From the international outcry over the human rights situation in Qatar, to the silent anti-government protest by the players of the Iranian national team, the 2022 World Cup has evolved - in the "shadow" of more and more scandals - into a "stadium" where some of the hottest political issues in the wider Middle East region (and) the Middle East are being "played out" alongside the World Cup.
As well as being the most controversial in FIFA's annals, it is the first to be held in an Arab country. And especially at a time of intense regional upheaval, against the backdrop of a changing and increasingly complex international landscape.
Against this backdrop, the fate of a people whose country is officially recognised as an independent state by 138 (out of 193) UN member states, whose national team is a member of FIFA but does not participate in the World Cup, whose national team is not a full member of the United Nations and whose territory is under occupation, has emerged as one of the dominant political issues of this World Cup.
The Palestinian issue is indeed almost everywhere in Qatar, on and off the field, amid a chronic diplomatic quagmire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in anticipation of the formation of the most extreme right-wing government in Israel's history.
Somehow, then, this historic, and multiply controversial, sporting event in the Arab emirate has become a springboard for a massive wave of solidarity from fans in the Arab world and beyond towards the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation.
Solidarity on and off the pitch
Palestinian flags, banners, armbands and kafillahs (the traditional black and white Palestinian scarves) are visible in the stands and even on the pitch.
Either with the incidental invasion-protest of the stadium by a fan during the football match between Tunisia and France, or during the celebrations of the Moroccan national team players for their historic qualification to the final stages of the World Cup.
During the matches, slogans in favour of the Palestinians and against the Israeli occupation are heard.
Off the pitches, in the fan zones and on the streets, fans from various countries - not only from the Middle and Near East - make statements or sing about "freedom for Palestine".
Related videos have flooded the internet: from Brazilians in the Qatar metro, to the now viral intervention of an English fan on live Israeli TV.
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There are also dozens of videos of fans of various nationalities interrupting with chants and gestures or even harassing Israeli journalists (perhaps the most noticeable Israeli presence at the Qatar World Cup) during live broadcasts.
Many others refuse to speak in front of Israeli media cameras in protest of Tel Aviv's policies.
"Two weights and measures"
These expressions of support have been welcomed in the Palestinian territories, as well as by members of the large Palestinian diaspora in Qatar itself, where senior members of Islamist Hamas have also relocated.
In the emirate, meanwhile, reactions are still fresh to the recent FIFA-initiated decision for special direct flights from Tel Aviv to Doha during the FIFA World Cup to transport Israeli and Palestinian fans to Qatar.
This is a temporary and conditional development, the Qatari regime, which - unlike other Sunni monarchies in the Gulf - has not officially opened a channel to normalise bilateral relations with Israel, was quick to clarify at the beginning of November.
"Our position remains in favour of a solution to the Palestinian issue," Doha stressed, in mitigation of criticisms of a covertly dual stance against the backdrop of the endless diplomatic stalemate. "The flight deal should not be politicised"...
Analysts and media, however, have censured the "two measures and two stations" policy of both the emirate and FIFA in the face of major socio-political issues of concern on and off the pitch at this tournament.
For example, banners with the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom" of the anti-regime protests in Iran were banned, as well as T-shirts with the image of the dead 22-year-old Kurdish woman, the symbol of the protests, Mahsa Amini.
The same happened with flags, armbands and other insignia in rainbow colours in support of the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in a Muslim country where homosexuality is banned by law.
Some Israeli commentators, meanwhile, have described the events at the 2022 World Cup as pro-Palestinian and anti-Palestinian as evidence of an ongoing anti-Israeli, even anti-Semitic stance in the region and beyond.
Diplomacy, people and ball
The reaction from fans at the 2022 World Cup on the Palestinian issue "is not a blow to the Abrahamic Accords," the Israeli newspaper's diplomatic editor, Lachav Kharkov, wrote in the Jerusalem Post.
She was referring to the agreements signed in 2020, with US mediation, between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations between the two Arab states and Tel Aviv. A move that was followed shortly afterwards by Sudan and Morocco.
They also do not constitute a blow "to peace with Jordan and Egypt," the Israeli journalist added. "It is, however, a warning about the limitations of these agreements."
"The wave of Arab countries formally normalizing relations with Israel in recent years contrasts with the growing lack of public support in the Gulf for the Abrahamic Accords," the American think tank Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an accompanying poll, had pointed out last July.
"After the signing of the Abraham Accords, right-wing commentators claimed that the fate of the Palestinians was no longer of interest to the Arabs," Uzi Baram, Israel's former Minister of Interior and Tourism under the Labor government, said in an article in Haaretz.
"They didn't bother to read the article of the agreements, which states that their implementation requires the establishment of a Palestinian state," he comments - although developments to the contrary don't seem to faze Gulf monarchies.
"As for coexistence between the Palestinians and other Arab states," he stresses, "after the World Cup in Qatar, no further proof seems to be needed."
According to Amro Ali, professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo and researcher at the Free University of Berlin, the message is clear.
"In this World Cup," he wrote on Twitter, "Palestine has become the winner."
Source.gr
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Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
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