The World Cups return has once again turned millions of otherwise indifferent Americans into temporary soccer devotees, with interest heightened this year by the United States role as one of the host nations.
As reported by Western Journal, that renewed enthusiasm has mostly produced lighthearted cultural exchanges and a flood of social media posts from visiting fans discovering that the U-S-of-A is actually pretty cool and not at all like what their media tells them it is. Yet, as so often happens when global events capture public attention, political activists have seized the moment to push their own narratives, even when those narratives collide head-on with basic facts and historical record.
In this case, a pro-Palestinian user on X managed to go viral for all the wrong reasons by offering an outlandish explanation for why there is no Palestinian side in the World Cup. According to this user, identified as @Laddin_, the reason Palestine is absent from the tournament is that Israel supposedly eliminated all of its players, an assertion that would be shocking if it bore even the faintest resemblance to reality.
Its too bad history doesnt exactly comport with the facts, as he was soon reminded of. The claim was quickly met with derision and pushback, not least because it ignored both the actual performance of the Palestinian team and the well-documented record of who has targeted athletes in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Before addressing the sporting side, it is worth clarifying a political point that activists often blur. Now, first, lets get one thing out of the way: Palestine is an independent country in the same way that Narnia is, only with one less lion and a lot more terrorists. That line may be biting, but it reflects a hard reality: Palestinian statehood remains a political aspiration, not a legal fact, and the territories are dominated by groups such as Hamas that the United States and other Western nations designate as terrorist organizations.
Even so, formal independence is not a prerequisite for World Cup participation, which makes the viral claim even more absurd. In this years competition alone, we have the non-independent geographical entities of Scotland and Curaao, which are part of the United Kingdom and Netherlands, respectively, and Theres also Haiti, which is technically independent, but also failed state run by gangsters with monikers like Barbecue, so, I mean, come on.
The X users insinuation that Israel secretly wiped out an entire national squad would, if true, have dominated global headlines for months. I must have missed this one, which would have been reported on ad nauseam if it had actually happened, the commentary noted, before pivoting to a far less convenient historical episode for anti-Israel activists.
But hey, speaking of killing off a countrys athletes, Mr. Laddin was swiftly reminded of who actually kills who. For anyone who has not blocked out this thing called the news for more than half a century, the reference is unmistakable: the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Palestinian terrorists from the Black September organization stormed the Olympic Village and murdered members of the Israeli delegation.
During the 1972 Munich Olympics, a terrorist group stormed the athletes village and ended up killing 11 athletes, coaches, and referees from Israel. Granted, these werent soccer players most of them were involved in wrestling, weightlifting, and fencing but to the extent that one side in the Israel-Palestine conflict is killing top-level athletes from the other side, it aint Israel. As the piece acidly observed, Every accusation is a confession, indeed.
Setting aside the propaganda, the actual reason Palestine is not at the World Cup is straightforward: performance. In case you were wondering why the Palestinians arent in the World Cup, its because they arent very good, the article stated bluntly, pointing to FIFAs own rankings as evidence.
The Palestinians have a soccer team that is ranked 95th in the world, according to FIFAs scoring system. That places them below powerhouses such as Benin and Thailand, and just above Belarus, a country whose best players are more likely to be killed, tortured, or jailed by their own government than the Palestinian players are. In other words, the Palestinian side exists, competes, and is not being systematically exterminated; it simply has not reached the level required to qualify.
In fact, the Palestine Football Association has been in seven World Cup qualifying tournaments and have made the big show a grand total of zero times. Why? Not because of anyone being killed, but because they keep losing. This year, they advanced further than usual but still fell well short of the mark.
This time around, they actually managed to make it to the third round of qualifying, where they finished fifth out of six teams in their group. The first two teams qualified automatically, the second two made it to a fourth round. That is the mundane, statistical reality that activists like @Laddin_ prefer to ignore in favor of lurid, evidence-free accusations.
Some might argue that ongoing conflict in Gaza has indirectly affected Palestinian football, and it is fair to acknowledge that war and instability can disrupt training, infrastructure, and player development. But even though no Palestinian players were killed by the Israelis who, by the way, also didnt make the tournament I guess you could make the point that the bloodshed in Gaza could theoretically be responsible for this. The problem with that argument is that it collapses under even minimal scrutiny when compared with other nations that have managed to qualify despite far worse internal chaos.
To that argument, I bring up the point again: Haiti made the World Cup. Haiti has been a violent hellhole since the Duvaliers were in power, and has somehow gone downhill since the days of Papa and Baby Doc. Yet Haiti still fields a competitive team, as do other unstable or conflict-ridden countries.
Other nations that arent particularly stable but still managed to get in include Algeria, Iraq, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal. Plus, remember who started the violence in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. It wasnt the Israelis. That reminder cuts against the fashionable narrative that treats Palestinian violence as either justified or irrelevant while holding Israel uniquely responsible for every consequence of a war it did not initiate.
Also, have I mentioned that freaking Curaao is in this tournament? Because they are, and if you can show me Curaao on a map, youre either from Curaao or won the National Geographic Bee as a kid. If a tiny Caribbean island can qualify, the notion that Palestine is barred by some sinister Zionist plot becomes even more implausible.
However, if we want to talk about killing athletes, sure: Lets have a discussion about 1972 in Munich, Mr. Laddin. My guess is that youre not terribly interested. Because, to the woke Palestinian supporter hive mind, killing Jews is always justified so long as it advances the cause. That harsh assessment reflects a broader frustration with a progressive activist culture that reflexively excuses or minimizes anti-Jewish violence while amplifying any allegation, no matter how baseless, against Israel.
You cant blame someone for having heard a lie. You can, however, definitely blame someone who refuses to hear the truth because it makes their cause look reprehensible. In the end, the World Cup controversy says less about soccer than it does about a political movement that prefers myth over fact, grievance over accountability, and propaganda over the uncomfortable reality that Palestines absence from the tournament is the result of losses on the pitch, not imaginary massacres by the Jewish state.
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