Issam Khalidi
Reading the Zionist literature on the
history of Palestine as well as the history of sports in Palestine, one might
get the impression that Palestine was void of Palestinians. If such histories
do mention the Palestinians, they invariably try to depict these Palestinians
as lacking any cultural, social, or athletic aspect. They appear to assert that
the Zionists populated the region, and graced it with civilization and
modernization -- that they brought sports and culture to the primitive people
who had hitherto known nothing of either of these refinements. Efforts such as
these to distort reality and rewrite history are not new. Indeed, the Zionist
athletic leadership worked to marginalize the Palestinians in the sports
sector.[1]
"The intention to create the Jewish National Home is to
cause the disappearance or subordination of the Arabic population, culture and
language," wrote Edward Said.[2] The Zionist conspiracy to expel the
Palestinians from Palestine begins with Theodore Herzl. In his diary entry for
June 12, 1985, Herzl wrote:
When we occupy the land, we shall bring
immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the
private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the
penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the
transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.[3]
The
movement which Herzl organized in 1897 itself embraced a variety of Zionist
interpretations -- cultural, religious, socialist, and political. [4] Sport as a cultural element had its special
interpretation in the Zionist mind. Since the beginning of the century, the
main goal of the Jewish immigration to Palestine was to build the National Homeland.
In order to achieve this goal, Zionists
sought to use all
methods and means, including sports. Efforts to dominate athletics, marginalize
the Arabs, and cultivate cooperation with the British at any price were the
main traits that characterized Zionist involvement in sports. Practically,
every society develops its own ideology or ideologies, but Zionism is an
ideology that founded a society and a State. [5] This ideology founded sports that was
invented in the West. And similar to other spheres of Zionist cultural aspects,
partly it had been transferred to Palestine.
The
founders of Zionism saw sport’s emphasis on organizational unity and physical
fitness as a tool for fulfilling its goal of a new society. Reflecting on the
Zionist spirit, Theodor Herzl wrote in his diaries, “I must train the boys to
become soldiers…. I shall educate one and all to be free, strong men, ready to
serve as volunteers in the case of need.”[6] Zionism
quickly established athletic clubs to build physical fitness–and military
preparedness.
Sport was a tool for national regeneration,
and efforts were made to create ‘Jewish sports’ that inspired Zionist feelings.
Terms denoting religious-historical (but secular) symbols were superimposed
onto the athletic playing field. Teams were named ‘Maccabee’, reminding fans of
the years of Jewish independence in the second century BCE; ‘Betar’, signifying
the Jews’ last stand against the Romans, and ‘Bar Kokhba’, connoting Jewish
rebellion against tyranny. David Ben Gurion said of HaPoel Club, established in
1926 as an affiliate of the Zionist labour organization, that it “is not only
an athletic organization but a castle for the working class; it must help the
new immigrants.” Indeed, the group became famous for its role in smuggling
weapons into the new Jewish settlements.[7]
In the Second Zionist Congress (1898), Max Nordau coined the phrase
“Muscle Judaism”. The new term expressed
the will to free oneself from the “exiled” Jew, the will to change Jewish
character and to change the neurotic anxiety that allegedly characterizes
it. Moreover, it comprises of many other
ideas regarding the new Jewish ethos.
The term expresses Jewish power to fight against antisemitism in the Diaspora
and to develop military skills as a means of building a Hebrew force, and thus
an attempt to contend with racial assumptions regarding the Jew’s congenital
physical inferiority. The term also
expresses a model of romantic philosophy by calling for a return to the ancient
heroic past of the Jewish people. Since the Jewish heroes of the past became
objects of emulation, it was natural for Jewish sports unions to adopt names of
legendary heroes such as Bar-Kochva, Samson, and Judea the Maccabi.[8]
While the Zionists
regarded sports as
another means to strengthen the military effort, the Arabs saw it as part of an
enhanced national identity and consciousness. The Zionist leadership viewed establishing
athletic federations and committees as a means of achieving overall Zionist
goals of establishing and legitimating Zionist claims to Palestine. These
official organizations helped represent Palestine as "Jewish," both
regionally and internationally, and were seen as instrumental in achieving the
leadership's national and political goals.
