TEHRAN- Ashish Prashar is a political strategist, believes that if Israel were removed from football, it would send an “unmistakable global message” that genocide which has been happening in Gaza for more than two years is unacceptable.

“Right now, by allowing Israel to participate in football competitions, the international community is effectively signaling that war crimes and the killing of children in Gaza do not disqualify a state from cultural participation,” Prashar notes.

 Prashar, who had been working with closely with leaders including Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, now channels his expertise toward strategic campaigns challenging global injustices, including the genocidal campaign in Gaza.

His recent work, including the “Game Over Israel” initiative, illustrates a shift from conventional politics to high-impact activism that leverages culture, media, and international institutions to confront normalization of genocide.

In this in-depth interview with the Tehran Times, Prashar emphasizes that real change requires more than representation or symbolic protest. He says it demands calculated, systemic pressure to hold perpetrators accountable.

Drawing on decades of political experience, he seeks to reshape Western perspectives and accelerate Global South influence, arguing that meaningful transformation emerges not from within entrenched systems, but through persistent, strategic engagement that disrupts complicity and amplifies moral clarity on the world stage.

The following is the full text of the interview:

You’ve worked closely with major Western leaders—from Boris Johnson and Tony Blair to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. How has proximity to power shaped your understanding of what it can and cannot achieve over time?

That’s a really good question. From my perspective, it goes back to the generation you grew up in. I grew up during my teenage years in the post–Cold War period, after the Berlin Wall came down.

Especially if you grew up in Europe, there was a moment when you genuinely believed institutions could work. Nelson Mandela was released from prison; the Berlin Wall fell in 1989–90. You could actually believe real change was possible.

I’m not naïve. Even then, Europe witnessed genocide in Bosnia. But there was still faith in institutions. The UN felt like the most powerful body in the world at one point. There was a moment when you thought we could see real change globally. So you believed that working for institutions, or alongside powerful leaders, meant you could do good—that proximity to power could change opinions.

What’s interesting about power is that you quickly realize many others are doing the same thing. There are countless levers, influencers, lobbyists, and institutionalists—many of whom don’t want change, for financial, political, or personal reasons. They work very hard to preserve the existing order.

That doesn’t mean small wins aren’t possible. When I worked in the West Bank with Tony Blair during his time as envoy, there were modest achievements that helped Palestinian families gain economic access they previously lacked. Those wins mattered. You feel proud delivering them. You feel like you’re making a difference.

And I genuinely believe every life impacted matters. Changing an individual’s life—like someone once invested time and energy in changing mine—has real value. Impact can begin small.

But when you see how much power these individuals actually have to reshape the world, and how they still choose incremental gestures over seismic change, you realize something fundamental: working from within the system—especially in the West—is largely a failed exercise if your goal is real transformation.

We see this obsession with representation. People celebrated electing figures like Sadiq Khan in London. But representation doesn’t automatically change policy. Just because someone is Muslim or brown doesn’t mean the system will allow them to alter its core direction. Often, they are the approved version—of that identity, that background—that the system is comfortable advancing.

When Barack Obama was elected, like millions around the world, I believed he would fundamentally change the United States. Gaddafi believed the same. But over time, we saw how aggressively the system worked to curtail any ambition for structural change. We also had to confront another reality: Obama himself was a product of that system.

The real question is whether he ever truly wanted to change it.

Although many of us had long recognised what was happening in Gaza as genocide, European leaders continued to hide behind ambiguity.

 Do you see your current activism—particularly against Israel—as a continuation of your political career, or a rupture from it?

I see this very much as a continuation of my political career, not a rupture from it. Like many people who have worked inside Western political systems, I want to change them.

I work with a group of political strategists who are all former employees of the kinds of institutions and figures you mentioned, and we share a common goal: to change how the West views the world and how it relates to it.

The West still behaves as if it is the colonizer—believing it can dictate terms, tell others what to do, and define how the global system should operate. We want to challenge and change that mindset.

For me personally, this is the next step in my political journey. I could not be here without what came before. I would not be doing this if I had not worked as a journalist, if I had not worked for the Conservative Party, for the Middle East office, or later for Joe Biden.

That said, reflecting on how my soul feels about working for some of those people is a different question from whether this is a continuation of my journey.

