For weeks, Israeli soccer fans have been eagerly awaiting Argentina's national team, set to play in Israel just before the beginning of the FIFA World Cup in Russia. But by the end of May, the Ministry of Culture and Sports relocated the match from Haifa to Jerusalem, claiming that such an important game must be held in Israel’s capital. The Argentine team responded by canceling its friendly match against Israel over the move, putting Argentine player Lionel Messi and his teammates into the political arena instead.

The highly publicized cancellation illustrated yet again Jerusalem's contested status. Whereas international criticism of Israel has largely centered on its occupation of the West Bank and the despair of Gaza’s residents under Israel’s blockade, the US administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has placed the focus of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Jerusalem.

Argentina’s pullout indicates that Israel’s victorious crowing over the recent transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is premature. Argentina and its neighbors were unimpressed when Guatemala and Paraguay decided to follow Washington’s example. Most of the international community still regards Israel’s 1967 annexation of a large part of Jerusalem as a violation of UN resolutions and international law. That is why most countries keep their embassies outside the city, although they maintain normal diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. Even the head of the Palestinian Football Association, Jibril Rajoub, declared that if the game had been played in the northern Israeli city of Haifa as originally planned, “we would have opposed anyone who tried to hinder it.”

Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev never misses an opportunity to use Israel’s Culture and Sports Ministry to pick up a headline and stage a photo-op at Jerusalem’s expense. After wearing a full-length evening gown emblazoned with a photo of Jerusalem’s skyline to the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, she is now seeking to foist Jerusalem on every foreign festival held in Israel. Even as she was kicking the Israeli ball into the Jerusalem goalpost, the European Broadcast Union was asking Israel to propose a less divisive city than Jerusalem to host the 2019 Eurovision song contest. Now, in addition to soccer fans, hundreds of millions of pop music aficionados around the world will know that Jerusalem is not exactly part of Israel. Many of them presumably had never heard of the anti-Israel boycott movement and probably googled BDS and learned a thing or two about the occupation.