Sports
were a mirror that reflected political and social conditions in Palestine. They
were not immune to the political changes that swept over Palestine after WWI
and until 1948. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the Zionist
establishment had been organizing sports-scouting exhibitions and field days.
Zionist flags were raised and national anthems played. [9]
The
Zionist leader Theodore Herzl stated in the opening of the first Turntag [Jewish Gymnastic Exhibition] in 1903
that “such a gymnastic exhibition is worth more than a hundred speeches.”[10] One of the very first such sports
exhibitions was held in Rehoboth colony which was established near a site
called Khirbet Deiran.[11] This exhibition started in 1908, and continued until 1914 when it was
boycotted by the Maccabi Organization, which opposed the presence of Arab
guards and workers who were employed in the colony.[12] During these military-style parades,
Zionist flags would be raised while a music band would lead the marches through
town and enthusiastic speeches would be given in Hebrew. A letter sent to
Filastin on April 20, 1913 by an observer
described one of these annual celebrations in the colony of Deiran [Rehoboth]:
At
one o’clock in the afternoon the
celebration procession came parading around the streets of the colony led by a
music band and flying Zionist flags. They proceeded until they reached the house
of the colony president, who came out onto the balcony of his house and gave a
long speech in Hebrew. I understood from the numerous interruptions of applause
that he was very well liked. After that
the procession marched in formation through the streets of the colony, and it
was an amazing spectacle due to the large number of participants. … I was given
the impression that this was a well-organized army, considering their skillful
movements and discipline. Then they reached the field, and the formation
halted. At the front of this agricultural field
a large area was designated for athletic events. A number of speakers gave
enthusiastic speeches and were met with approving applause by the crowd … then
the sports competitions and weightlifting started, and then horse racing, in
which both men and women participated. Most of them wore Bedouin clothing; you
would have thought they were Arabian warriors on horseback. … Special trains
carried back visitors who came from Jerusalem and Jaffa.
Palestine was put under military rule during
the period December 1917 – June 1920. In December
1917 the British forces entered Jerusalem after defeating the Turkish forces,
and then in July 1920 the British Mandate was forced on Palestine. Jewish-Arab
antagonism simmered in the last decades of Ottoman rule and then erupted into
full-scale conflict in the years of the British mandate. The importance of
these thirty years of British government cannot be overestimated. [13] Mandate government did
not interfere in the formation of autonomous bodies which have been elected by
the Zionist settlers. [14] In addition,
it was facilitating the
creation of the paramilitary 'sports' clubs such as Beitar which later became
famous for its links with the Zionist terrorist groups such as Irgun, Lehi,
Haganah and Palmach. The
British were very active in disarming the Arabs and adopted stringent measures
to crush their uprisings and revolts. But, they turned a blind eye to the
Jewish arms smuggling and Jewish military organizations, especially the Hagana,
which later became the backbone of the Israeli Army. [15] They were impeding the founding of
Arab clubs. These clubs were under constant surveillance by the British
authorities. The British provided the Zionist movement with
all the possibilities that could help it in the advancement of all life aspects,
including sports.
