For nearly three years, international audiences have been presented with a familiar story: Palestinian soccer has been destroyed, its players killed, its pitches reduced to rubble, another casualty of an Israeli campaign supposedly targeting every aspect of Palestinian life.
Apparently, soccer didn’t get the memo.
Anadolu Agency now reports that the Palestinian Football Association has launched the “Thousand Martyrs Cup,” with matches taking place simultaneously in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Soccer has become a remarkably useful propaganda tool. We have seen matches photographed against Gaza’s ruins, children kicking balls amid destruction, and Palestinian soccer repeatedly inserted into international sporting events, including the World Cup, to produce imagery with little connection to the competition itself.
Now organized Palestinian soccer is back.
There is, however, one part of the story that hasn’t returned from its three-year suspension: context.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
