Football Diplomacy

America and China brought down the bamboo curtain with “ping pong” diplomacy. Mao Tse-tung and Richard Nixon initiated ping pong tournaments between America and China to thaw the Cold War diplomatic isolation between the two countries. The establishment of diplomatic relations has led to the mutual dependence of the two global giants on each other because of their tight economic embrace.

Football diplomacy can do the same for the Middle East. An Israeli team with Jews, Muslims and Christians, playing Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish Iraq, Lebanese, Egyptian and Jordanian Muslims and Christians playing Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Sunni-Shiite Syria. The secular Gulf States and Turkey host and play in the playoffs.

The tunnels under the fortified borders of the Middle East, like the Sino-U.S. bamboo curtain, have to be kicked away during regional football tournaments and replaced with open peaceful borders to allow cross border commerce to grow and the region’s people to prosper.