Since mid ‘20s, Jewish clubs in
Europe and the region began to visit Palestine to compete with Jewish clubs
there. They flew flags that resembled the Zionist flag, a provocation that
local Arabs vigorously protested to the British authorities. Also this flag has been raised (used) in most
athletic exhibitions and festival. The Zionist flag was used as a symbol for
inspiring national sentiments. It consisted of two equal horizontal stripes of
white and blue bearing in the center the device known as the “Magen David,” a
provocation that local Palestinian Arabs vigorously protested to the British
authorities. This flag was flown at every athletic match, exhibition and field
day.[16]
In
March 1925 the Executive Committee of the Moslem and Christian Association sent
to the High Commissioner for Palestine a protest against the flying of the
Zionist flag at a football match held in Jerusalem on January 12th,
1925, and asked whether the Ordinance regulating the flying of flags, issued by
the Government of Palestine in August 1920 had been abrogated.[17] The wording of the paragraph in the
Ordinance in question reads as follows: “The flag or emblem of any State, may
not be carried or exhibited for the purpose of any partisan demonstration.”[18]
The
Governor of the Jerusalem – Jaffa District replied:
I have the honour
to inform you that the flag flown was the Club flag of the Hakoah football
team, of which the colours are similar to
those of the Zionist flag…..It is apparent that the Hakoah Club flag is not a
State flag,[19] and equally apparent that it was not being
carried or exhibited for the purpose of any partisan demonstration, and that
the Ordinance was therefore in no way infringed.”[20]
The Palestine Weekly continues: “What is the
Zionist flag? It consists of two equal horizontal stripes of white and blue
bearing in the center the device known as the “Magen David”, the interlacing
triangles, or Hexagram, sometimes called the “Shield of David”. Another flag
flown by the Jews consists of the two simple blue and white strips without the
“Magen David”.
The
following extract from a leading article in the “Doar ha Yom”, a Hebrew paper published in Jerusalem, and quoted in the
‘Palestine Weekly, throws some light on the subject: -
It is now for us to say to the Government in
London and to its representative in Jerusalem, Listen, the time has come when
we must ask Great Britain, and of the Great Powers, and the League of Nations
in particular, that all that has been done for the Arabs in Iraq, in the
Hedjaz, and in Transjordania, should be done for the Jews in their National
Home …… It kings and emirs have been given (sic) to the Arabs in their
different lands in the East, why not give a … President to the Jewish National
Home in the West (i.e. of Jordan). If the flag of the Emir is floating over
Amman, why should not the flag of our President float over Tel Aviv? If we have
a National Home, then we must have a flag,
and a free land for its surroundings. We
must have a free political union with a President of our own at its head, and
the Mandatory Power must show him all the respect due to a nation when it is a
nation.[21]
In
1924, the leadership of the Jewish Maccabi athletic organization attempted to
gain membership in the International Amateur Athletic Federation. This
initiative ended in failure as it was determined that Maccabi did not represent
Arab, British and Jewish sportsmen in Palestine equally. However, this
unsuccessful attempt did not discourage Maccabi leader Josef Yekutieli, who in
the beginning of 1925 attempted to gain Maccabi membership in the Federation
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).[22] Yekutieli decided to employ a different
tactic this time: he first established the Palestine Football Association (PFA).
The federation's inaugural meeting was convened in the summer of 1928. Immediately, after being accepted in FIFA,
the Jewish leadership started to dominate the Palestine Football Association by
ensuring that Jews were the majority in it. This was accomplished by such
strategies as imposing the Hebrew language (Arabic was subsequently dropped
from PFA correspondence) and incorporating the Jewish flag (colors of the
Zionist movement) in the federation's logo.[23] The Zionist movement invested in the PFA,
increasing the number of Jewish clubs. The group sought to invite Arab clubs
and teams to compete against its own, proving that Jewish clubs alone were able
to represent Palestine.
A March 1931 football match between the Egyptian University team and a Jewish team representing the PFA (Palestine Football Association) illustrated the frustration of Arabs regarding a match between the Jews and British Army and the Egyptian Tarsana Club. A letter to the editor of Filastin newspaper criticizes this match and the raising of the Zionist flags:
A March 1931 football match between the Egyptian University team and a Jewish team representing the PFA (Palestine Football Association) illustrated the frustration of Arabs regarding a match between the Jews and British Army and the Egyptian Tarsana Club. A letter to the editor of Filastin newspaper criticizes this match and the raising of the Zionist flags:
a mixture of soldiers of the British Army
and Jewish youth… [T]hey were photographed; between them stood the Governor of
Jerusalem and the Egyptian Consul… The flags that were raised on the sides of
the stadium were the Egyptian flag, between the English and the Zionist flags…
Around the stadium were many British soldiers and Palestine police to maintain
security.[24]
It
is clear that Arabs did not show the desire to cooperate with the Zionists.
