B’nai B’rith International has issued letters to FIFA council members worldwide, including President Gianni Infantino, urging them to reject the Palestinian Football Association’s (PFA) efforts to politicize FIFA and impose sanctions on the Israel Football Association (IFA) over the war initiated by Hamas on Oct. 7. The letter, signed by B’nai B’rith President Seth J. Riklin, B’nai B’rith CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin, and B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem Director Alan Schneider, outlines how the most popular sport in the world should not be politicized at Israel’s expense.

PFA chairman Jibril Rajoub has been actively campaigning for FIFA to impose sanctions on the IFA for years, with a renewed effort following the Israel-Hamas war.

“The IFA is not connected to the war that Hamas started. Indeed, it has suffered—as has all of Israeli society—from October 7, losing players and coaches during the massacre and in the fighting since,” the letter states.

Hamas terrorists attacked peaceful communities during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, killing 1,200 people, including over 360 at the Nova music festival, and taking more than 250 hostages. Despite this, Rajoub, did not condemn the attack, and instead held Israel responsible for the greatest loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust. The attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah (starting Oct. 8) forced the evacuation of parts of Israel, disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands and leaving football fields abandoned.

Contrary to PFA’s baseless claims, Israel does not target footballers or facilities. Hezbollah, however, did exactly that last month by shooting a rocket at an Israeli town’s football field while a group of children were playing there, killing 12.

A FIFA decision to impose sanctions on the IFA over a war Israel did not start, and which the IFA has no role in, would be a terrible loss for the sport that would threaten FIFA’s neutrality, potentially involving it in various global disputes.

We have seen in the past how international bodies have succumbed to malicious anti-Semitic campaigns to single-out and boycott, divest and sanction the nation-state of the Jewish people. We urgently appeal to FIFA to protect the integrity of the sport by opposing any sanctions against the IFA related to Israel’s defensive actions against Hamas and Hezbollah.