Sport, Palestine, and Israel

15 Sport, Palestine, and Israel

Tamir Sorek

Introduction the legitimacy of the other ’ s collective identity has been out of question. So far, the only time The sport dynamics in Palestine/Israel are char- when offi cial representatives of the State of Israel acterized by an interesting paradox. Among both and the Palestinian national movement have met the Zionist and Palestinian national movements, in the sport sphere was in the 1972 summer institutional sport has historically emerged as a Olympic Games in Munich, when members of nationalist project aimed to bridge intra-national the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and cultural/communal differences and to rehabili- eventually executed by Black September, an tate a collective self-image which suffered from organization affi liated with the Palestine Libera- humiliation and subjugation. However, the sport tion Organization (PLO). sphere in Israel/Palestine has rarely become an In one context Jews and Arabs do meet each explicit ethno-national battleground. It has not other on a regular basis. Jewish and Arab Pales- provided unforgettable moments of national tinian citizens of Israel (the latter number about confl ict, of the kind provided by India–Pakistan 1.3 million people, 17 percent of Israeli citizens) cricket, by the United States–Soviet Union hockey do share the same sport sphere. In this context, games during the Cold War, or by soccer games however, another dimension to the paradox is in the Basque and the Catalan regions in Spain. added. The more “warlike” and masculinist the There are two reasons for that; one is self- sport is, the more Arabs in Israel are represented evident, and the other needs much more elabora- and also successful in it. One would expect that tion and is the focus of this chapter. The obvious overrepresentation and success of a discrimi- reason is that because the level of hostility and nated minority in combative sports would lead to mutual denial between Israelis and Palestinians is the emergence of fi gures like the boxer Muham- so strong, sport encounters between formal rep- mad Ali, an opinionated and vocal athlete who resentatives of the two sides have been uncom- used his status to promote political protest mon. The Israeli–Palestinian confl ict is popularly ( Saeed, 2002 ). But this is not the case. A unique seen by both sides as a total and a zero-sum con- combination of social, political, and economic fl ict, and for many years the mere recognition of forces has “depoliticized” Arab–Jewish athletic

A Companion to Sport, First Edition. Edited by David L. Andrews and Ben Carrington. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 258 tamir sorek encounters within Israel and partly isolated them context where Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestin- from the Israeli–Palestinian confl ict. The nation- ian citizens of Israel do encounter each other alist connotations are blurred, and rarely do these regularly in the sport fi eld, and therefore a more encounters become an explicit Israeli–Palestinian detailed analysis is dedicated to the ways sport has battleground. In this chapter I follow the his- shaped and refl ected the relations between Jewish torical development which has led to this and Arab citizens of Israel. Finally, I evaluate depoliticization and suggest a solution to the the possible contribution of sport for Israeli– double-layered paradox. Palestinian reconciliation. The Gramsci-inspired literature in the sociology of sport has highlighted the dialectic of sport as a political sphere. Sport is seen as a contested Sport in Zionism and the Palestinian terrain, which can be potentially used by both the National Movement state and by subjugated groups to promote their interests (Hargreaves, 1986 ; Hartmann, 2000 ; “The confl ict” is an historical clash between the McKay, 1991 ; Sugden and Bairner, 1993 ). This Zionist movement and the Palestinian people. dialectic can also be found in the case of sport Respectively, both Zionism and the Palestinian among the Palestinian citizens of Israel. As a national movement have been shaped to a large general tendency, however, the potential for sport extent as a reaction to collective existential threats to be a stage of protest and resistance has rarely and collective humiliations. For Jews as a dis- materialized. criminated and persecuted minority in Europe In order to understand the political role of and the Arab Palestinians as a colonized popula- sport in Israel/Palestine, one should fi rst concep- tion, sport has been a way to rehabilitate their tualize the confl ict itself, a task which usually collective self image and especially to redeem exposes the political sympathy or affi liation of threatened manhood through nationalism. 1 the scholar. In this chapter, I refer to this confl ict The Zionist movement was a European Jewish as a struggle of a native population against a reaction to the emergence of ethnic national settler-immigrant movement and at the same movements in Europe in the nineteenth century. time a struggle between two national movements. The discourse of ethnic nationalism emphasizes From this point of view, Zionism is both a cultural homogeneity and the Jews found them- national movement (an aspect that is evident selves frequently as the “ultimate other” of these from its discourse and practices aimed to mobi- movements and suffered persecutions. Having lize national identifi cation among Jews) and a been rejected by the European nations, some Jews colonial movement (an aspect which is evident were looking for alternatives such as emigrating from its political practices toward the native pop- to the New World or adopting universalist ideolo- ulation of Palestine). Sport, as an institution that gies like Marxism. At the end of the nineteenth has been used both to mobilize national identifi - century a minority was attracted by the idea that cation (Ehn, 1989 ; Houlihan, 1997 ; Lever, 1983 ) Jewish people should establish themselves as a as well as to stabilize and legitimize colonial separate nation and, following the emerging control ( Jacob, 2005 ; Mahlmann, 