The Palestinians' red, white, black and green flag has been a ubiquitous presence at the Middle East's first World Cup.
Girding that support has been the surprisingly strong showing of Arab teams in a World Cup marked by upsets. Though Saudi Arabia and Tunisia are both out, their respective victories over powerhouses Argentina and France spurred a rare surge of regional solidarity. Meanwhile, when the Atlas Lions — as the Moroccan team is known — made history as the first Arab squad to advance to the World Cup’s quarterfinals, celebrations erupted across the region and in expatriate communities around the world.
Even in a region that has long rallied around the Palestinian cause, the outpouring of sentiment has been striking. Mohammad Qadhi, a Qatari who was walking with a friend along Doha’s waterfront, said the Arab people were sending a message to the world: “Don’t forget Palestine. Don’t ignore the Palestinian issue.”
More significantly, they were supposed to forge a closeness between Israelis and their Arab neighbors. But like Israel’s decades-old peace deals with Jordan and Egypt, the new agreements appear to have brought governments together while relations among their citizens remained mostly tepid. “When the Abraham Accords were signed, the No. 1 question everyone asked us [was] if we as Palestinians felt alienated,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer based in Haifa, Israel. “Israelis assumed the Arab world would just come with open arms.”
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