They were critical to see that athletes and teams who were competing with
them were Jewish immigrants seeking to replace them in their homeland. "It is important to understand in this
regard that Palestinians did not see Jewish immigrants to Palestine primarily
as refugees from persecution, as they were seen by most of the rest of the world.
They saw them instead as arrogant European interlopers who did not accept that
the Palestinians were a people or had national rights in their own country,
believed that Palestine instead belonged to them, and were coldly determined to
make that belief into reality. There was further a stubborn insistence on the
part of most Arabs on seeing Jews as members of a religious rather than a
national group (this attitude was to linger on among Arabs generally for
several decades). Thus while an attempt to come to some sort of accommodation
with Zionism might have been diplomatically wise, it was most probably doomed
to fail because of both the drive of the Zionist movement for supremacy in
Palestine, and the natural resistance to this drive of the indigenous population."
wrote Khalidi.[25] The fact also that
no Palestinian, regardless of his political stripe, has been able to reconcile
himself to Zionism suggests the extent to which, for the Palestinians, Zionism
has appeared to be an uncompromisingly exclusionary, discriminatory,
colonialist praxis. [26]
There is a clear similarity between the process of PFA’s affiliation
with the FIFA and the Palestine Olympic Committee POC; the same was repeated in
1934 when the Jewish Maccabi Sports Association applied to join International
Olympic Committee IOC, but IOC refused its application unless this
committee will include Arab members. In August 1933 a letter signed by Lord Aberdare,
member of the IOC, mailed to the Maccabi organization:
To the question of an Olympic Association for
Palestine I will ask you to send me the texts of the letter by which I inform
that Association of the impossibility for the I.O.C. to recognize officially
the Olympic Association of Palestine, because in the present form it
represented only the Maccabi organization and is not fully representative of
all communities and sports, which is not accordance with our Rules. You will
judge yourself if something more precise has to be said. It seems to me that if
they obey by our suggestions and if they enlarge their Association by taking
with them the other Jews, the Moslems and Christians; nothing will prevent them
to take part as a separate country. There is no question of Independent nation
in the rules.
Subsequently, the Maccabi decided to push Ali al-Mustaqim, a Moslem from
Haifa and another Christian (not mentioned his name), to be represented as
Arabs, just to reveal to IOC that there are two Arab members one of them is the
POC Vice President. In a letter to Y. Yakutiely - Secretary of POC (and
President of the Maccabi Organization), Ali al-Mustaqim accepted and confirmed
this position:
With reference to your letter of the 21st
inst. [in or of the present month], asking me to accept the
Vice-Presidency of the Palestine Olympic Comm. Dear Sir it would be my greatest
pleasure to accept the said Vice Presidency. I should very much pleased indeed
to be able to meet the rest of the members of the Committee. On this occasion,
I hereby pledge to do my best to promote the sport and the Sportsmanship Spirit
in this country namely Palestine.[28]
Officially, POC was affiliated with IOC in 1934. Later, there was no
Arab participation in this committee. Though, this committee carried the name
Palestine, in fact it did not include any Arab member later. It was a
successful step for the Zionist leadership to set foot in the IOC; it viewed
establishing athletic federations and committees as a means of achieving
overall Zionist goals of establishing and legitimating Zionist claims to
Palestine. These official organizations helped represent Palestine as
"Jewish," both regionally and internationally, and were seen as
instrumental in achieving the leadership's national and political goals. Later
this committee received an invitation to participate in the Olympic Games in
Berlin in 1936; however, it was rejected because of the persecution of Jews by
the German Nazis.