1988 ; Mandle, European model, to set up a national state of their 1979 ; Mangan, 2001 ; Nauright, 1997 ; Sugden and own – a solution that became known as Zionism. Bairner, 1993 ) is a sphere in the confl ict that is At least in Western Europe, this new develop- usually underestimated. ment was accompanied by a growing interest in Before dealing with the above-mentioned sport, as a tool for developing national conscious- paradox we need fi rst to briefl y describe the ness. As several scholars of Zionism and sexuality essence of the confl ict with a focus on the devel- have shown, the way in which early Zionist opment of sport until 1948. Since 1948 the Pales- leaders saw the body of the European Jewish man tinians have been dispersed in different countries refl ected a remarkable internalization of contem- and lived under different political conditions and porary anti-semitic stereotypes and pseudo- therefore the pre-1948 outline is followed by a scientifi c literature, which depicted the Jewish separate discussion for each of these contexts. male body as inferior and drew similarities The political role of sport is most evident in the between the physiology of Jewish men and female sport, palestine, and israel 259 bodies (Biale, 1992 ; Boyarin, 2000 ). Therefore, government as a mechanism that might promote Zionism strove to redeem the Jewish man from inter-ethnic cooperation between Jews and Arabs his “femininity” by “converting” him into “an ( Ben Porat, 2001 ) and invited both Arabs and Aryan man.” The “sportization” of the Jew was Jews to join sports competitions they organized. seen as a cure to his non-masculine character. In Arab and Jewish athletes did play in the same his extensively quoted speech from 1898, the associations during the 1920s but separated in the Zionist leader, Dr Max Nordau, called for the early 1930s, a separation which served the nation- establishment of a “Muscular Jewry” and empha- alist agenda of both sides. For both Zionists and sized the link between national redemption and Arab Palestinians, sports organization at this masculine rehabilitation: “We shall develop a point served as an organizational as well as sym- wide chest, strong limbs, a courageous look – we bolic platform, which was especially important will become a people of valor. Sport is education- for a stateless national movement. ally signifi cant to us, the Jews, for not only do we The Arab Palestinian sport movement in the have to recover physically, but also spiritually” 1930s and 1940s was an integral part of the (Israel and Forman, 1994 ). The names given to nationalist movement ( Sorek, 2007 ). The consti- Zionist sports clubs, for example, refl ected the tution of the Arab Palestinian Sport Association yearning for mythological muscular warriors established in 1944, for example, explicitly pro- found in the Jewish ancient past: for example hibited the participation of Jewish players. The Maccabi, Shimshon (Samson), Bar-Kokhba, and Zionist football association (offi cially named Pal- so on ( Kaufman and Bar-Eli, 2005 : 180). estine Football Association) kept inviting Arab Although Zionist thinkers considered several clubs to join its ranks, in order to keep its rec- territorial options for gathering Jews to establish ognition by FIFA as the offi cial representative their own state, traditional and religious motives association of the country. Like the Zionist sport drew the Zionist movement to Palestine (the movement, the nationalist-masculinist character “Land of Israel” in Jewish tradition). At the turn of the Palestinian sport movement was exempli- of the twentieth century, Palestine had a popula- fi ed through youth sports teams that were named tion of around 700,000, the great majority of after historically renowned Muslim and Arab which was Muslim Arab. Christian Arabs num- military commanders, such as Khaled Ibn al- bered around 72,000 and Jews around 60,000 Walid and Sallah al-Din al-Ayubi. The rhetoric of (Campos, 2010 : 12–13). the newly born Arabic-language sports media fre- The Arab national movement appeared almost quently emphasized the militaristic functions and at the same time as the Zionist movement, ini- meanings of sports. tially confronting the Ottoman empire and later Furthermore, the sport–militarism connection the colonial regimes founded in the region at the on both sides went beyond simple rhetoric. The end of World War I. In 1917 the British empire physical education of the Arab and Jewish youth promised to support the Zionist movement ’ s was intended to train the young generation for efforts to establish a national home for the Jewish combat. Among the Jews, in 1939, following people in Palestine. The British conquered the the Arab Great Revolt,2 the National Committee country shortly after this, and initially enabled established the Department for Physical Training, Jewish immigration to Palestine. The Zionist with the explicit aim of training Jewish youth to immigrants and their declared plan to establish a protect settlements. This department had signifi - Jewish homeland in Palestine alarmed the native cant personal and organizational overlap with the Arab population and gradually led to a direct existing Jewish sport infrastructure in Palestine. 3 resistance. As a reaction to the Zionist immi- Among the Arabs, some sport clubs in the mid- gration and land purchase, a separate Arab 1940s were used to prepare Arab youth for a mili- Palestinian national movement emerged ( Khalidi, tary confl ict with the Zionists (Levenberg, 1993 : 1997 ; Kimmerling and Migdal, 1993 ; Muslih, 126–154). 