PMW Bulletin
Human Rights Watch should condemn PA use of sports to promote terror
by Itamar Marcus
Sept. 26, 2016
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=18842

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.