Politics
Why Bosnia’s fans also cheer for Palestine
BELGRADE, Serbia — The blue-clad throngs who arrive in Santa Clara, California, today for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s match against the United States will not only be rooting for a national team that has already advanced farther in a World Cup than ever before. They will also be cheering for Palestine.
That has been a staple of every stop made by Bosnian fans on their movements through North America, from a fan march in Toronto to the streets of Los Angeles before the Switzerland match to the stands in Seattle. It reflects a strong current of pro-Palestinian solidarity in the Muslim-majority Balkan nation, where many draw a direct line between their own war and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In 1990s, a coalition of U.S. and European powers, fresh off the internationalist euphoria that followed the end of the Cold War, were determined that the war crimes in Bosnia receive the highest and most professional response international justice could offer.
They set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity across the region were subjected to rigorous trials led by international prosecutors and judges.
This is how Bosnia spent a painstaking 25 years putting the perpetrators of its worst wartime crimes on trial, culminating in a genocide conviction for those responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, carried out over three days in early July 1995. It is the only European country since the Nuremberg trials to have pursued such action.
Bosnian diaspora communities — many traveling in large numbers to watch the matches in the U.S. — along with people back home, feel a strong connection to what they see as the plight of the Palestinians and the absence of international criminal prosecution for the crimes they believe Israel is committing in Gaza.
The issue is further inflamed by the fact that Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik — the single most divisive figure in the country and the most fervent denier of the Srebrenica genocide — has weaponized the legacy of the war to curry favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Željka Cvijanović, a fellow member of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats now serving as the Serb representative to the country’s three-headed presidency, also visited Israel in late June.
Many of the other World Cup competitors whose fans most fervently embraced the Palestinian cause — including Jordanians who wore keffiyehs to their matches in Santa Clara — have been eliminated from the tournament.
Even though only two of its remnant nations, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, are still competing in the World Cup, the former Yugoslavia continues to punch well above its weight in global soccer. Though the region accounts for barely 0.2 percent of the world’s population, players with roots from there make up 7.5 percent of those who reached the round of 32, including former U.S. captain Christian Pulisic, who is of Croatian descent.
Our White House correspondent Sophia Cai, a member of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, has been covering World Cup politics in regular video dispatches for our sister publication “Bild.”
Here’s her latest report explaining why President Donald Trump has yet to attend a World Cup match, and how he keeps up from the White House.
LONDON — Unexpected halftime entertainment for the England-DR Congo match was provided by Reform UK. The right-wing party that polls show would win a general election (but does not yet have enough MPs to field a soccer team) chose the moment to unveil its AI policy thinking.
England was losing as MP Danny Kruger opened with “I can’t believe you’re all here” — and announced the need for a Patriotic Compact on AI to a sparsely filled room.
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