1988 ; Porath, 1974 ). As the confl ict intensifi ed in the region, and The British authorities noticed the Arab frus- with the resounding impact of the Holocaust of tration, and their initial sport policy was shaped European Jewry, the United Nations decided in by it. Sports were considered by the Mandatory 1947 to divide the country into two states, Jewish 260 tamir sorek and Arab. Most of the Zionist movement accepted Palestinian refugees, Jordan granted citizenship the partition resolution, convinced that the to most of them and implemented a “Jordani- crucial issue was to establish a fi rm foundation zation policy.” As a result, the Jordanian policy for Jewish sovereignty. The Arabs, on their part, toward sports also derived from aspirations to could not understand why they should pay the promote cultural unity after the drastic demo- price for crimes committed against the Jews by graphic transformation following the 1948 war Europeans, and violently objected to the plan. In ( Khalifeh, 1986 ). Palestinian refugees were pre- the subsequent 1948 war, Palestinians lost their vented from reorganizing sports clubs with a modern urban centers on the coast, hundreds of potent Palestinian character ( Sayigh, 1997 : 52) villages were destroyed, and around 750,000 Pal- but were encouraged to integrate into the estinians were uprooted, became refugees, and Jordanian sports organization. These efforts were not allowed to return to their home ( Morris, intensifi ed after “Black September,” the Jordanian– 1987 ). This series of events is remembered by Palestinian civil war in 1970, as Jordanian–Pales- the Palestinians as the Nakbah (catastrophe) tinian soccer encounters became highly tensioned and it is the central pillar of contemporary Pales- and sometimes violent (Brand, 1991 : 183; Massad, tinian national narrative. The State of Israel 2001 : 256–257). It is unclear to what extent this was established in May 1948 and during the war policy was successful in the fi eld of sport, but the expanded its territory to 78 percent of Mandatory existing evidence suggests that Palestinians in Palestine. Jordan tend to express collective national pride The 1948 war created a new sociopolitical in the soccer sphere, through their fl agship team, reality with far-reaching implications on sports al-Wihdat (Tuastad, 1997 ). institutions. The effect of the war on Palestinian Only about a quarter of the 100,000 Palestinian sport (as on Palestinian society generally) was refugees who arrived in Lebanon received citizen- devastating. In 1947 dozens of Arab Palestinian ship. On the one hand, the Palestinians in the sports clubs were active, most of them in cities. refugee camps were not allowed to join the Leba- The large-scale destruction of the war and the nese sports organization. On the other hand, with forced exile of urban elites brought an end to severe restrictions on their employment, housing, almost all the sports clubs that fl ourished in the and movement, and a prohibition on establishing territory that became Israel. Following the war, independent organizations in the camps, they the Palestinians were divided and lived under dif- were very limited in developing their own sports ferent sovereignties: Jordanian, Egyptian, Israeli, infrastructure. It was not until 1969 that Palestin- Lebanese, and Syrian. Their sporting activities in ians were allowed to establish institutions and the fi rst two decades after 1948 refl ected the inter- organizations to serve refugees, following the ests and strategies of the different governments Cairo agreement.4 As a result of this agreement, who controlled their lives. The level and form of the PLO embarked on a campaign to establish a inclusion/exclusion of Palestinians in the sport number of such institutions and organizations, organizations in every country has been a very including sports clubs ( PRRN, 2007 ). However, good indicator for their status of (or lack of) most of the 23 sports clubs that existed in 2001 citizenship. did not have any playgrounds or proper coaches.

Palestinian Sports under Jordanian and Sports and Arab–Jewish Relations Lebanese Rule in Israel

Following the 1948 war, about 380,000 Palestin- After the 1948 war, approximately 160,000 Pales- ian refugees settled in the West Bank and about tinians remained under Israeli rule and today 70,000 arrived on the eastern bank of the Jordan they number about one-sixth of Israeli citizens. river, both of which areas were then under Jorda- This is the only context where Jews and Arabs nian control (Jordan offi cially annexed the West have shared the same sport sphere since 1948. Bank in 1950 and lost it to Israel during the 1967 This context, therefore, is the most interesting war). Unlike other countries that absorbed the for a sociological examination of sport in the sport, palestine, and israel 261 confl ict, since it provides an important fi eld for sphere might create the impression that sport is investigating the political role of sports. a site of ethno-national protest. This is because As Palestinians by their ethno-national iden- the branches of sports in which Arabs have tifi cation and Israelis by citizenship, the Pales- achieved signifi cant presence and success are tinians in Israel face persistent predicaments those sports that legitimize a higher level of regarding their sociopolitical location and self- aggression toward the opponent. Furthermore, presentation for several interrelated reasons. these are the exact same sports that the Israeli First, historically, Israel as a Jewish state was authorities initially intended to discourage Arabs established in 1948 on the ruins of the local Pal- from playing, out of concern that they would estinian society – and this historical association serve as a platform for the development of is the major anchor of Palestinians ’ collective national consciousness (Sorek, 2007 ). memory and national identity. This zero-sum- Modern sport is based on maintaining a deli- game narrative makes the holding of both self- cate balance between the pleasurable “de-control- identifi cations, Palestinian and Israeli, extremely ling” of human feelings of excitement on the one challenging; therefore, diverse strategies have hand and the maintenance of a set of checks and been developed to solve the dissonance (Bishara, balances to keep those emotions under control 1999 ). Second, Palestinians in Israel face contra- (Elias and Scotson, 1994 ). Sports allow and dictory expectations on the part of Israeli Jews legitimize the expression of aggression (de- and by Palestinians outside Israel. While their controlling), and at the same time sports regulate Arab Palestinian identity places them in the posi- that aggression by a set of previously