Nor has he hesitated to exploit his platform to conduct a demonization campaign against Israel through its athletes. That the sole punishment he’s received for his outrageous behavior was a year-long suspension from soccer matches and a $20,000 fine by the international football association FIFA in 2018 is due to his status as a member of the West’s favorite “victimized” populations.
The above ban followed Rajoub’s urging of fans to burn pictures and jerseys of Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi if he agreed to play in a friendly exhibition match against Israel in Jerusalem. Because of the threat, Messi’s team canceled the game.
This was only one among many instances of Rajoub’s having made a mockery of his position. It’s a role, as it happens, for which he won the 2013 Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Makroum Creative Sports Award from the United Arab Emirates – the Gulf state whose signing of the Abraham Accords with Israel seven years later he and his fellow Palestinian Authority officials would vociferously oppose.
Though his anti-Israel incitement at home and abroad is nothing new, a novel occurrence last week highlighted just how pointless it is for anyone to harbor hope for Palestinian acceptance of, let alone cordial relations with, the Jewish state.
Last Friday was the first time that a moment of silence was held during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games for the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches murdered by Palestinian terrorists 49 years ago at the same event in West Germany.
The tragic irony can’t be escaped. The 1972 Munich Massacre, as it came to be dubbed, is not considered by Rajoub to be a blemish on Palestinian conduct or aspirations. On the contrary, in 2012, he lauded then-International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge for nixing a moment of silence to honor the slain Israeli athletes at the opening ceremony of that summer’s event in London.
According to the research organization Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), after Rogge denied the request of the families of the victims to mark the mass slaughter, Rajoub wrote him a letter saying, “Sports are a bridge for love, communication and the spreading of peace between nations, and should not be used for divisiveness and the spread of racism.”
To call the mourning of innocent athletes brutally snuffed out by Black September terrorists “divisive” and “racist” is rich, especially when uttered by someone who regularly hails such killers as “heroic martyrs.”
But then, turning the truth on its head is a PA feat of acrobatics worthy of a gold medal. And Rajoub – who in February hailed the “good traits, values and legacy” of Palestinian “heroes” like Munich Massacre mastermind Salah Khalaf (aka Abu Iyad) – can take credit for his success as a top trainer in and promoter of the sport.
WHILE THE mainstream press and social media persist in obsessing over the withdrawal of US gymnast extraordinaire from the finals – and in turning her personal story into a source of shrill controversy – a taste of Rajoub’s recent remarks, documented by PMW, is in order.
Aside from posting a selfie with Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine, who refused to face off against Israel’s Tohar Butbul, and praising the athlete for his “courageous stance refusing normalization,” Rajoub has pulled no punches when it comes to encouraging violence against Jews.
On the last day of Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israel’s war in May against Hamas terrorists and infrastructure in Gaza, as the terms of a ceasefire were being finalized, he vowed that “unless the world gives the Palestinians a solution,” the Palestinian Authority “will continue the cycle of blood and killing.”
In February, he boasted about women’s rights in the PA, holding up female terrorists as an example of the equality they enjoy with their male counterparts.
“If we didn’t have a culture like this, would we have wanted Dalal Mughrabi and Fatima Barnawi to lead operations?” he asked rhetorically, in reference to two infamous Palestinian murderesses. The former took part in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, in which 38 Israelis, including 13 children, were killed and 71 others wounded. The latter perpetrated the failed 1967 bombing of the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem.
These two paragons of feminism are frequently cited by Rajoub and PA educators as figures who should be emulated.
In September 2020, Rajoub touted the “pride and glory of our people’s sacrifices – our martyrs, our prisoners, our wounded.” Calling Palestinian terrorists “giants,” he said that each of the prisoners in Israeli jails “is a legend, an ethos.”
The list of Rajoub’s unabashed expressions of support for terrorists goes on. His equally cynical accusations against Israel for the crimes committed by Palestinians also continue unabated.
A lack of fluency in Arabic, the language of his preference when celebrating martyrdom against Jews in the name of Allah and Palestinian rejectionism, is no excuse for ignorance of his hate-filled words which, by the way, are often directed at the United States. Translations abound, even on Twitter and Facebook. It’s a shame that it took efforts by PMW to let FIFA in on the open secret.
Even more incomprehensible is the Olympic Committee’s response, or absence of one, to Rajoub’s violation of every principle of sportsmanship. This is in contrast to the reaction of the International Judo Federation to Nourine’s refusal to compete with Butbul: It suspended both him and his coach, Amar Benikhlef, and stripped them of their accreditation.
What Rajoub reportedly did was to give an interview with an Algerian radio station to strengthen the resolve of those like Nourine.
“There is no place for meetings with whomever is connected to this official terrorism, not in sports or outside of it,” he said. “I hope that this message goes out to all the Arabs who are normalizing... and even those who, unfortunately, sign agreements with branches of Israeli sports, in light of the oppression and the difficulties that Palestinian players face.”
He also shared on Facebook a photo of and video of a press conference with Sudanese judoka Mohamed Abdel Latif, who quit the Olympics when he was pitted against an Israeli competitor. For this, he and Latif were showered with praise in Arabic from hundreds of commenters, and his post received more than 1,700 “likes.”
Israeli Prime Minister’s Office Spokesman for Arab Media Ofir Gendelman voiced his displeasure on Wednesday, tweeting, “The Olympic Games celebrate friendship and respect. Not only [is] refusing to compete against someone because of his nationality un-Olympic; it’s also racist. An Algerian judoka who refused to compete against an Israeli because of his ethnicity was rightly expelled from the Olympics. However, Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, who is known for his radical anti-peace positions, met and commended this judoka for his hateful and unacceptable behavior. This, too, must be condemned by all those who hold Olympic values dear.”
Gendelman is right, but he’s wasting his breath. The PA has tied the international community’s hands through emotional and political blackmail. It doesn’t hurt the so-called “Palestinian cause” that many prominent Europeans and others themselves possess a dim view of Israel.
The most crucial element of the whole nasty business is its proving of the adage that “sports is a microcosm of society.” Indeed, the PA fosters anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitic violence among its populace, illustrating that any Western efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peace is a fantasy that won’t be realized until the powers-that-be in Ramallah and Gaza City are replaced by leaders who exchange their missiles, bombs, guns and knives for judo mats.