Petition-3: UEFA

The Union of European Football Associations.

More a matter of principle than economics.

Click for more about UEFA

Below is my suggested letter to the CEO of UEFA:

-------------start of petition letter------------------

Date: (fill in date)

From: (your name and address)

To:
UEFA CEO Lars-Christer Olsson

Subject:
Israel Football Association's membership of UEFA

Dear Mr. Olsson,

As a citizen of the European Union, I urge you to
terminate the Israel Football Association's membership
of UEFA and sever all links with immediate effect.

The trigger event for this petition came
July-August 2006 with Israel's grotesquely savage
over-reaction to the minor border skirmishes with
Hamas/Islamic Jihad and with Hizbollah, and it soon
became clear that the wars on Gaza and Lebanon
were already planned, just waiting for suitable
excuses in order to proceed.

But Israel has a continuous history of unacceptable
behaviour:

-by its very nature, the Jewish State of Israel is a
state based on racism, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing,
exclusivity, the superiority of the Jews in a class
system bordering on apartheid, systematic legislation
to marginalise its Arab citizens (nearly 20% of the
population),

-its continued illegal and savagely brutal occupation
of the territories seized in 1967 and failing daily to
live up to its obligations as the occupying power under
the Geneva and other conventions
(examples: extra-judicial killings, soldiers deliberately
targeting civilians incl. women and children, collective
punishment of the civilian population, detention
without trial also of women and teenagers, detention
of elected representatives incl. members of parliament
and cabinet ministers, the building of separation
barriers mainly on occupied land, the continued
expansion of settlements on occupied land),

-its failure to comply with a large number of UN
Security Council resolutions.

The policies and general behaviour of Israel
are totally incompatible with and in complete
contradiction to the declared ideals and common
values both of the European Union and of European
nations generally:
Of universal human rights, the rule of law,
equality, non-discrimination on grounds of race,
colour, religion, nationality.

It is absurd for Europe to continue to classify Hamas,
fairly and democratically elected in January 2006 with
an absolute majority, as a "terrorist organisation",
refuse to deal with the Palestinians' legitimate
government and further increase the hardships of
that long-suffering people by adding economic
sanctions to political isolation, whilst at the same
time continue business-as-usual cordial relations at
all levels, economic, cultural, sporting, diplomatic, with
Israel, which has indisputably made state-terrorism
its chosen way of life since its creation in 1948.
It is Israel and not Hamas which needs to be put on
probation and through a programme of rehabilitation!

Hamas has indicated that a long truce (10-30 years)
might be possible, were Israel to withdraw fully to the
pre-1967 borders, a pragmatic offer reflecting
international law, and one which implicitly accepts
the existence of Israel.
In contrast, Israel, by its actions, those illegal "facts
on the ground", has all but wiped Palestine off the map
- I ask you, who are the terrorists?

In view of all of the above, I ask you how you can
justify the Israel Football Association's continued
membership of UEFA.

As a citizen of Europe, I am ashamed of this hypocrisy
and I know I am not alone in saying:
I have had enough!!

I urge you therefore once again to terminate the IFAs
membership with immediate effect.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Thank you very much for your time,
Yours sincerely



..................................................
(your name etc)
(your email?)
(your website?)

-------------end of petition letter-------------------

Readers wishing to participate,
please proceed as follows:

Copy-paste the above petition letter, fill in
your personal details in the appropriate places,
amend the text to reflect your nationality/
geographical location etc, when you have finished
editing, save your new version.

NOTE:
My editor may be different to the one you are
using and the copy may look "messy" with broken
line-overflow, however, it should both email and
print OK, if in doubt, send an email of your
finished version to yourself first and check before
emailing or printing to the recipient.

Then either:

Email to: info@uefa.com

or:

Print your version, sign it, and post it to:

CEO L.C. Olsson
UEFA
Route de Genève 46
Case Postale
CH-1260 Nyon 2
Switzerland

And that's it, you have added your voice of
protest against Israel.

NOTE:
A real letter has a stronger presence and is
more difficult to ignore than an email, and
therefore has a better chance of being taken
seriously and replied to.
My own petition was sent as a letter.

If you do participate, I would appreciate you
telling me so, either by commenting below,
or via email on myspeak13@yahoo.com with
at least your name, city and country, and please
state whether you sent the petition as an email
or a letter, and, if emailing me, quoting no. 3
please, so I know which petition it was.

You agree to your details being used on this
website for inclusion in a possible list of
petitioners.