Soccer.

The Palestinian national soccer team is scheduled to play Saudi Arabia in a World Cup qualifier in the West Bank this week, but as the arrival of the Saudi team needed Israeli approval, some Palestinian activists say the game should be cancelled

Basem Naem, head of Boycott Campaign–Palestine, says that the activists “consider the arrival of the Saudi football team to Ramallah as a form of normalisation, since such a thing could not happen without the coordination and protection of the Israeli occupation, which we completely reject.”

He says the match was part of “Israel’s plan to achieve normalisation with Arab states in order to break Israel’s isolation in the Middle East without providing a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Palestinian officials, however, believe the match has political significance, showing world support of the Palestinian people.

Omar Al Jafari, spokesperson for the Palestinian Football Association, tells The Media Line that the qualifier “is important in being the first of its kind in which Palestine hosts the Saudi team on its own territory. This has political and moral significance, demonstrating support of the Palestinian people.”

“For years, Palestinians weren’t able to play on our land until FIFA approved of us playing in our home stadium. Following that, football teams started coming to play against us in Palestine,” he says.

Palestinians have hosted other Arab teams. But Saudi Arabians have never visited the West Bank before, apparently because Riyadh did not want to be seen as legitimising Israel's occupation of the territory.