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Displays of support for Palestine made this a World Cup that all fans could celebrate

TODAY’s World Cup final in Qatar brought the curtain down on what was, aside from the games themselves, a corrupt and shameful exercise; the only shafts of light were those that exposed the criminal records of the Fifa management and the Qatari royal dictatorship.

The fans showed that the people of every country can come together to celebrate and mourn their team’s fortunes in fun and friendship — when freed from the venal influences of right-wing, jingoistic governments and mass media.

And special tribute should be paid to those who took advantage of the occasion to demonstrate their support for human rights, whether in Iran or Qatar itself.

The mainstream mass media in Britain also highlighted the oppression of women and LGBT people in those and other countries.

Yet there was one cause championed by fans from Tunisia and Morocco to England and Brazil which received very little coverage in Britain, although it hit news headlines around the world.

This was the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. Flags and banners in red, white, green and black were unfurled at numerous matches.

It is an oppression that manifests itself on many fronts. One is the determination to crush all attempts by the Palestinian people and its allies to defend themselves and their rights by legal, constitutional means — and when the resistance takes other, violent forms, it can then be crushed in the name of anti-terrorism and national security.

The deportation of lawyer Salah Hamouri from his home city of Jerusalem is but the latest example of how this strategy goes.

He has not been charged or convicted of any offence, but has been imprisoned before, and his clients necessarily include members of the PFLP and other armed movements.

He works for the human rights agency Addameer, which is one of six such bodies that Israel outlawed in October 2021 and forcibly shut down with soldiers this August. These include the Union of Palestine Women’s Committees and Palestine Defence of Children.

After the raids by intelligence and military forces during which offices were smashed, facilities confiscated and officials interrogated, UN Human Rights Council special rapporteurs condemned this “severe suppression of human rights defenders” as “illegal and acceptable.”

According to the Israeli government, however, they are “terrorist organisations” — a claim rejected by the UN and experts from a range of countries — and by several Israeli civil rights groups too.

As the special rapporteurs put it: “Applying anti-terrorism laws to well-regarded human rights defenders and civil society organisations — without persuasive evidence to substantiate these claims — seems to indicate a politically motivated attempt by Israel to silence some of its most effective critics in violation of their rights to freedom of association and of expression.”

Tellingly, the UN experts also make this point: “If the international community is serious about its support for Palestinian self-determination and an end to the 55-year-old Israeli occupation, it must become more vocal and assertive in defending the work of these organisations, and reminding Israel of its international human rights obligations.”

While the world continues its long wait for deeds as well as words, the Israeli state continues its atrocities.

Recent weeks have witnessed the destruction of a vital water pipeline near Jericho, land seizures around Aqraba, home demolitions in Jerusalem, and yet more fatal shootings of children in the occupied West Bank of Palestine.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine stirs governments, media and a host of other bodies across the globe to solidarity, the plight of the Palestinian people cries out for action too.

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