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By Issam Khalidi
I didn’t know Shireen Abu Akleh personally, and I didn’t know that she was fascinated about Palestinian sports activities and its historical past. Nevertheless, in November 2021, I acquired an e mail from her informing me that she acquired my e-mail from colleagues on the Institute for Palestine Research in Ramallah, asking me for an interview for Al-Jazeera concerning the historical past of Palestinian sports activities.
After all, I used to be happy and confirmed a eager curiosity on this interview which came about in a resort in Emeryville close to San Francisco and coincided together with her go to to her brother over the past Christmas holidays. The interview took about one and a half hours with two cameras and numerous lights. Regardless of the quick time, I discovered nothing however respect, kindness, courteous manners, and appreciation. Her questions revealed that she was already well-prepared and well-informed about Palestinian sports activities and sports activities historical past. She beforehand reviewed my guide, One Hundred Years of Soccer in Palestine.
After her return house, Shireen instantly started getting ready for this documentary report on the sports activities motion. Via our correspondence, I seen that she was very enthusiastic to finish this report as a result of it uncovers historic information that viewers are usually not conscious of.
On this regard, she despatched me a message requesting some photos and paperwork that might help the declare that among the many Palestinian flagship group which took half in World Cup qualifiers in 1934 and 1938 there have been no Arab gamers; that in an effort to compete with Arab golf equipment in neighboring Arab nations, Arab golf equipment in Palestine needed to get permission from the Zionist-dominated Palestine Soccer Affiliation which represented Palestine in FIFA. In different phrases, she required paperwork that point out the manipulation and fraud that the Zionists used in an effort to dominate the sports activities area and marginalize the Arabs.
Instantly, I responded to her requests, and shortly the report was prepared for broadcast. Nevertheless, she knowledgeable me that due to the Russian-Ukrainian subject Al-Jazeera postponed its broadcasting. That was about one month earlier than her assassination.
On Could 11, I wakened and was shocked by the information of her killing. Like many others, I couldn’t imagine that Shireen had handed away. I adopted her funeral with tears and disappointment. The funeral was interrupted by the brutality and barbarism of the Israeli military and police. The occupation not solely assassinated her, but in addition attacked the group of mourners carrying her coffin practically forcing the pallbearer to drop the coffin beneath the pretext they have been elevating Palestinian flags. The one sin the mourners dedicated was that they defied the plan of the Judaization of Jerusalem, and challenged the allegations that Jerusalem is the everlasting capital of Israel.
Shireen Abu Akleh can be remembered by Palestinian sports activities for her efforts to provide this documentary which can be broadcast on Al-Jazeera shortly.
(All Pictures: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)
– Issam Khalidi is an impartial scholar, is the creator of Historical past of Sports activities in Palestine 1900-1948 (in Arabic), One Hundred Years of Soccer in Palestine (in Arabic and English), co-edited Soccer within the Center East, in addition to articles and essays with regards to sports activities included at
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