A Palestinian soccer team in Chile has ignited a controversy over its shirts, which show the entire map of Israel as Palestine. The uniforms of the Club Deportivo Palestino, which was founded in 1920 by Palestinian immigrants to Chile, use the map of Israel in place of the number 1 on the back of the uniforms.
Local and global Jewish leaders have protested the political nature of the uniforms to FIFA, soccer’s international governing body.
“We know that FIFA prohibits such actions. You cannot make a political claim and import the Middle East conflict using the platform of football, using the sport to lie and hate,” Gerardo Gorodischer, president of Chile’s Jewish Community, told reporters on Monday, calling for apology from the Santiago-based Club Deportivo Palestino and asked Chile’s soccer association to ban the shirts since they failed to recognize the State of Israel.
The shirts debuted last week at the first match of the season, against Everton, which the Palestine team won.
The Palestinian Federation of Chile responded to the Jewish protests. “We reject the hypocrisy of those who blame this map but they talk about the occupied territory as disputed territory,” the Federation said in a statement. The Information Department of the Palestinian Federation also criticized “the Chilean Zionists, who send young Chileans to Israel to receive military training.”
The Palestinian community in Chile is believed to be the largest outside of the Middle East. At least 300,000 Chileans are of Palestinian descent, according to reports.