The international orientation of the leaders
of the Jewish Sports Movement in Palestine was expressed in their attempts to
nurture sporting relations with sports bodies in neighboring Arab – Egypt,
Lebanon, Syria and Trans-Jordan. An interesting episode which emphasizes the
importance they attributed to the symbols of national uniqueness in the sport
arena, as part of the ethos of a nation striving to achieve its independence,
took place in 1930: a team of Palestine football players comprising six Jewish
and nine British players toured Egypt. The team, which was named the ‘Land of
Israel Select Team’ had the letter ‘P’ (short for ‘Palestine’) on its uniform,
while ‘LD’ (the initials of the Hebrew name of Palestine – Land of Israel) was
written in small letters. Due to this fact, as well as to the playing failure
of the team in its three games, against the Cairo team (5-0), the Alexandria
team (2-0) and a military team from Cairo ( 2-0) and a military team from Cairo
(5-2), the trip was sharply criticized in the Hebrew press:
We highly regard the friendly relations between
our country and the neighboring countries; indeed, sport can produce such
relations. Again, a team from the Land of Israel went to compete in Egypt.
Their uniform is not blue and white but black and white and their symbol is not
a Hebrew one but a big P and only small LD on its side…the team had to comprise
the country – only the inhabitants of the country and not military people who
travel here and there, and due to their temporary status in the land they
cannot be representatives of the country.[29]
But
far more sinister than all these Zionist activities were the espionage schemes
of the Jewish Agency that recruited Zionist agents from the ranks of the Arab
Jewry. In the 1920s, the Jewish Agency set up an espionage network that had
branches in the Arab world operating clandestinely behind legitimate front
organizations, such as the Maccabee clubs or the intelligence agency with an
"Arab" section headed by Moshe (Shertok) Sharett (1894 - 1965). The
Mossad established a center in 1937 to train Arab Jews in espionage activities
against their own countrymen. The spies were called "the Arab Jews."[30]
From a racially superior point of
few, Israeli scholars Harif and
Galily pointed out that the new immigrants were unfettered
by the many obstacles arising from the existence of long-standing, rigid local
[Arab] traditions. The majority of the Jewish population of Palestine came from
a European cultural background, even if not from the more advanced countries of
that continent. [31]
It’s a matter of fact, that Arab sports
lagged behind Jewish sports. The awareness of the Zionist leadership about the
benefits of sports was higher than among the Arabs. The Jews came to Palestine from developed
industrial societies. Definitely, they brought with them physical culture and
the culture of sports. The yishuv, and the Zionist movement that represented
it, in consequence received powerful external support, both from many of its
coreligionist elsewhere and from the greatest imperial power of the day, as
well as from the League of Nations. [32] All the gauges of the economic, social,
and political advancement of the yishuv – the massive import of capital, the
inflow of highly skilled human capital, the community’s predominantly urban nature,
its high degree of ideological homogeneity, its unique social makeup and
governing structures – when taken together, indicate its capacity for generating
considerable state power.[33] There is no doubt that the contest in
Palestine has been between an advanced (and advancing) culture and relatively
backward, more or less traditional one. But we need to try to understand what
the instruments of the contest were, and how appears to confirm the validity of
the Zionist claims to Palestine, thereby denigrating the Palestinian claims. In
other words, we must understand the struggle between Palestinian and Zionism as
a struggle between a presence and an
interpretation, the former constantly appearing to be overpowered and
eradicated by the latter. What was this presence? No matter how backward,
uncivilized, and silent they were, the Palestinian Arabs were on the land.[34]
The
1930s witnessed an increasing support for the Zionist project in Palestine.
