Human Rights Watch should condemn PA use of sports to promote terror
Human Rights Watch should condemn
the Palestinian Authority's use of sports
to promote terror
Itamar Marcus
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published a report on sports, concerning Israeli football in the disputed West Bank, and FIFA, the international football association's support thereof, claiming Israeli football matches in the West Bank are a violation of human rights. [HRW's website, Sept. 25, 2016]
However, Human Rights Watch has chosen to completely ignore the Palestinian Authority's use of sports as a vehicle to glorify and promote terror and present murderers of Israeli civilians as heroes and role models. HRW has likewise ignored the terror glorification and incitement to murder by Jibril Rajoub, who is head of the Palestinian Football Association, the Palestine Olympic Committee, and the PLO's Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs.
See Palestinian Media Watch's recent report on PA sports head The Jibril Rajoub File, documenting his terror support and the PA's use of sports to glorify terror.
The Palestinian glorification and encouragement of terror through sports not only leads to loss of Israeli lives, it also deprives Palestinian children of their fundamental rights to a childhood, in that it encourages them to turn into combatants of war. For both these reasons it should be condemned by Human Rights Watch.
Since HRW has chosen to deal with Israeli/PA sports, Human Rights Watch should amend its report or write another report to condemn the PA's using sports to promote and glorify terror, as well as Jibril Rajoub's incitement to murder. HRW choosing to selectively write about Israeli sports, while being silent regarding the PA's use of sports to promote terror implies that it is not concerned about PA promotion of terror.
Is HRW's silence in the face of open use of sports to glorify terror by the PA, a statement that HRW approves of Palestinian promotion of terror? If HRW does not approve of the PA using sports to glorify terror, a clear condemnation in the report is required.