Would you play a football match in Israel? For most Arab footballers, the answer is a resounding No. For Iranians, even more so. For most Muslims too. In fact, it is inconceivable for most of us. What is more, should one of our players decide to play in Israel, he would be bombarded with protests and accusations, ostracized even. More important, if say an Iranian player decided to take part in a match in Israel, his family would bear heavy consequences for his individual action. He would also be barred from setting foot in his homeland again.

It is no surprise then that Arab or Iranian footballers playing for European clubs will go as far as feigning an injury in order to avoid playing in Israel.

Perhaps this is what Ashkan Dejagah should have done. Instead he was honest; he did not pretend to be injured but told the truth. Initially, that he did not wish to play in Israel for personal reasons. Later, that he did not want to play for political reasons. The two of course are not mutually incompatible, but they engender different consequences. Whilst football federations accept that players may excuse themselves from matches for personal reasons — assuming of course that these are compelling and serious enough — they do not feel the same way about footballers refusing to play for political reasons.

To complicate matters, Dejagah was to play in Israel not in his Wolfsburg shirt — his club team — but in a German national shirt. Born in Tehran to two Iranian parents, Dejagah has lived in Germany since he was two. Consequently he has dual citizenship and could play either for Iran or for Germany. He currently plays for the German under-21s, which was until he decided not to go to Israel.

The Iranians are tickled pink by his refusal to play in Israel; it shows him to be true to his roots after all and maybe now he will choose to play for the Iranian National team when he comes of age.

The Germans are dismayed, though not all of them. The general public seems to have some sympathy for Dejagah’s situation. In a poll by the SAT-1 television network, 62.9 percent of those surveyed said he should continue to play for Germany, whilst 34.7 percent wanted him to be suspended.

However popular opinion is nothing compared to political pressure. How could a German citizen refuse to play in Israel? Voices were quick to rise in anger and condemnation. Be they politicians, here is Friedbert Pflueger, an MP: “This is intolerable. Soon, each person will decide who he wants to play against and who he doesn’t want to play against. If a player has political objections, he can no longer play with the team.”

Or football officials, here is Olivier Bierhoff, the national team manager: “We want the players to identify with the team and its values and if they do not, there is no room for such a player on the team.”

The most damaging fire of course has come from the Jewish lobby. Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said that “It would be an affront to silently tolerate this behavior” and called for him to be excluded from the national team. Whilst the vice president of the coucil, Dieter Graumann, stated that it was “unacceptable and untenable for one player to initiate a private boycott of Jews.” Presumably it would be OK for a whole team to boycott Israel, but not an individual. But I have it wrong, it is a not a boycott of Israel but a boycott of Jews according to Graumann.

It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the government of Israel or to boycott Israeli products in protest at its treatment of Palestinians. Nor is it anti-Semitic to refuse to visit Israel because you disagree with its politics. It is certainly not anti-Semitic to want to protect your family and protect your right to return to the country of your birth. Nothing in Ashkan Dejagah’s comportment suggests him to be an anti-Semite. It is a cheap and predictable shot by Graumann and one that is guaranteed to cause maximum damage.

Sure enough Dejagah has now been permanently suspended from the national team by the German Football Association. This was announced by its president, Theo Zwanziger, after a meeting with Avi Luzon, the chairman of the Israeli Football Association. Zwanziger stated that the association “will not let this slide. Dejagah will be taken care of and suspended.”

In an ideal world, politics would have no place in sport. It should be the exact opposite of politics, a neutral ground where differences and divisions are set aside.

But that is hardly the case. It has long been accepted that sport is a political arena. Just as the political boycott is now a proved and approved political tool — but for teams. What seems to be at issue is whether an individual sportsman has the right to a conscience. Should sportsmen be like soldiers? Should their role be like that of the light brigade: “Ours is not to reason why but to do or die”? Of course not.

Of course sport officials are right to worry about the precedent this might be setting. Should China’s poor human rights record be a reason for an athlete to refuse to compete in the Beijing Olympics? Should a cricketer refuse to play in Zimbabwe? Where do you draw the line?

Perhaps it is not for us to draw the line. These are after all matters of conscience and by their very nature personal. What matters is that we should each have the right to say no, this is a line I will not cross. That was Ashkan Dejagah’s right and he should not have been punished so severely for doing so. If anything it was unreasonable for the German Football Federation to expect him to be willing to play in Israel, particularly when this game was to take place on the first day of Eid Al-Fitr.