They had a pro-Zionist A. Wauchope as the British Higher Commissioner for
Palestine (1931 – 1938). [35] The rise of the Nazis in Germany gave
(directly or indirectly) a powerful drive to the establishment of a Jewish Home
in Palestine. Within five years, (1930 – 1935), the number of Jews doubled in
Palestine, with arrival of 152,000 Jewish immigrants (the total number of the
Jews in 1929 was 156,000). Large parcels
of Palestinian lands were transferred to the Jews. [36] The year 1935 alone, the high point of
Jewish immigration before 1948, witnessed over sixty thousand Jewish
immigrants, as many as the country’s entire Jewish population in 1919. Without
massive immigration the Zionist movement could not hope to claim majority
status, dominate the Palestinian demographically, and build a Jewish national
home in Palestine. [37]
The
British tried to crush the revolts and disarm the Palestinians but were silent
on the growing military activities of the Jews, and were even involved in the
recruitment and military training of tens of thousands of Jews, especially from
1936 to 1945. [38] "Since the outbreak of these events [1936 Revolt], an intensive
effort was made in the Jewish Yishuv to hold sporting contests in football,
swimming, water polo and hockey against the army units, in an attempt to bring
British soldiers closer to Zionist settlement in Palestine," wrote Harrif
and Gallily. [39]
Since the outbreak of these events [Revolt
of 1936], an intensive effort was made in the Jewish Yishuv to hold sporting
contests in football, swimming, water polo and hockey against the army units,
in an attempt to bring British soldiers closer to the Zionist settlement in
Palestine. ‘The scope of interest of most army and navy personnel is limited to
two: women and sports’, Nachum Chet, one of the heads of Maccabi, maintained in
a memorandum he wrote in September 1936. Chet concluded that ‘The first field
is not for us, therefore sport is in fact the only field where we could find a
common language and ground between our youth and most of the army and navy’.
Chet wished to build good relations with the military because, in the face of
the ‘Arab Revolt’, ‘the life of the Yishuv and all its material property were
given to these forces for protection and defense. [40]
Since
1924, the Zionists have been trying to find new tricks for admitting more Jewish
immigrants to the country; they have used smuggling and manipulation,” wrote
Issa al-Sifri in his 1937 book Palestine between the Mandate and Zionism:[41]
They
have pretended to submit to the restrictions of the immigration laws [while] transferring
Jews to illegal resident status in Palestine by hiding them in the settlements.
The Maccabiad was one of the ways of
achieving these tasks.” Al-Sifri reports
that for the three years following 1933, Palestine saw an average of 60,000 new
Jewish immigrants each year. “The Zionist organizations used three ways of smuggling
in these illegal immigrants: the Maccabiad, exhibitions and the power of absorption,”
he claims. The Maccabiah Games and the Levant Fair were considered perfect
opportunities to gain entry to the country, bypassing British immigration
restrictions.
The Maccabiah Games are a good example for
exploiting the athletic events (with marches and flags) in order to achieve
political goals. The Maccabiad was held
in Tel Aviv in 1932 and 1935, hosting thousands of Jews from dozens of
countries. The event stirred Jewish nationalism and provided a means of
introducing Jews to the future homeland.18 It was also a means of normalizing
the coming Jewish state in Palestine. Marches which looked as paramilitary and
the flying of the Zionist flags were considered as a main ceremonial part of
the Festivals.
Filastin expressed its frustration toward
this festival especially its semi military
parade:
And the
pseudo army walked through the streets of Tel Aviv until it arrived the new
Maccabi stadium where the Maccabia Games
took place. And for “today only” the British flag was raised along side the Zionist, which could be for the
occasion of placing the party under the auspices of the High Commissioner who
did not attend. The Maccabi Marches were held in front of the Mayor Tel Aviv –
Dizinkoff.[42]
Representing Palestine by the Jews was not limited to the PFA and POC.
