The international campaign to boycott Israeli football has taken huge strides over the past year, thanks above all to the efforts of the Palestine Football Association under the determined leadership of General Jibril Rajoub. 

At last summer’s Fifa Congress the PFA presented an extensive dossier of ongoing Israeli abuses against Palestinian sport and Rajoub warned that he would call for sanctions against the Israel FA the following year should the abuses continue. With that ultimatum he placed Palestine squarely on the world football stage.

In response, Fifa president Sepp Blatter set up an “Israel-Palestine Task Force” to solve the problem of the paralysing restrictions on movement imposed on football by the occupation. 

Blatter appears genuine in his commitment to improve “understanding between the communities in [the] region.” But nine months on it is hard to detect any concrete benefits arising from his task force.

Indeed it has quickly become clear that, without the backing of meaningful sanctions, a panel of football dignitaries can exert little influence on the behaviour of an army of occupation. 

The obstacles faced by Palestinian football are systematic and calculated and they continue unchecked. There are the same arbitrary delays at the checkpoints, the same block on travel between Gaza and the West Bank and the same bureaucratic obstruction to imports of vital equipment. 

The West Bank has just seven football grounds that meet international standards but new sites for development are consistently blocked despite Fifa funding. Even the arrangement of international friendly matches by the national team is repeatedly frustrated by shady diplomatic interventions.

Recent human rights violations include the unexplained arrest and detention of national team member Sameh Mara’abe and of Ziad Hassan of Hilal Jericho FC. Islami Qalqilya FC has been stormed by troops and forcibly closed down — again, without explanation — two years after a similar fate befell Islami Silwan FC.

And several footballers have been the target of extreme brutality provoking widespread outrage. On November 24 Coach Basel Mahmoud of Isawiyah FC was severely beaten by a special police patrol unit as he left the club following a training session. 

On January 31 teenage players Jawhar Nasser Jawhar and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, returning from training with Abu Dis FC, were shot repeatedly in the feet, had attack dogs set on them, were dragged across the ground and beaten by border guards. 

After transfer to Amman for medical treatment the two young footballers were informed that they would never play again. They have since been arrested on re-entering Palestine. 

On March 10 Saji Darwish, Birzeit student and player for Beitin FC, was shot dead by soldiers while grazing his family’s cattle. Such events provide a window onto the atmosphere of terror that accompanies the pursuit of sport at all levels in Palestine.

It is not surprising therefore that Rajoub is once again threatening to press for the IFA’s expulsion from Fifa. He claims the backing of a number of Middle Eastern and north African football associations. 

In support of his principled stance, Red Card Israeli Racism (RCIR) has launched an online petition demanding the IFA’s suspension from Fifa until such time that Israel respects international human rights law. It will be presented prior to Fifa’s June 2014 Congress in Sao Paolo today. 

At the same time RCIR continues to campaign vigorously for boycott at a European level. The IFA is currently bidding for Jerusalem to be included as a venue in Uefa’s Euro 2020 Finals. 

On April 30 The Independent published a letter of protest at Jerusalem’s inclusion in the bidding process and signed by 25 famous supporters of Palestinian rights. RCIR and sister groups across Europe are lobbying both Uefa and national football associations on this subject — and hosting of the 2015 Women’s Under-19 Euro finals, which has already been awarded to Israel by Uefa.

Some anti-racists within the football world have questioned the rationale of boycotting Israel to promote human rights. Daniela Wurbs of Football Supporters Europe told RCIR that it “would punish all the wrong people” among whom she includes those who “actively engage against racism” within Israeli football.

RCIR does not accept such reasoning. On the contrary, a boycott would actually strengthen the hand of those who seek to combat the racist abuse emanating from Israeli football grounds. 

And Israeli anti-racist activists are in desperate need of a boost. In its 2013 report the Coalition Against Racism in Israel (CAR) recorded a sharp rise in racist incidents at Premier League football matches for the second year running and noted: “It appears that so long as enforcement measures are not announced, including penalties, this trend will not show any significant decline.” 

The IFA’s record in penalising racism has been extremely poor to date but a ban on international competition may concentrate their minds wonderfully.

RCIR draws inspiration from the historic sporting boycott of apartheid South Africa and the symbolic blow it inflicted upon a similarly intransigent regime. 

Likewise the Palestinian professional and community representatives who in 2005 launched the international campaign for “BDS” (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel) closely modelled their call on the anti-apartheid movement. 

And it is worth noting that Wurbs’s arguments echo those made in the 1980s by opponents of boycott such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. 

By contrast, Uzi Dann of the leading liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently remarked: “Only threats and pressure will force the Israeli government to take action. They don’t take the matter [of international concern for Palestinian football] seriously right now but they will once the expulsion is on the horizon.”

Anti-racists within football cannot afford to ignore the call to boycott Israel. Their credibility is on the line. 

During last year’s Euro Under-21 finals in Israel the England team — amid media fanfare — was taken to see several community initiatives under the wing of the New Israel Fund (the sponsors of Kick It Out Israel). RCIR viewed this episode with dismay. 

It gave an entirely false impression of official commitment to progressive goals — precisely the kind of whitewashing of the record that RCIR warned against when Israel was given the right to host the Under-21 competition. 

Blatter is currently touring the region in a last-minute effort to secure consensus between the PFA, IFA and their respective governments prior to the Sao Paolo Congress. His diplomacy may prove forlorn. Whatever the outcome, the next few weeks will be closely watched by all supporters of Palestinian football.

Kenneth Fryde is an activist for Red Card Israeli Racism