Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Authority’s soccer federation, on Thursday refused to shake hands with the Vice President of Israel’s soccer federation, Basim Sheikh Suliman, at the FIFA Congress taking place in Vancouver.
According to Reuters, the two men were called to the stand by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, but Rajoub declined to shake hands with Suliman, an Arab-Israeli.
Asked what Rajoub said when he refused to shake hands, the PA soccer federation’s vice president Susan Shalabi, who was in the room, told Reuters, “I cannot shake the hand of someone the Israelis have brought to whitewash their fascism and genocide! We are suffering."
Rajoub, a senior member of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction who served a prison sentence in Israel for security offenses, regularly incites against Israel, and has in the past said that Jews deserved the genocide inflicted on them by the Nazis.
In October 2011, he delivered a speech at a ceremony honoring the terrorists released by Israel in the Shalit deal, in which he praised Hamas for abducting the soldier and hailed the released prisoners as heroes.
In another incident, he declared that if the PA had a nuclear bomb, it would use it against Israel.
In 2018, Rajoub was suspended for a year from FIFA for inciting hatred and violence, after he called on soccer fans to target the Argentinian Soccer Association and burn jerseys and pictures of Messi when he was scheduled to play a friendly game in Israel.
He appealed the suspension from FIFA, but the appeal was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
In August of 2024, Rajoub said in a TV interview that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who orchestrated the October 7 massacre, is a “pragmatic, patriotic, and realistic man" and that Israel is attempting to demonize him.
In addition, Rajoub has repeatedly advocated for Israel to be excluded from international soccer events.