The Zionists workers association ha-Poel (established in 1926) represented
Palestine in the Workers Olympics in Europe in 1931 and 1937. The Jewish
athletic organizations set up their semi Olympics (Maccabiad, Maccabiah) in Tel
Aviv in 1932, 1935. Ten thousands attended the second Maccabiah, the Zionist
flags were raised; participants and attendees chanted for the future national
home.[43]
In May 1932 a
team from Palestine took part in the Syrian Olympics, this team included 12
members from the Maccabi, 6 from the British, 6 – YMCA, 3- Hapoel, 1 Armenian.[44] In 1935, Palestine
was invited to take part in the Mediterranean Olympics. Under the title
(Palestine and the Greece Olympics) al-Difa’ (established in 1934) commented
about the participation in these games:
In Athens the Capital of Greece will be
held in 28th to 30th of this month the Athletic Games of
the Countries of the Mediterranean, we received the news that “Palestine” will
participate in these Games. We have been informed that 12 Jewish athletes will
departure to participate in these Games claiming that they represent Palestine.
It is not unlikely that we will be informed that these youth had raised the
Zionist flag, claiming that it is the Palestinian flag? Who is responsible for
conveying the right information of the identity of these athletes to the Greece
Government? [45]
Unfortunately,
the National leadership in Palestine had to be blamed as well as the Palestinian
athletic leadership, for both were not aware of the importance of sports in the
national and ideological struggle of the Palestinian people.
Issam
Khalidi, an independent scholar living in San Francisco, California, is author
of History of Sports in Palestine 1900-1948 in Arabic, One Hundred
Years of Football in Palestine in Arabic and English, as well as various
articles on the subject included at www.hpalestinesports.net.
Endnotes:
[1]Issam Khalidi, Zionism
and Sports Movement in Palestine, Electronic Intifada, 27 April 2009. https://electronicintifada.net/people/issam-khalidi
[2]Edward
Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), p. 83, quoted in
David Waines, "The Failure of the Nationalist Resistance, in The Transformation
of Palestine”, ed. Ibrahim Abu-Lughod (Evanston, III.: Northwestern University
Press, 1971), p.220.
[3] Raphael
Patai, ed., The Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl, Trans. Harry Zohn
(New York: Herzl Press and Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), volume 1, p. 88.
[4] Alan R.
Taylor, The Zionist Mind, (Beirut: The Institute For Palestine Studies, 1974). p. 193.
[6] Herzl, Theodor. The Complete Diaries of Theodor
Herzl Vol 1 (New York: Herzl Press and Thomas Yoseloff, 1960) 51.
[7] The first Maccabee club was founded in Jerusalem in 1911. The Encyclopedia
Judaica writes: “The Hapoel members pioneered in naval and other activities
in order to assist illegal immigration into Palestine. They also helped to establish
settlements and were active in the Haganah. The Betar clubs were established in
1924.” Al-Sifri also indicated that Zionist clubs motivated youth to achieve
Zionist goals in Palestine
by involving them in the paramilitary movement. They believed in strength, and
that in a sinful world only the strong were likely to get what was due them.
The members of these athletic clubs were specifically those young people
organized by revisionists such as Zeev Jabotinsky to learn military techniques
under the cover of athletic games.
[8] Nordau,
“The Lodgz and the Esperantists”, Zionist Writings, Jerusalem, 1936, pp. 126-127,
quoted in SPORTS, ZIONIST IDEOLOGY AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Haim
Kaufman & Yair Galily, See: http://www.wincol.ac.il/wincol.ac.il/originals/kaufmangalily.pdf
[9] Filastin,
12 April 1921.
[10] Die
Welt, 29 August 1903, 16. Quoted in George Eisen, “The Maccabiah Games: a
History of the Jewish Olympics”, Diss., UM, 1979, 34.
[11] Rehoboth
(about 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv) was established in 1890 by Polish
Jewish immigrants. It was located near a site called Khirbat Deiran, which now
lies in the center of the built-up area of the city. https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Rehovot, accessed 5 October 2015.
[12]
Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Rehoboth” (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House,
1972).
[13] Niall O
Murchu, "Labor, the State, and Ethnic Conflict: A Comparative Study of
British Rule in Palestine (1920 - 1939) and Northern Ireland (1972-1994)."
(SEattle: University of Wahsington Ph.D. Dissertation, 2001). Quoted in Baruch
Kimmerling, Joel Migdal, The Palestinian People, a history, (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2003). 415.
