) and in Article 53 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (2011 ed.),” she said.

According to FIFA’s standards, violation of the non-discrimination statute is punishable by suspension or expulsion.

In addition, inciting hatred and violence is punishable by fines of at least 5,000 Swiss francs. If that incitement is committed through the mass media or it takes place on a game day or near a stadium, the minimum fine is 20,000 Swiss francs.

“I urge you to preserve the impartiality and good name of FIFA” and to expel him from international football’s governing organization, she said.