agreed rules. tion of “an enemy within” for the Jewish majority, In ethno-national confl icts, and especially when they are simultaneously considered suspicious – these confl icts involve severe forms of discrimi- “Israelifi ed Arabs” – by Palestinians outside Israel. nation or are embedded in colonial and postco- Third, but no less important, as Arab citizens in lonial contexts, this dialectic of modern sports is a state that defi nes itself as Jewish, they suffer translated into a tension between the potential of from prolonged forms of discriminatory policies sports to serve as a platform for anticolonial, in diverse spheres ( Haider, Awad, and Mahmoud, ethnic, or national pride and the pacifying poten- 2010 ). They are systematically excluded from the tial of the ethnically blind discourse, which makes major political, economic, and social centers of sports a potential sphere of integration and sus- power in the state, their culture and language pension of protest. Different sports are located hold an inferior status in Israeli public life, and differently on this controlling/de-controlling they are alienated from the exclusivist Jewish continuum. As a rule of thumb, in the State of Zionist symbols of the state. At the same time, Israel the closer a sport is to the de-controlling they do not see any realistic political alternative edge of the continuum, the higher the presence to the current situation. A viable Palestinian state of and success of Arab citizens in it. does not exist, and a return of the Palestinian The two most popular sports in Israel, basket- refugees which will transform the demographic ball and soccer, illustrate well this phenomenon. balance in their favor is unlikely to occur. In addi- Basketball was among the games the Israeli mili- tion, with all the above-mentioned defi ciencies tary government (in effect between 1948 and they still enjoy more political freedom and eco- 1966) intended initially to encourage (together nomic opportunities than any other Palestinian with volleyball, track and fi eld, and table tennis), group in the Middle East (i.e., refugees in several while soccer was “not recommended” (together countries and Palestinians in the West Bank and with wrestling, boxing, weightlifting). From the the Gaza Strip) and even than most Arab citizens governmental point of view, the “dangerous in neighboring countries. These contradictions sports” included combative and warlike sports – further complicate questions of belonging and exactly those sports which were the most desired identifi cation. This multidimensional complexity for oppressed men who needed them to compen- must be taken into consideration when we analyze sate for their political subordination (women as Arab sports in Israel. rebels were probably less of a concern). A cursory examination of the involvement of This policy, if it was ever seriously imple- the Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel in the sport mented, completely failed. In the long term, it is 262 tamir sorek exactly in the “dangerous sports” where Arab men example among the 460 participants more than became extremely overrepresented, or even half (234) came from clubs representing Arab gained complete dominance. Arab men in Israel towns, in addition to 75 (16 percent) which came are underrepresented and unsuccessful in basket- from clubs representing mixed towns and cities.9 ball. An Arab team has never played in the fi rst Furthermore, between the years 2001 and 2004, division, the Israeli national team has never 40 out of 52 (77 percent) championship titles for included an Arab player, and the total number of male seniors were won by Arab boxers. 10 The Arab men teams offi cially registered in the Israeli Israeli Boxing Association is the only sport asso- basketball union is only 24 (out of 228 teams, ciation whose offi ces are located in an Arab town, around 11 percent). 5 which usually organizes its major competitions in Soccer, however, represents the opposite pole. Arab towns, and which has Arabs as chair and More than one-third of the men ’ s soccer teams general director. playing in the Israeli Football Association repre- The intriguing aspect of this overrepresenta- sent Arab towns, villages, or neighborhoods. Fur- tion in physically violent sports is that it is rarely thermore, over the last decade Arab teams have translated into explicit expressions of political gained a stable presence in the fi rst division and protest or ethno-national confrontations. Pales- in 2004 an Arab team, Ittihad Abna Sakhnin, won tinian fl ags are an extremely rare vision in the the Israel State Cup and represented Israel in Israeli boxing sphere. Active Arab boxers avoid Europe in the following season. Interestingly, this any Palestinian nationalist statement and the tendency is reversed among women. Arab women Arab administration of the Israeli Boxing Asso- are overrepresented in basketball (21 out of 110 ciation maintains an Israeli patriotic tone in the teams, or 19 percent),6 and underrepresented in media ( Sorek, 2009 ). The question is, if Arab citi- soccer (one team out of 17, or 6 percent). 7 These zens are attracted to these physically intense invert tendencies might represent the masculine sports, why are articulations of ethno-national image of soccer in Israel as opposed to the more protest absent from the sports sphere? gender neutral image of basketball and the dif- ferential implications of these images on those who hold the political power as opposed to the Modernity and Sport: Muting subjugated and colonized minority. the Protest Arab men are overrepresented as well in other sports, which were “not recommended” for Arabs With the establishment of the State of Israel sport by the Israeli government in the early 1960s. As activities were seen by the state authorities as a early as 1959, an Arab weightlifter ’ Ali Khudruj tool for forging an Israeli national identity, from Acre, was the fi rst Arab athlete to win an enhancing the ties between Israel and the Jewish Israeli national championship. In subsequent diaspora, and promoting Israel ’ s image in the years, ’ Ali and his brothers ’ Adnan and Muhsin, world ( Harif, 2011 ). Sport had the potential to dominated Israeli weightlifting. The Arab domi- overcome a fundamental paradox in the Zionist nation in weightlifting diminished later with the ideology: the founding fathers of this movement infl ux of immigration from the Soviet Union, but and the leading political parties have been secular, it still exists in other “masculinist” sports. For and at a certain point even anti-religious with the example, among the 57 Israelis who held a black explicit aim of secularizing Judaism (Avineri, belt in traditional karate in 2009, 23 (40 percent) 1981 ), but the most stable common ground for were Arabs.8 Jews from different continents and cultures was But the most striking example is boxing, a religion. This tension intensifi ed during the fi rst sport located on the edge of the controlling/de- decade of the state ’ s existence while the Jewish controlling of violence spectrum since it literally demographic in the country drastically changed legitimizes punching the opponent in the face. with the absorption of mass Jewish immigration Starting in the 1980s, Arabs gained complete from Muslim countries, an immigration which domination in boxing in terms of participation, ended the almost exclusive European character of achievements, and representation in administra- the Jewish population in the country until that tive positions. In the 2005 championships, for time. Promoting national pride through sport sport, palestine, and israel 263 was one strategy of the secular elite to bridge the sight of barely dressed young men purposelessly cultural differences between Jews while bypassing running around after a ball a waste of time, and the religious–secular question. at worst as a licentious, “unmasculine” activity. The Arab Palestinians who remained under “Modernity” is a key concept for understand- Israeli rule after the 1948 war and received a ing the lure of the game and the power relation nominal Israeli citizenship were not the target between the state and the Palestinian citizens. audience of the efforts to shape an Israeli national Modernity is a powerful discourse which plays a identity. In fact, during the fi rst decade of the specifi c role in colonial contexts ( Mitchell, 2000 ), State of Israel it is diffi cult to identify a coherent and sports is an important element in the pro- policy toward this population (Bauml, 2001 ; duction of this discourse. The representation of Robinson, 2005 ), except a suspicion and fear that sports as “modern” and their association with was expressed in the imposition of a strict mili- certain political agents enabled the accumulation tary rule which severely curtailed their freedom of signifi cant political assets. of movement, speech, and livelihood (Jiryis, The adoption of sports has been a strategy of 1969 ; Lustick, 1980 ). The humiliation of Arab delineating the border between the modern and men who were defeated in the war was multiplied the traditional. This association between sports by the loss of signifi cant tracts of their land, and modernity was used by the Palestinian elite which before 1948 had been an important in the pre-1948 period to promote a secular element in the masculine self-image of peasant Palestinian national identity. The institutional men (Katz, 1996 ). development of modern Palestinian sports was A major principle in the policy of state author- tightly connected to the “discourse produced by ities in the 1950s and 1960s was to prevent the modernity about itself” ( Delanty and O ’ Mahony, emergence of a nationalist consciousness among 2002 : 6). Namely, sports, in the eyes of certain the Arab Palestinian minority, and to attempt to parts of the Palestinian elite under British rule, develop a non-Palestinian local Arab identity for were a signifi cant component in a “cultural model the new, unwanted Israeli citizens. The develop- of modernity, the basic normative, symbolic and ment of state-dependent sports clubs was one aesthetic structures underlying societies that con- expression of these efforts. Hence, after 1948, sciously aspire to become ‘modern’ ” ( Delanty and sport in Israel was not only assigned the role of O’ Mahony 2002 : 6). rehabilitating the image of Jewish men and con- After 1948, sport as a badge of “modernity” solidating a modern Hebrew national identity was used by the agencies of state in order to but also was used as a mechanism to facilitate the present themselves as modernizing agents. For control and surveillance of the Arab Palestinian men of the younger generation, masculine sports minority. provided an outstanding opportunity to reha- The Arab Palestinian population who remained bilitate their collective self-image. Sport has a under Israeli rule was mainly rural, with signifi - wide and fl exible range of interpretations, and cant parts of it previously somewhat detached while for the elders the game was “play” (and from the Palestinian sporting movement. Israel therefore associated with childhood and imma- became the sponsor of sports, which grew to be turity), for the younger generation it provided an element in a set of strategies through which an opportunity to test their masculinity in com- the state presented itself as a facilitator of moder- petition, shortly after their people suffered a nity. The state functionaries, or more precisely, catastrophic and humiliating defeat in the war. the functionaries of the Histadrut (General Fed- This nexus of masculinist-nationalist pride was eration of Labor Unions), who were assigned by embedded in a prevalent discourse about body the government to encourage the establishment and modernity which has emerged in the region of sports clubs in Arab villages, took advantage of since the late nineteenth century ( Jacob, 2005 ; the opposition of the elder rural leadership to Schayegh, 2002 ). Following colonial penetration, the game in order to emphasize their image as the this rhetoric incorporated explicit consideration bearer of modernity. This Arab Palestinian lead- of the relationship between national success and ership did not welcome the idea of youth playing physical culture ( Jacob, 2005 : 126–156), to some