[14] http://www.palestinapedia.net/category/%d8%a8/
[15] Mohsen
M. Saleh, British-Zionist Military Cooperation in Palestine, 1917-1939,
INTELLECTUAL DISCOURSE, 2003. VOL 11, NO 2, 139-163
[16]Encyclopedia
Judaica, s.v. “Rehoboth” (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972).
[17] Palestine
Weekly, 24March 1925.
[18] Palestine
Weekly, 24March 1925.
[19] The
Hakoah Vienna arrived to Palestine in March 1925
to match the Jewish clubs there, in order to strengthen the connections between
the Jewish clubs in Europe and the “Land
of Israel”.
[20] Palestine Weekly, 24March
1925.
[21] Quoted
from (Palestine Weekly 24/March 1925)
[22] J.
Yekutieli, Over a Jubilee, 50+: Memories from ‘Maccabi’, from the Turkish
Army in the First World War and from the Hebrew Sports Movement in the Land of
Israel, Second Part (Author’s Publishing, 1975), pp.49-51.
Quoted
from: Harif, H; Galily, Y. “Sport and Politics in Palestine, 1918-1948:
Football as a Mirror Reflecting the
Relations between Jews and Britons”. Soccer and Society, Vol. 4, no. 1,
(Spring 2003), p. 41-56.
[23] For
these reasons the Palestinians felt the necessity for establishing the
(Palestine Sports Federation) which organized tournaments between Arabic clubs;
it could organize its activities with Mu’tamar Ashabab the Youth Conference,
where in July 1935 as a response to the Maccabiah Games, both the PSF and the
Youth Conference organized the first (successful) Scouts Athletic Festival. The
PSF was paralyzed after the start of the 1936 Revolt when many of the clubs’
members were subject to arrests. In the end of the 1930’s it was completely
paralyzed. In September 1944 the PSF was officially reestablish, however prior to 1948 there were some 65 social athletic clubs in Palestine. Approximately
55 of them were members of the Arab Palestine Sports Federation, and included
athletic clubs from all over Palestine.
[25]Rashid
Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007) 120.
[26]Edward Said, The Question of Palestine, p. 69.
[27]Quoted
from Khalid Ijawi, “Palestinian Sports Movement in Diaspora,” [al Haraka
a-Riyadiya al Falastiniyafi al-Shatat, al-Dar al-Watania], Damascus. 2001. P. 57
– 60.
[28] Ibid
[29] Harif, H;
Galily, Y.
“Sport and Politics
in Palestine, 1918-1948: Football as a Mirror Reflecting the Relations between
Jews and Britons” . Soccer and Society, Vol. 4, no. 1, (Spring
2003), p. 41-56.
[30]Abdelwahab
Elmessir, The Land of Promise, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: North
American, 1977), p. 39.
[32] Rashid
Khalidi, The Iron Cage, p. 9.
[33] Rashid
Khalidi, The Iron Cage, p.21.
[34] Edward
Said, The Question of Palestine, 8-9.
[35] Mohsen
M. Saleh, British-Zionist Military Cooperation in Palestine, 1917-1939.
[36] Mohsen
M. Saleh, British-Zionist Military Cooperation in Palestine, 1917-1939,
[37] Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage. p. 11.
[38] Mohsen M. Saleh, British-Zionist Military Cooperation in
Palestine, 1917-1939.
[40] Harif, H;
Galily, Y.
Sport and Politics in Palestine, 1918-1948.
[41] Issa
al-Sifri, Filastin bayn al-Intidab wa al-Sahyuniyya [Palestine between the
Mandate and Zionism] (Jaffa: Maktabat Filastin al-Jadida, 1937), 194.
[42] Filastin,
April 1st 1932.
[43]Maccabiah
or Maccabiad, Jewish Olympics, held in 1932, 1935. The main purpose of these
games was to bring more illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine.
[45] Al-Difa’,
June 15 1935.
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