The Game of Dispossession
The Game of Dispossession
A new sports field in an illegal East Jerusalem settlement tells the story of how the Israeli government dispossesses and discriminates against Palestinians.
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Earlier this month, the Jerusalem Municipality—the seat of the Israeli municipal administration—approved funding for a sports field in an illegal settlement in East Jerusalem.
The field will exclusively serve the approximately 90 Jewish families that reside in Nof Zion, which lies in the heart of Jabal Mukkaber, a Palestinian neighbourhood that has a population of approximately 30,000 residents. According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the municipality allocated 2 million shekels ($540,000) for the Nof Zion field.
Since Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, first began in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, Israel has been establishing settlements that exclusively house Jewish settlers. By 2017—50 years following the 1967 war—approximately 600,000 Jewish settlers lived on occupied Palestinian land, with more than 100,00 hectares of land being appropriated.
This relentless land grab violates international humanitarian law, including several UN resolutions. The transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the occupied territory also violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and is a war crime. Nevertheless, Israel continues to aggressively expand its settlements without being held accountable for forced evictions, demolitions, and forcible transfer of Palestinians.
In 2005, Palestinian residents lodged an official appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice in order to prevent the development of the Nof Zion settlement but the court rejected their petition. By 2010, Jewish settlers began populating the area. Now there are 96 families in the luxury apartment complex that makes up the vast majority of the settlement.
The illegal settlements are also big business for investors. Nof Zion, for example, is being developed by two businessmen: Israeli magnate Rami Levy and Australian entrepreneur Kevin Bermeister. In 2011, the two investors prevented the buyout of the Nof Zion by Palestinian American businessman Bashar Masri, a process that The Times of Israel labelled a “politically explosive controversy.”
The two businessmen are currently in the process of expanding the settlement, according to the developer website. The “New Phase” is “comprised of 22 residential buildings and a total of 360 apartments,” as well as “neighborhood shopping center, public areas, and two unique hotels.”
From the website:
“Maybe it is the history, or the air, or maybe it is the memories and longing, and just maybe it is a bit of everything that makes Jerusalem what it is – the soul, the heart of Israel, and of the entire world, and soon, the city where you live. In the south-eastern corner of Jerusalem, adjacent to the amazing Armon Ha-Natsiv Promenade and opposite the breath-taking walls of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, we have found the perfect point, in the Nof Zion Neighborhood.”
Beyond Nof Zion, Bermeister also unveiled Jerusalem 5800, a private initiative with the stated goal to “shape” Jerusalem into a global city. Apart from calling for underground traffic systems and rooftop gardens, Bermesiter’s plan also envisioned a new international airport in the West Bank, which is occupied Palestinian land. Bermeister has set a deadline of 2040 to achieve his Jerusalem 5800 ambitions. Despite this, Bermeister claimed that Jerusalem 5800 is meant to improve the lives of the region’s Jews and Arabs.
Nevertheless, Bermeister’s Nof Zion settlement tells a different tale.
Jabal Mukkaber, the Palestinian neighbourhood where Nof Zion is situated, suffers from a lack of public facilities, including parks and sports infrastructure. The sports field approved by the Jerusalem Municipality will exclusively serve the families in the settlement, while the Palestinian neighbourhood surrounding it—along with its 30,000 residents—are left with nothing.
The Nof Zion field is far from the only example of the political nature of sports in Israel and Palestine, especially when it comes to illegal settlements. In 2015, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) campaigned for FIFA—football’s world governing body—to sanction Israel for holding Israel Football Association (IFA) matches in illegal settlements in the West Bank, which is occupied Palestinian land. Despite the existence of six Israeli football clubs in illegal settlements at the time, FIFA refrained from taking a position on the matter, citing the “exceptional complexity and sensitivity” and “political” nature of the subject.
“Given that the final status of the West Bank territories is the concern of the competent international public law authorities, the FIFA Council agrees that FIFA, in line with the general principle established in its Statutes, must remain neutral with regard to political matters,” FIFA said in a statement in 2017. “Furthermore, it was agreed that any interference by FIFA in the status quo of football in the relevant territories without the consent of the parties concerned might aggravate the situation of football not only in the territories in question, but also in the greater region affected – which would not be in the best interests of the game.”
In the wake of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, which erupted on October 7, 2023 following an attack by Hamas militants that killed more than 1200 people, FIFA has remained steadfast in its refusal to sanction Israel.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 77,000 have been wounded, with another 11,000 trapped under the rubble of their homes. This does not take into consideration the rising death toll from incidences of illness, lack of sanitary conditions, food, medical care, and humanitarian aid.
Beyond the scope of killing over the past nine months, Israeli airstrikes have laid waste to the vast majority of Gaza’s sports infrastructure. Yarmouk stadium was transformed into a makeshift internment camp for Palestinian detainees, where dozens of men, women and children were rounded up, stripped down to their underwear, and blindfolded, while the field itself was razed by tanks. Since then, all of Gaza’s football stadiums have been destroyed, while smaller fields have been used as makeshift displacement camps, and in at least one case, a mass grave.
While the Nof Zion settlement predates the current war, the approval of the sports field seven months into the war underscores a chilling reality: policies that dispossess and discriminate against Palestinians will continue to persist without accountability.
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The dispossessing of the majority is a common historic theme. Great Britain, the US, Israel and many others excel in this overpowering land and resource grab