games like soccer. At best, they considered the extent as a reaction to images of masculinity 264 tamir sorek produced by the colonizers, in which the native’ s of some sports, mainly soccer, since the early male body was described as weak and undisci- 1980s ( Ben Porat, 1998 ) has signifi cantly con- plined (p. 122). Therefore, before 1948 sport ’ s tributed to the pacifying role of sports. The assumed power to cultivate modernity in Pales- liberalization of the public sphere meant that an tine made it a necessary tool of both nation- Arab athlete who wished to protest would no building and anticolonial struggle. longer risk legal sanctions or harassment by the This meaning of sport enabled an ad hoc alli- security forces. This protest, however, had the ance between the Israeli political establishment potential to prevent him from gaining a place in and the young men in the Israeli-ruled Palestin- the roster of a leading Jewish club or in the Israeli ian towns and villages. Both were interested in national team. This, in turn, might lead not only developing Arab sport but for different reasons: to direct loss of income but also to less exposure the latter to support self-image, and the former to European agents and hinder his or her chance for control. Particularly since the early 1960s, of a lucrative European athletic career. Arab sport clubs in Israel were spreading. It was only in the 1990s, with the proliferation Although initially it was considered a dangerous of an independent Arab press, the relative liber- game from the point of view of the authorities, alization of the Israeli public sphere, and the soccer’ s popularity was too strong to defeat and growing confi dence of the Palestinian elite inside therefore the game was encouraged, as long as it Israel, that an explicit combative nationalist dis- was under the complete control and supervision course was attached to Arab sport in Israel. Since of the state. Israeli authorities considered the new the mid-1990s it has become more common to clubs a useful antidote to nationalist conscious- fi nd in the Arabic press warlike metaphors to ness and deliberately encouraged and supported describe Arab–Jewish encounters in the sports them if they played under the offi cial umbrella of sphere, sometimes with concrete reference to the Zionist sports organization. Independent events from the Arab–Israeli wars. Still, it seems Arab sports organizations were banned and that there is a gap between sport journalists, who quickly dismantled if they appeared. Under these are more educated than the average fan, and the circumstances, soccer and boxing became a safe set of symbols that are actually visible in the sta- ground for Arab men to display a combative, diums. Palestinian national symbols are mostly quasi-nationalist masculinity (Sorek, 2009 ), excluded from the sports site (even though they which did not involve the risk of confrontation have not been illegal since 1993). In addition, with state authorities. violent outbreaks in Arab–Jewish encounters are Paradoxically, by muting their expression of not more common than with other competitions nationalist aspirations, or by relegating them (Arab–Arab or Jewish–Jewish), statistics which to other spheres, Arab male athletes were able to testify that “sport as a substitute for war” is too a simulate a war against Jewish men. For Arab sport simplistic as a theme for describing sport dynam- fans in the late 1960s, identifi cation with success- ics in Israel. ful Arab soccer players or boxers, even if they While Jewish working-class soccer fans some- played for Jewish teams, could reinforce mascu- times aspire to intensify the national confl ict in linity and national self-respect. These identifi - soccer stadiums, Arab soccer fans are in a more cations did not risk the potential sanctions ambiguous position. Soccer is indeed an oppor- involved in identifying with other heroes, such as tunity to “beat the Jewish men” in a physical the Fatah movement11 which was beginning to competition. But it is also a unique opportunity gain momentum at exactly the same time. for Arab citizens to obtain integration and ac- The military government was offi cially ceptance by the Jewish majority. It is a sphere that removed in 1966 (and paradoxically was exported glorifi es a meritocratic ethos and therefore offers immediately to the territories occupied in 1967) players some protection from the discriminatory and Israel in its pre-1967 borders experienced a practices they face in many other spheres of period of relative liberalization in many spheres Israeli society. Therefore, Arab fans manage their of life, especially from the 1980s. The disciplinary confrontation with Jewish fans with great care. power of the state, however, was soon replaced by This does not mean that Arab–Jewish tension market forces. The accelerated commercialization is absent from the soccer stadium but that Arab sport, palestine, and israel 265 fans and players tend to under-articulate it. in East Jerusalem, a territory that was offi cially Toward the end of the 2011–2012 soccer season, annexed to Israel without international recogni- for example, Israeli soccer fans could watch on tion. The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem has their TV an Arab team from Nazareth letting been involved in developing some sport projects another Arab team from Lyda win 6–0 in order for youth, and a small number of athletes have to help the latter to climb to the Premier League.12 participated in Israeli competitions. This case of Arab solidarity against Jewish teams In the other parts of the 1967 occupied terri- reminds us of the undercurrent of tension that tories, the Palestinians have competed only in does exist below the surface of the integrative their separate athletic frameworks. Under Israeli rhetoric on the bleachers. At the same time, we occupation a separate soccer league for the West have evidence that the integrative and conserva- Bank was established in 1977 and later on a sepa- tive orientation of the sport sphere in Israel exists rate boxing federation. The Palestinian Olympic beyond the rhetorical level. It is illustrated