People often ask if I regret working for Tony Blair. I actually don’t. I knew who he was before he took that role, and at the time I genuinely wanted to make a difference in the Middle East, particularly in the West Bank. I used his platform to try to achieve something tangible.

My only real political regret is helping Joe Biden get elected in 2020. From that election to the genocide he has co-authored, sponsored, aided, and embedded in Palestine, the trajectory is clear.

While many people focus solely on Donald Trump today, we must not forget that Joe Biden is an architect of what is happening in Gaza—alongside Benjamin Netanyahu and the Secretary of State. That is something I deeply regret.

Still, this work is not a departure from politics. It is politics. It is political strategy. It is political campaigning—just conducted outside formal institutions.

The team we have assembled for this campaign consists entirely of people from that world. None of us would describe ourselves as activists, even though that label is often applied to us. We have not spent our lives in activism.

Take someone like Josh Paul, who resigned from the U.S. State Department and whom I collaborate with on several initiatives. I would not call him an activist either. We are all on our own political journeys, trying to realign how the West operates globally. In the immediate sense, that means helping to liberate Palestine.

In the longer term, it means dismantling the Western hegemony that enables this kind of barbarity to continue.

I have immense respect and love for the activists in the streets doing what they do. But alongside that, there must also be serious political strategy. Without it, the system will remain intact—and the violence will continue.

Remaining in European football is far more important for Israel than a seat at the UN.

Israel has long relied on moral exceptionalism and victimhood narratives in Western discourse. Do campaigns like Game Over Israel signal the collapse of that narrative?

Yes, I do believe that this narrative architecture is beginning to collapse, and that is precisely why campaigns like Game Over Israel matter. One of the most powerful mechanisms of normalization is culture. Diplomatic spaces like the UN matter symbolically, but normalization really happens in everyday life—through music, art, sport, and shared cultural experiences.

There is no cultural platform more powerful or universal than football. It transcends gender, class, and geography. Almost every person in the world has, at some point, interacted with football—whether by playing it, watching it, or simply having a ball placed at their feet as a child. Because of that, football occupies a unique moral and cultural space.

If Israel were removed from football, it would send an unmistakable global message: genocide is not acceptable. Right now, by allowing Israel to participate in football competitions, the international community is effectively signaling that war crimes and the killing of children in Gaza do not disqualify a state from cultural participation.

It is a form of normalization. It says, “You can commit these crimes and still be welcomed in our stadiums, celebrated in our stands, and treated as normal.”

I do not believe ordinary people around the world are comfortable with that. Outside a narrow political elite in the West, very few people are willing to accept genocide. When you explain to football fans—whether they are right-wing or left-wing—that allowing Israel to play normalizes crimes against children and the collective punishment of Palestinians, the response is almost always the same: “That is not what I stand for.” I have had these conversations across Europe, and the reaction is remarkably consistent.

We knew from the outset that targeting football would be the hardest task—but also the most consequential. History shows that when football goes, everything else follows.

When culture collapses, isolation accelerates. This is exactly what happened to apartheid South Africa. Once you are excluded from cultural life, your access to the world shrinks. You become ostracized.

Our campaign was also strategically timed. Although many of us had long recognized what was happening as genocide, European leaders continued to hide behind ambiguity.

We deliberately launched on September 16, knowing—based on the expertise of our advisers, including Richard Falk and Craig Mokhiber, the former head of the UN human rights office in New York—that the UN would formally recognize the situation as genocide.

That morning, Francesca Albanese’s report was released. That evening, we unveiled a massive billboard in Times Square stating clearly: Israel is committing genocide. It is time for football federations to act.

This was not about persuading politicians. I am not going to change Donald Trump’s mind. But culture is different. When you remove normalization from culture, the political consequences follow.

We focused specifically on UEFA rather than FIFA because that is where Israeli football truly exists. Over 90 percent of Israel’s competitive football takes place in Europe. Israeli clubs rely on European competitions, European broadcasting, and tens of millions of dollars in UEFA subsidies to remain financially viable.

Israeli writers themselves—from Haaretz to The Times in London—have acknowledged that a UEFA suspension would be terminal. There would be no way back.

