“We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba”
– Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals
“Football is the one that achieved the miracle behind the siege when it spread movement in a street that we thought died of fear and boredom.”
—Mahmoud Darwish
With the Qatar 2022 World Cup coming to an end, the optics of the big thaw has its frame frozen. The storming of the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa mosque by the Israeli National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on January 3 has inflamed growing tensions and was widely viewed as a provocative act.
While the Saudis condemned it, likewise the King of Jordan said: “We have to be concerned about the next intifada (uprising).” It was feeding into the fears raised by the Palestinians with the new Netanyahu government, saying the agenda of the newly sworn-in government poses an ‘existential threat’. This was enough for the United Nations Security Council to call an urgent meeting on January 5, according to a tweet shared by the UAE’s mission to the UN.
Important stakeout with @Palestine_UN, member states, & international organizations following an extended Troika of the Arab Group meeting on an Israeli minister storming the al-Aqsa Mosque. Tomorrow, #UNSC will meet on this following a 🇦🇪🇨🇳 request with 🇫🇷🇲🇹 support.#UAExUNSC pic.twitter.com/jAnCUQpQuf
— UAE Mission to the UN (@UAEMissionToUN) January 4, 2023
In 2023, the UAE, which assumed its role as the chair of the counter-terrorism committee, and China, called for the UN meeting over Ben-Gvir’s Al-Aqsa visit. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located. The occupation state annexed the entire city in 1980, a move never recognised by the international community.
World Cup and its solidarity fervour
A week after curtains came down on the Qatar 2022 World Cup final between France and Argentina, with La Albiceleste emerging as the world champions, in the geopolitical world of West Asia, a different winner was being talked about.
“The winner of this World Cup is already known, it is Palestine,” tweeted Riyad Mansour, the Palestine ambassador and permanent observer to the UN.
“The winner of this World Cup is already known, it is Palestine.”
Riyad Mansour, Palestine ambassador and permanent observer to the UN, says the World Cup has dealt a “decisive blow to Israel’s illusions” following an overwhelmingly pro-Palestine vibe at the tournament. pic.twitter.com/RJRqICdwvr
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 2, 2022
This may come as a surprise to those not in the know of the undercurrents at play in West Asia and how it invades the game of football at the first World Cup in the Arab world. Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli teams qualified, yet this FIFA World Cup was all about them as a subtext.
Western journalists took notice and focused on the explosion of solidarity expressed with Palestinians at this World Cup.
Before the opening match, a phalanx of Qatari men marched into the Al-Bayt Stadium chanting, “Everyone is welcome,” carrying with them a large Palestinian flag. “We are taking care of people in Palestine, and all Muslim people and Arab countries are holding up Palestinian flags because we’re for them,” reported The Guardian.
It appeared that the Palestinian cause was embraced by many other teams and fans alike. Streets were decorated with Palestinian flags while many wore the keffiyeh as the news began to circulate that the Israeli media was being shunned by the locals and fans. The American media picked up the news: The New York Times reported and so did The Washington Post. The latter ran it with the header: “At the World Cup, the Arab world rallies to Palestinian cause.”
A display of pro-Palestinian solidarity also gained momentum with Morocco’s historic run to the semi-finals. Ayman Mohyeldin wrote in MSNBC: “This World Cup provides a rare example of a free and collective Arab expression, and Arab fans have made the Palestinian flag and other symbols of Palestinian struggle present at nearly every game.”
It was a poignant moment that resonated with many when a Tunisian fan unfurled the Palestinian flag during the France-Tunisia match amid chants of Palestine, Palestine! Equally powerful and symbolic moments arose when a huge “Free Palestine” banner was raised by Moroccan and Tunisian fans against Australia and Belgium, respectively. It was not a random act that the banner was raised at the 48th minute of the respective games.
The 48th minute was symbolic of 1948 and alludes to the Nakba, “the catastrophe” that Palestinians have vowed not to let the world forget what they endured in killings and expulsions as the Zionist forces created the state of Israel on the occupied lands of Palestine. This comes close on the heels of the UN General Assembly’s approval of a resolution to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba and includes the organising of a high-level event at the General Assembly on May 15, 2023.
Palestine ambassador’s tweet amplifies the sentiments expressed in the famous lines of Mahmoud Darwish, the beloved poet of Palestine, “We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba.”
