Palestinian Football Association President Jibril Rajoub refused to stand alongside an Israeli counterpart at the 76th FIFA Congress in Vancouver on Thursday, rejecting a direct appeal from FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The incident occurred moments after Rajoub delivered a speech condemning Israeli clubs based in West Bank settlements. Palestinian FA Vice President Susan Shalabi, who witnessed the exchange, said the gesture would have negated the entire purpose of Rajoub's address.
Infantino had called both men to the podium. He placed a hand on Rajoub's arm. He gestured for him to move closer to Israel FA Vice-President Basim Sheikh Suliman, a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
Rajoub did not move. Shalabi, seated in the congress hall, watched the standoff unfold. She later told Reuters exactly what Rajoub said in that moment. "I cannot shake the hand of someone the Israelis have brought to whitewash their fascism and genocide!
We are suffering."
Israel has consistently denied accusations of genocide in its military campaign in Gaza. The war has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. It began after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people.
Infantino addressed the room after the failed introduction. His words sought a path forward. "We will work together, President Rajoub, Vice President Suliman. Let's work together to give hope to the children.
These are complex matters." The appeal landed flat in the tense hall. The timing could not have been worse. Rajoub had just spent 15 minutes detailing the PFA's legal case against the Israel Football Association.
His argument was precise. Allowing clubs in West Bank settlements to play in Israeli leagues, he said, violates FIFA's own statutes. It creates a dangerous precedent where a member association's rights can be trampled.
Shalabi described the sequence as absurd. "To be put in a position where to have a handshake after everything that was said, this negates the whole purpose of the speech that the general [Rajoub] was giving," she said. "He spent like 15 minutes trying to explain to everyone how the rules matter, how this could easily become a precedent where the rights of member associations are violated with impudence, and then we'll just wrap this under the carpet."
The policy says one thing. The reality says another. FIFA's statutes prohibit member associations from holding matches in the territory of another association without consent.
Yet six Israeli clubs operate in settlements deep inside the occupied West Bank, territory Palestinians claim for a future state. The PFA has fought this for a decade. Last week, the PFA escalated its legal battle.
It filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. The target: FIFA's decision last month to take no action against the IFA or the settlement-based clubs. FIFA justified its inaction by citing the unresolved legal status of the West Bank under public international law.
For the PFA, that logic is a dodge. It allows a political stalemate to override clear sporting regulations. What this actually means for a young player in Nablus or Hebron is concrete.
Settlement clubs draw talent, sponsorship, and infrastructure investment from land Palestinians cannot access freely. A teenage footballer in Ramallah watches a club in the nearby settlement of Beit El compete in Israel's top leagues. He cannot play there.
He cannot even visit. The pitch is behind a military checkpoint. Rajoub, a former security chief and long-time political figure, has made this his signature issue.
He sees football as a front line in a broader struggle for recognition. For him, the settlements are not just illegal under international law—a view held by most UN member states—they are a daily mechanism of dispossession. Football, he argues, cannot be a tool to normalize that.
Suliman's presence on the podium added another layer of complexity. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a community that often finds itself caught between two national narratives. Infantino likely saw the pairing as a symbol of coexistence.
Rajoub saw it as a provocation. Bringing a Palestinian citizen of Israel to represent the IFA, in his view, was a deliberate attempt to split the Palestinian story and legitimize Israeli policies. Both sides claim victimhood.
Here are the numbers. The IFA governs football for all Israeli citizens, including Arab-Palestinians. The PFA governs football in the occupied Palestinian territories—the West Bank and Gaza.
FIFA recognizes both as separate member associations. The dispute over settlement clubs has festered since 2015, when the PFA first formally demanded their expulsion from Israeli leagues. Multiple FIFA committees have examined the issue.
None have delivered a binding ruling. The diplomatic choreography in Vancouver collapsed in seconds. Infantino, a Swiss-Italian executive who has led FIFA since 2016, prizes unity and commercial growth above all.
His instinct is to resolve conflict through dialogue and symbolism. A handshake between a Palestinian and an Israeli on a FIFA stage would have been a powerful image for the organization's global brand. Rajoub's refusal denied him that image.
It also exposed the limits of sports diplomacy when the underlying political reality is a war zone. The economic toll extends beyond the pitch. Palestinian football infrastructure in Gaza has been decimated.
The PFA says dozens of athletes, coaches, and officials have been killed since October 2023. Stadiums have been bombed. The Al-Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City, once a symbol of national pride, is now a rubble-strewn camp for displaced families.
Asking a Palestinian official to perform normalcy in a congress hall while that reality unfolds is a demand few can meet. Behind the diplomatic language lies a raw, unhealed wound. Rajoub's speech was not just about legal technicalities.
It was a eulogy for colleagues lost. It was a warning that FIFA's inaction makes it complicit. The refusal to shake Suliman's hand was not a breach of protocol.
It was a statement that protocol itself can be an insult when the bodies are still being counted. Why It Matters:
The confrontation shatters any illusion that global sports bodies can remain neutral arbiters in the Israel-Palestine conflict. FIFA's failure to enforce its own rules on settlement clubs, combined with the war in Gaza, has pushed the PFA into a corner where symbolic gestures of unity are seen as acts of betrayal. The CAS appeal now becomes a landmark case that will test whether international sports law can rule on matters of occupation and sovereignty.
A ruling in favor of the PFA would force FIFA to sanction Israel, potentially banning its clubs from international competition. A ruling against would signal that political status quos can permanently override sporting regulations, setting a precedent for every other territorial dispute in global football. - The PFA has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after FIFA declined to sanction Israeli clubs operating in West Bank settlements. - FIFA's justification—citing the unresolved legal status of the West Bank—is viewed by the PFA as an abdication of its responsibility to enforce its own statutes. - The incident highlights the impossibility of separating sports from the brutal reality of an active conflict zone where athletes and infrastructure have been destroyed. The CAS appeal now takes center stage.
No hearing date has been set. The court in Lausanne will first assess whether it has jurisdiction to rule on a matter so deeply entangled with international politics. If it accepts the case, a panel of arbitrators will examine FIFA's statutes against the facts on the ground in the West Bank.
A final ruling could take months. For Rajoub, the clock is ticking. Every day that settlement clubs play in Israeli leagues, the precedent hardens.
For Infantino, the Vancouver moment is a crisis that will not fade. He must now manage a conflict that his tools of handshakes and hopeful words cannot solve. The next FIFA Congress will arrive with this wound still open.
Key Takeaways
— - Rajoub's refusal to shake hands was a deliberate political act, not a breach of decorum, intended to reject what the PFA calls a whitewashing of the Gaza war.
— - The PFA has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after FIFA declined to sanction Israeli clubs operating in West Bank settlements.
— - FIFA's justification—citing the unresolved legal status of the West Bank—is viewed by the PFA as an abdication of its responsibility to enforce its own statutes.
Source: Al Jazeera