in the Committee was recognized as a member of the results of a survey I conducted in 2000 with a International Olympic Committee in 1995 and representative sample of young Arab men in Palestine has been represented in the Olympic Israel ( Sorek, 2007 ). It was found that Arab men summer games since 1996. In 1998 the Palestine who attend the soccer stadium are more likely to Football Federation was recognized by FIFA and vote for Zionist parties in the election and less the Palestinian national team has been playing in likely to feel proud of their Palestinian identity. offi cial international games since then. The These results imply that any planned attempt of important aspect for our discussion is that these the authorities to manipulate the collective con- frameworks have included almost only Palestin- sciousness of citizens by sports has gained some ians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and success. has rarely included Arab Palestinian citizens of During the fi rst decade of the twenty-fi rst Israel. century Arab–Jewish relations in Israel deterio- Although the Palestine Football Association rated drastically ( Smooha, 2010 ). Toward the end hired for the national team a Palestinian coach of the decade even the soccer fi eld witnessed a who was a citizen of Israel and a former player in slight increase in the frequency of appearance of a Jewish Israeli team (the late Azmi Nassar) it Palestinian national symbols. Still, a Palestinian was clear to everyone involved that Arab soccer fl ag is an exception that attracts the Hebrew players from inside Israel would not be invited to sports media and is covered with a magnifi ying the team. According to FIFA rules (which rever- glass. Only time will tell if we are witnessing the berate a classic discourse of modern national- beginning of a change in the political role of sport ism) throughout his or her career a soccer player in Israel. can play for only one national team. For this reason Arab players who already played in the Israeli national team could not be invited. Even Palestinian Athletes in the West Bank for those who have not played in the Israeli and the Gaza Strip national team there is a strong incentive to refuse an invitation to the Palestinian team, since The meaning of sport as a mechanism for “limited playing for Israel would increase their exposure inclusion” became even clearer after the 1967 war. to European player agents. Whatever would be In this war Israel occupied more territories and the reason for it, the separation between Pales- imposed its control over the Palestinians in these tinian athletes from inside pre-1967 Israel and territories, including the Gaza Strip (which was those from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is held until 2005) and the West Bank. 13 The Pales- clear, and it becomes even clearer among the top tinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have athletes. This separation adds another dimension never been considered as potential Israeli citizens, to the “Israeli” orientation of Arab athletes inside and therefore have never been invited to join the Israel. Israeli sport associations under any conditions. At the same time, there is evidence that Israeli The only place where Israeli authorities were soccer has, or at least had in the past, followers involved in organizing sports competition was among Palestinians in the West Bank and the 266 tamir sorek

Gaza Strip, although it is hard to estimate the case of sport among the Arab Palestinian citizens extent of this phenomenon. This interest goes of Israel is a good illustration of the way sport back to the time period between 1967 and 1992, might contribute to the maintenance of hegem- when the signifi cant part of the Palestinian male onic structures and ideas, through its ability to labor force was employed inside pre-1967 Israel generate ethnically blind discursive elements. (in its peak, over 40 percent), was exposed to Even though there is ample evidence that national Israeli daily life, and learned Hebrew. A striking frustration and humiliation play an important illustration for the construction of sport as an role in the attraction of the Palestinian citizens of ex-territorial sphere, where confl ict is not allowed Israel to the sport sphere as fans and athletes, to penetrate, can be found in Dan Setton’ s docu- their frustration remains frequently muted and is mentary movie Shaheed: The Making of a Suicide heard mainly outside the sport sphere. Bomber. Based on an interview with Palestinian Consequently, over the past decade several ini- prisoners who were sent on suicide bombing tiatives to promote peace between Jewish Israelis missions in Israel, this fi lm examines the justifi ca- and Arab Palestinians have been launched. The tions they give for their readiness to sacrifi ce their most extensive and best-known program, Foot- lives. One of the interviewees, Rashid Saker, a ball for Peace, is run by the Chelsea School of would-be suicide bomber in an Israeli jail, was Sport at the University of Brighton, the German talking about his interest in Israeli soccer. Sport University Cologne, the British Council, and the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport question: Had you were [sic] requested to (Sugden and Wallis, 2007 ). The program brings commit your mission in a soccer stadium, in together Jewish and Arab children to practice and the Teddy stadium in Israel, for example – play football, and its declared aims are to “provide what would you have done? opportunities for social contact across commu- answer: In the soccer stadium I couldn’ t have nity boundaries; promote mutual understanding; done that. engender in participants a desire for and commit- question : Even though these are Jews, Zionists, ment to peaceful coexistence; and enhance sports and infi dels? skills and technical knowledge about sport” answer : I couldn ’ t have done it. ( Sugden, 2010 ). Since Jewish and Arab children have so few The documentary does not go further, to explore opportunities to interact, one should not under- the reasons for Saker ’ s reluctance to kill Israeli estimate the potential