Palestinian demonstrators run for cover from Israeli fire and tear gas during a protest against US embassy move to Jerusalem and ahead of the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
World Cup activism
Political agendas have always been brought onto the football pitch. One of the modalities is the acquisition of the football teams – Qatar’s Paris Saint-Germain; Saudi Arabia’s Newcastle United, and with a new sale price, Manchester United owner Avram Glazer is said to have held talks with potential investors from Saudi and Qatar.
Similarly, the showcasing of new Afro-Arab solidarity by football fans on the issue of Palestine brought home the centrality of Palestine to the political consciousness in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries.
The biggest cheerleaders of this were the Morocco team and the Moroccan fans.
The story of Raja Casablanca is illuminating. During the Qatar World Cup, a video went viral showing the revolutionary fans of Casablanca in the stadium singing together unitedly in favour of Palestine. However, the fact-checkers informed us that this did not happen at the FIFA World Cup. But this is not the first time one has seen Raja’s fans perform their solidarity for the Palestine cause.
In fact, their fan culture pivots on Palestine: their jerseys have the words Rajawi Filistini (Palestinian Rajawis). Their own anthem Fi blady dalmouni, a ballad of the disenfranchised, reads “In my country, they have oppressed me.”
The bonds go deep. In June 2019, the Moroccan people rallied in support of Palestine against the proposed Abraham Accords.
What the Qatar World Cup was able to do was to put back the Palestine issue in front of the emerging relations in the geo-political configurations as per the Abraham Accords. It also reflects the 2020 Arab Opinion Index in the run-up to the normalisation that was not totally off the mark.
Also read: What We Can Expect From Joe Biden’s Policy Towards West Asia
What are the Abraham Accords?
It has been two years since the Abraham Accords declaration and these scenes were not expected to play. From August to December 2020, four nations – Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE, and Sudan — as signatories committed to new forms of cooperation in West Asia and beyond with the primary objective to usher in diplomatic processes to normalise bilateral ties with Israel. With former US President Trump as a witness to these declarations, it was projected that these Accords could create 4 million new jobs and $1 trillion in new economic activity.
Two narratives emerged with this normalisation process, as the Accords were alluded to, and became the centerpiece in West Asia. One, it was a direct initiative to counter China’s economic inroads and growing influence in West Asia through its Belt and Road Initiative, and two, the subject of relations between Palestinian and Gulf Arab nations and the manipulation of the Palestinian cause.
From the level of the government to the general people, there are deep sources of tension that continue to feed impressions of the other based on prejudices and unresolved disputes.
With the new compact bringing the Gulf Arab nations closer to Israel, these narratives are exposing the deep fissures and complexity of the socio-economic changes that are experienced as a quotidian reality. Despite the football spectacle, Abraham Accords versus World Legends, held in March towards the end of Expo Dubai, where the Abraham Accords were battered, one wonders if the Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022 is a counterpoint to the Expo Dubai.
Also read: Interview: How to Make a Film About a Polarised, Conflict-Ridden Society
The issue of Palestine in the afterlife of World Cup activism
One doesn’t have to go digging to comprehend the political significance of the game of football. Notwithstanding the Foreign Policy piece titled ‘The Tragedy of Pro-Palestinian Activism at the World Cup’, much will depend on how the question of Palestine is framed in the post-Qatar World Cup.
Will Palestine be a ticklish issue for the Arab regimes as they discover new bounties in search of the post-fossil economy on the pathway of the Abraham Accords? Or, will Palestine represent the political aspiration of the Arab people? Perhaps, the first clue will emerge on May 15, when the UN General Assembly will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba.
As the neoliberal cheerleaders proclaimed that by the turn of the century, the world had become flat, I am reminded of the author and journalist Franklin Foer’s “How soccer explains the world: an (unlikely) theory of globalisation” which explains the failure of globalisation to erode ancient hatreds in the game’s greatest rivalries. Further, this has to be juxtaposed with the economic imperatives of the concomitant issues of inequalities, corruption and migration.
Often affinity to irony bonds people who like football and literature. More so, in the vein of the great Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa: “The match can be a novel, because it has a beginning, development and emotional moments with happy endings. And sometimes tragic.”
On the other hand, some regard it as the “round witch”, whose movement opens up the way for a unified world, resonating the lines of Mahmoud Darwish.
Narendra Pachkhédé is a critic and writer who splits his time between Toronto, London and Geneva.