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(JTA) — A soccer team in Chile’s top league has ignited controversy with its uniforms showing the entire map of Israel as Palestine.<\/p>\n
The uniforms of the Palestine Football Club, which was founded in 1920 by Palestinian immigrants to Chile, has the map on the back of the jerseys replacing the numeral 1.<\/p>\n
Local and global Jewish leaders have protested the political nature of the uniforms to FIFA, soccer’s international governing body.<\/p>\n
“We know that FIFA prohibits such actions,” Gerardo Gorodischer, president of Chile\u2019s Jewish community, told reporters Monday. “You cannot make a political claim and import the Middle East conflict using the platform of football, using the sport to lie and hate.”<\/p>\n
Gorodischer is demanding an apology from the Santiago-based team, whose name in Spanish is Club Deportivo Palestino, and is asking Chile’s national soccer association to ban the shirts.<\/p>\n
The shirts debuted on Jan. 4 in the first match of the season, against Everton, which the Palestine team won.<\/p>\n
The Palestinian Federation of Chile responded to the Jewish protests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reject the hypocrisy of those who blame this map but they talk about the occupied territory as disputed territory,\u201d the Palestinian Federation said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Information Department of the Palestinian Federation also criticized \u201cthe Chilenean Zionists, who send young Chileneans to Israel to receive military training.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, in a letter to the president of the Chilean National Football Association, the Simon Wiesenthal Center called for the Palestine FC to pay a penalty “for fomenting terrorist intent.”<\/p>\n
The Palestinian community in Chile is believed to be the largest outside of the Middle East. At least 300,000 Chileans are of Palestinian descent, according to reports.<\/p>\n