positive contributions of fans and himself in a soccer stadium, but it is this program. At the same time, we should evalu- clear that soccer has a special symbolic value for ate the possible political implications of it based him. As a Palestinian who was employed in Israel, on what is known about the history and the Saker might have been exposed to the same forces contemporary role of sport as a site of depoliti- that shaped the attitude of Palestinian citizens of cization of Arab–Jewish relations. Providing Israel toward the game. Namely, soccer might opportunities for social contact would lead to have symbolized a hope for normality, an island lasting coexistence in an ideal world where divi- of egalitarian relationship between Jews and sions are only horizontal and social confl ict is the Arabs. While Saker imagined the fans in the result of a “cultural gap”; assuming a natural fl ow stadium they might have looked too similar to from the former to the later does not take into him to be enemies who deserve to die. account the initial hierarchy and power relations between the two communities. Stated plainly, when Jewish and Arab children leave their foot- Sport and Reconciliation? ball practice, the Arab players return home to denser streets and a substantially lower quality of Sport has not become a fi eld of explicit national- education, health, welfare, and public services. ist confrontation between Jewish Israelis and These gaps, which are on the rise (Haider et al., Arab Palestinians, even though in a specifi c 2010 ), are not only the consequences of the capi- context they do share the same sport sphere. The talist market but also embody the cumulative sport, palestine, and israel 267 effect of an active semi-colonial political reality replaced only temporarily by an egalitarian inter- in which the unequal distribution of resources is action based on commercial, professional, or compatible with the state ’ s ethnocratic ideology. sportive criteria. Regardless of the specifi c input The exclusion of any discussion of this reality is of Football for Peace, as a general tendency sport a precondition for a smooth Arab–Jewish encoun- in Israel/Palestine has not contributed so far to ter on the sport fi eld. reconciliation, even though it clearly has the John Sugden, the leading academic fi gure in potential to do so. Unfortunately, the relatively the project, believes that “if imbued with socially liberal discourse which has been produced in the progressive values and organized and managed sport sphere has played a role in justifying and correctly, [sport] can play a role in promoting legitimizing the existing ethnic hierarchy in other peace and reconciliation in even the most frac- spheres by providing an illusionary egalitarian tured and deeply divided societies” (Sugden, model that cannot realistically be exported to 2010 : 263). This statement might be valid as long other contexts. as there is recognition by both sides that some- Sport might not have the power to transform thing is wrong with the existing political system Israeli politics, but its proven sociopolitical power and that sportive reconciliation does not come could signifi cantly support such a transformation instead of political change. Otherwise, by depo- if and when it happens simultaneously in other liticizing the Arab–Jewish encounter, sport joins spheres. We should not rule out, therefore, that other uncommon isolated enclaves in Israel, such under different future circumstances sport would as pharmacies or the operating room, in which support large-scale structural societal change in the Jewish political advantage is suspended and the country.

Notes

1 For a discussion of nationalism and masculinity 8 Calculation based on the Israeli Institute for in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conﬂ ict, Martial Arts website, http://www.israel-martialarts. see Katz ( 1996 ) and Boyarin ( 2000 ). org , accessed January 15, 2013. 2 The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine was an 9 Calculation is based on information available on uprising against the British Mandatory authorities the Israeli Boxing Association website: http:// in Palestine in protest against accelerated Jewish www.boxingisrael.com/index.php , accessed De- immigration and Zionist land purchase in the cember 17, 2012. mid-1930s. 10 Calculation is based on information available on 3 In 1949 Israel ’ s ﬁ rst prime minister, David Ben the Israeli Boxing Association website, http:// Gurion, hesitated whether the department should www.boxingisrael.com/index.php?option = com_ be annexed to the Ministry of Defense or the Min- content&task= view&id = 33&Itemid = 56 , accessed istry of Education and Culture, and decided in the January 15, 2013. end for the latter. 11 A major Palestinian party established in 1959 4 The Cairo agreement between the PLO and the which advocated independent Palestinian action, Lebanese army established principles under which autonomous from the interests of Arab states. The the activities of Palestinian guerrillas based in Fatah adopted armed struggle as a strategy and Lebanon would be tolerated and regulated by the started implementing it from 1965. Lebanese authorities. Subsequently, the PLO effec- 12 The Jewish coach of Nazareth, Shimon Hadari tively created “a state within a state” in Lebanon. decided to leave the team after this game. Some 5 See the Israeli Basketball Association website, players were arrested by the police but were http://www.ibba.one.co.il/ , accessed December 17, released later. 2012. 13 With the implantation of the Oslo accords in the 6 See http://www.ibba.one.co.il/ , accessed Decem- mid-1990s in some territories the Palestinian ber 17, 2012. Authority gained partial control over incongruent 7 Calculation based on information available on the territories which accumulate to approximately 30 Israel Football Association website, http://football. percent of the West Bank. The tangible control of org.il/Leagues/Pages/LeagueDetails.aspx, accessed the land, however, remains practically in Israeli December 17, 2012. hands. 268 tamir sorek

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