“We are not looking for suspension or expulsion of Israel, we want full recognition of our rights,” thundered Jibril Rajoub, the dedicated president of the Palestinian Football Association, at a May 11 conference of FIFA, the international soccer federation, in Bahrain. Specifically, Rajoub demanded that FIFA ban Israeli clubs from playing on Palestinian territory, by which he meant the soccer fields of six Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank: Elitzur Ironi Yehuda, Hapoel Oranit, Hapoel Jordan Valley, Beitar Ironi Ariel, Beitar Givat Ze’ev and Ma’ale Adumim.

Rajoub forgot to mention that among the Israeli soccer clubs playing on Palestinian territory, when hosted by one of the six settlement clubs, are dozens of teams consisting of his own people, such as those from the Arab Israeli towns and villages of Kfar Kassem, Jaffa, Rahat, Qalansawe and elsewhere. Not only that, but half a dozen Palestinian Arabs play for the settlement soccer teams on the occupied Palestinian territory to which Rajoub referred. Thus, when the managers and players of the Arab Israeli Shimshon Kfar Kassem team arrive for a match at the soccer pitch in the settlement of Ariel, they know they will not be confronting players from the adjacent Palestinian villages on the West Bank. They will also not be seeing their elderly Palestinian aunt who lives in one of those villages sitting in the bleachers. According to Israeli regulations, only Palestinians working in Israeli settlements or providing services to the Israelis living in them are allowed to enter their territory.

The Palestinian leadership is well-aware of the tricky situation in which Israel’s Arab minority has put Rajoub and his friends from the Palestinian Authority. After all, what moral right do the West Bank Palestinians have to demand that Israelis boycott sports teams, when some of the teams have Arabs on their rosters and play in the settlements?

A well-known Arab member of the Knesset who asked not to be identified told Al-Monitor that a proposal has been discussed in internal forums to issue the Israel Football Association with an ultimatum: Unless the home games of the settlement clubs are moved from the West Bank to the sovereign territory of the State of Israel, all 60 Arab Israeli teams would withdraw from the Israeli soccer leagues. Such a move would invariably result in the collapse of several of the lower leagues. That same legislator said the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel prefers to sit this one out in the bleachers.