How to give the football team in Chile with the Palestinian Roots fans a reason for joy in the Gaza war

Nahil Sadaqa loves football – and helps one of his favorite teams to communicate with his Palestinian identity.

This club plays in Palestinian colors, and the signs of its fans die its Palestinian flags, and its sponsors include the Bank of Palestine, and the shirts contain pictures of Kefiyeh and the Al -Qaqa Mosque.

But the team is not based in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank occupied by Israel or even the Middle East. This team plays the club Deportivo Palestine – its games more than 13,000 km in Chile.

“The Palestinian people who love to play football or football fans (they) know about the team,” Sadaka told CBC News from Halifax. “People who do not know football or do not follow football, (they) learn about this team.”

Palestine was founded in 1920 by Palestinian immigrants, and Palestine became one of the best football clubs in Chile, where it ranked fifth or higher in the first section in the country in five of the last six seasons. The team is also a regular participant in Cuba Libertadores and Cuba Sudamerkana, the best football competition in South America.

While the Spanish -speaking players made a name for themselves on the field, the Chilean team built an international fans base for its historical relationship with the Palestinian territories.

“It is not a matter of politicians, nor is it related to religions, but rather it is not related to sports. It is related to solidarity, it is related to the main word: peace,” Jose Napzo, President of Palestine Communications, said in an interview from Santiago, the capital of Chilean.

The fans’ base has grown only since the invasion of Israel to Gaza, which began after an attack led by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. About 1,200 people and 251 have been killed as hostage, according to the Israeli. In Gaza, More than 52,000 Palestinians It was killed by Israeli air strikes, and the residents also suffer Disease and hungerThe World Health Organization says.

Since October 2023, Palestinian fans, players and employees Wearing Kefiyehs And blouses that display pictures of watermelon – a symbol of Palestinian resistance – during games. the The club also has an agreement With the Aida Youth Center, a Palestinian organization in Bethlehem, to provide sportswear and cooperation in sports and social activities.

“We are watching genocide. Thousands and thousands of deaths and many – the majority – are innocent.” “Do not forget them. We will not stop until Palestine becomes peace.”

Sadaka, who has a family and wife in the West Bank and Gaza, said that the club gives those who live there “comfort” and shows that “we, the Palestinian people, are alive wherever we go.”

Chile is home to 500,000 Palestinians

The Palestinians have a long history in Chile. and It is estimated He called the home of the South American nation – the largest number of Palestinian population outside the Middle East.

Brenda Elsey, author of her book Citizens and athletes: fútbol and politics in ChileThe first Palestinians to move to Chile – alongside the Lebanese and the Syrians – said in the nineteenth century.

“They (they) flee the Turkish recruitment, most of whom began in the 1990s, and the type of migration of the summits about the war before the First World War,” said Issi, a historian at the University of Hofstra in Himbstide, New York, for CBC News.

The vast majority of the Palestinians were Christians, but they were stereotypes as lacking work ethics and accused of their inability to absorb in Chile. She said that Palestine was established to make complementarity easier.

The football team stopped playing just a few years after the racist abuse from the spectators, according to Elsey.

“They will play basketball, play tennis and support British sport,” she said. “Therefore, they are still present as social clubs and sports clubs. They are not a football club after 1923.”

Football team He returned in 1949 It became professional in 1952. Since then, he won a title in the Primera División – the best football league in the country – and three Cuba Chelse.

Throughout its history, the club remained a cultural center for the Palestinians in Chile.

“These sports clubs and these social clubs … allow people to continue to obtain this feeling of society while they are in Chile and also feel very vital.”

“They are hiding a place for themselves, writing home and telling people that it is better. Then I got a real society.”

Palestinian activity

Although Palestine had a long historical relationship with the Palestinian territories, Nabzo said that he was initially “symbolic.” But the club has taken advantage of this identity more strongly in the twenty -first century.

In 2016, for example, The club visited the West Bank He played two games there, including one against the official Palestinian national team.

“I remember as soon as we got there, it was crazy. People (they were) were chanting for us with T-shirt (Palestine), just as everyone knows very well,” said Diego Guterres, a Canadian who was a member of Palestine from 2015-19, and he is now playing for the staff in the Canadian League in the Canadian Premier League.

Some members of the Palestine team played for the Palestinian national team, including Guterres’s friend, Nicholas Zaidin.

“I remember that he was always … he dreamed (who) is playing with the team because he was (out of Palestinian origin), and he was always trying hard.” “He was very happy and honored by the clothing of Palestine (for).”

The team also supported some Palestinian foreign activity efforts, including Camp at the University of Toronto last year.

But some moves fell the team in hot water. In 2014, the Chilean Football Association fined the club after the number “1” was formed on the back of the players’ shirts such as the pre -1948 map of Palestine, before the establishment of Israel.

Nabzo said that while the map was removed from the back, it is still shown on the sleeves of the left players and on the back of their socks – a reminder of the existence of the Palestinian identity before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. During the war that led to the establishment of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or forced their homes, a period referred to as Nakba.

“It is very important for us to say that the Palestine Club was founded in 1920, 28 years before the establishment of the state of Israel,” he said. “This broke that theory … that the earth (did not have) any people and this is called Palestine or the Palestinian identity was not present.”

With Palestine near the PRIMERA División summit and in the qualifiers in the knockout in Copa Sudamericana, Nabzo said that he hopes the team will be able to represent the Palestinians soon on the platform.

“The main thing (the thing) is to be very competitive and win very important games, overcome the important teams … and win the prizes,” he said. “This is the best way to represent the Palestinian issue.”