A soccer match. Photo: Wikipedia.

JNS.org — An international non-governmental organization has joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s efforts to pressure FIFA into sanctioning Israel’s soccer association, because it holds matches on “stolen land.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a recently published report that FIFA, the ruling body of world soccer, is in violation of their own rules by sponsoring soccer matches in the West Bank on behalf of the Israeli Football Association.

“It is disturbing, but not surprising, to see that Human Rights Watch has joined Jibril Rajoub and the Palestinian Authority’s political warfare against Israel, this time in the campaign targeting Israel within FIFA. Human Rights Watch has long supported BDS campaigns against Israel,” the pro-Israel watchdog group NGO Monitor said in a statement.

A report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) stated that HRW failed to note how Rajoub and the Palestinian Authority (PA) use sports to promote terrorism and glorify terrorists as heroes.

PMW called on HRW to publicly condemn the PA’s glorification of terror through sports, as well as Rajoub’s role in promoting and inciting Palestinian violence against Israelis.