Jibril Rajoub | |
|---|---|
 Rajoub in 2007 | |
| President of thePalestinian Football Association | |
| Assumed office 11 May 2008 | |
| Preceded by | Ahmed Al-Afifi |
| Chairman of thePalestine Olympic Committee | |
| Assumed office 20 December 2008 | |
| Preceded by | Ahmed al-Qudwa |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jibril Mahmoud Muhammad Rajoub (1953-05-14)14 May 1953 (age 72) |
| Nationality | Palestine |
| Political party | Fatah |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  PLO Palestine |
| Branch/service | Palestinian Preventive Security |
| Rank | Major general |
| Battles/wars | War of Attrition First Intifada Second Intifada |
Jibril Mahmoud Muhammad Rajoub (Arabic:جبريل محمود محمد الرجوب; born 14 May 1953), also known by hiskunyaAbu Rami (أبو رامي),[1] is a Palestinian political leader, legislator, and former militant. He leads thePalestinian Football Association and thePalestine Olympic Committee.[2] He was the head of thePreventive Security Force in the West Bank until being dismissed (along with the force's chief in Gaza, Ghazi Jabali) in 2002.[3][4] He had been a member of theFatah Revolutionary Council until 2009[5] and was elected to theFatah Central Committee at the party's2009 congress,[2] serving as Deputy-Secretary until 2017,[5] before being elected Secretary General of the Central Committee in 2017.[6]
Rajoub was born in the town ofDura, nearHebron. In 1968, he was arrested byShin Bet at age 15 on suspicion of aiding fleeingEgyptian officers, and spent four months in prison.[1] While in prison, he met a localFatah leader, who recommended that he be accepted into the organization, which was then secretive. After his release, he joined Fatah. His tasks were to assist fighters and build up cells in theHebron hills.[1][7]
In September 1970, Rajoub was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israeli army bus near Hebron. He was tried and convicted of this attack and of membership in an armed group, and sentenced to life in prison. He became a prominent figure among prisoners, leading hunger strikes and protests. He also studiedZionism andHebrew extensively and, together with a cellmate, translatedThe Revolt byMenachem Begin intoArabic.[7] Rajoub spent time in numerous prisons throughout the West Bank and Israel, as Israeli authorities moved prisoners around to disrupt their organization.[1]
In 1985, Rajoub was one of 1,150 Arab prisonersfreed in exchange for three Israeli hostages held by thePFLP-GC.[8][9] He was soon rearrested for resuming militant activities, and was interrogated and placed in solitary confinement. He was hospitalized after a 30-day hunger strike. After his recovery, he returned to prison, and was released seven months later. In September 1986, he was arrested again for militant activity, and was imprisoned until March 1987.[1]
Rajoub continued to work with Fatah cells in theWest Bank. He was arrested for his activities during theFirst Intifada in December 1987, and was deported toLebanon in January 1988.[1][3] He relocated toTunis,Tunisia, where he was an advisor on the Intifada to Fatah deputy leaderKhalil al-Wazir. After Wazir's assassination by Israeli commandos, he became a close lieutenant of Arafat, and was allegedly behind a 1992 plot to assassinateAriel Sharon.[10]
In 1994, Rajoub was allowed to return to the West Bank following the signing of theOslo Accords. He served as head of thePreventive Security Force until 2002, andYasser Arafat appointed him as his national security advisor in 2003. During his tenure, he was accused of using the force to quash political dissent and harass political opponents of Arafat and thePalestinian National Authority, including the use of torture.[11] During the Oslo years, he criticized the growing influence of religious fundamentalism in Palestinian society schools, and launched a major crackdown onHamas and theIslamic Jihad Movement.[10]
Since 2006 Rajoub has been President of thePalestinian Football Association.[12] He is also President of thePalestine Olympic Committee, Head of the PLO Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs and Chairman of the Palestinian Scout Association.[5] He was awarded theMohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Creative Sports Award for sports administrative creativity in 2013.[13]
In an interview which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on September 23, 2011 (as a response to a speech by U.S. PresidentBarack Obama at the UN regarding Palestinian independence as translated byMEMRI), Rajoub sharply criticized Obama, stating that "Obama's speech was idiotic. It did not even reflect the US policy or the doctrine they employed in the past. It sounded like a speech of a student leader in a university, rather than the speech of a leader of a superpower."[14]
In June 2012, as head of thePalestine Olympic Committee, Rajoub called a request for a minute of silence to remember the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at theMunich Olympics in theMunich Massacre by Palestinian terrorists in 1972 "racist".[15]
In 2013, Rajoub toldHezbollah-affiliated television networkAl Mayadeen "until now we have not hadnuclear weapons", he declared, "but in the name of Allah, if we had nuclear weapons, we'd be using them."[16]
In November 2015, Rajoub named a table tennis tournament in honor ofMuhannad Halabi, who hadstabbed and killed two Israeli civilians inJerusalem a month prior.[17] A poster advertising the tournament featured two images of Halabi, and stated: "patronage of the leader Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestine Olympic Committee." He also attended a boxing match named in honor ofAli Hassan Salameh, a planner ofBlack September, which killed 11 Israeli Olympians during the1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.[18]
In August 2018 Rajoub was fined CHF 20,000 (US$20,333) and banned by theFédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) from FIFA matches for a year for inciting hatred and violence against an Argentinian team proposing to play a friendly match in Israel[19] ("breaching article 53 (Inciting hatred and violence) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code"[20]). In July 2019, his appeal on the ban was dismissed by the International Court of Arbitration for Sport.[21]
In January 2019 FIFA launched an investigation into Rajoub for glorifying terror and inciting violence.[22] A letter by FIFA's chief of investigations on its ethics committee alleged that Rajoub "glorified terrorism", politicized football, employed racist language when referring to Israelis, includingcomparisons to "Satan and Nazis", and encouraged football competitions and teams to be named after convicted Palestinian terrorists.[22]
Between May and June 2024, amid theGaza war, Rajoub, as the head of both the Palestinian Football Association and the Palestine Olympic Committee, called on FIFA and theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban Israel from their competitions, citingthe effects of Israeli attacks to Palestinian sports as well as "violations committed by some Israeli athletes and official Israeli sports institutions".[23][24] Israeltook part in the2024 Summer Olympics as usual. On 13 August 2024, upon his return from the Olympics, theIsraeli Defense Forces (IDF) briefly detained Rajoub, confiscating his passport and summoning him for interrogation for the next day.[25] Rajoub stated that he would not comply with the order, as it was issued by "anoccupation authority".[26]
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