That is why Israel is so desperate to remain in European football. It matters to them far more than a seat at the UN. They understand the power of culture. That is why they insist on competing in Europe, participating in Eurovision, and embedding themselves in European sporting life.

We are already seeing the effects. European football federations are quietly refusing to host Israeli teams, declining to provide security, and finding alternative justifications to avoid playing them.

Officially, they may cite logistics or safety concerns—but everyone knows the real issue is genocide. Israel is already isolated. This campaign accelerates that process.

And the level of concern from Israel’s leadership makes that clear. Benjamin Netanyahu personally intervened to have our Times Square billboard taken down, reportedly involving the U.S. Justice Department. That reaction alone demonstrates how seriously they take the threat of cultural exclusion.

They know what expulsion from football would mean. It would mark the end of normalization—and that is why this campaign strikes at the heart of Israel’s moral exceptionalism.

Israeli football cannot survive outside Europe.

UEFA and FIFA claim political neutrality, yet history shows selective moral enforcement. What does their hesitation reveal?

This is an important point, because history already gives us clear precedents. If you were to ask UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin whether it was right to ban Germany from international football after World War II, the answer would be unequivocal: yes. Germany fought a global war and committed genocide against Europe’s Jewish population.

The same applies to Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars. Čeferin himself comes from that region—Slovenia—and the suspension of Yugoslavia, followed by continued restrictions on successor states after the breakup, was widely understood as justified.

So the real question is not whether there is precedent, but why the precedent is not being applied now.

Here we have to be very clear about institutional realities. There are two very different figures involved. Gianni Infantino at FIFA is never going to suspend Israel. People need to understand that. He was effectively Israel’s preferred candidate for the role, and he has maintained close political relationships—most notably with Donald Trump—since at least 2016.

A lot of activists are focusing their energy on Infantino, but that is a strategic dead end. No one is “telling him what to do,” and there are personal and financial relationships involved that we cannot yet fully discuss publicly. Targeting FIFA leadership is, frankly, a waste of time.

UEFA is where the real leverage lies. Israeli football cannot survive outside Europe. A suspension from UEFA would be existential—there would be no way back.

Now, the question of why President Čeferin has not acted is also important. He was, in fact, preparing to hold a vote on Israel’s suspension in September. This was not speculation. It was reported by Martin Ziegler of The Times in London, who is widely known to be personally briefed by UEFA leadership and is very close to Čeferin. That reporting made it almost certain—99.9 percent—that a vote was coming.

The vote was ultimately pulled because of what was framed as giving “peace a chance”—linked to ceasefire discussions and diplomatic maneuvering, particularly involving the United States. We all know, at this point, that this so-called ceasefire has not meaningfully materialized. The bombing has not stopped. The violence has not ended.

But my argument to UEFA leadership has been very simple: historically, accountability does not happen during atrocities—it happens after them. Germany was punished after the Holocaust. Yugoslav states were sanctioned after the Balkan atrocities. We do not wait for moral clarity in the middle of violence; we act once the crimes are established.

That is why this moment matters. Even if the bombs were to stop tomorrow, the precedent remains clear. Genocide and mass atrocities carry consequences. Football has always been one of the arenas where the international community signals those consequences most clearly.

What makes this situation fundamentally different is that the atrocity is still ongoing. We are not asking institutions to act after everyone has already been massacred. We are asking them to intervene while the massacre is taking place—precisely in order to stop it.

What is striking is that this is widely understood within UEFA leadership. Our assessment is based not on speculation, but on months of direct engagement. Our advisory team includes figures such as Richard Falk and senior political strategists from U.S. and UK political systems. We have also spent time engaging UEFA directly—something that was made public and even reported by The New York Times. We are not operating in the shadows.

Our belief is that the key is to create an environment in which UEFA can suspend Israel without having to personally absorb the political backlash. In fact, there are UEFA officials who want Israel suspended and are quietly aligned with that objective. The challenge for President Aleksander Čeferin is not moral clarity—it is political self-preservation.

The strategic solution is straightforward: provide him with institutional cover. The aim is to create a scenario in which he can say, truthfully or procedurally, that the Swiss government or the Swiss Federal Court compelled UEFA to act. That allows him to say: “I did not make this decision alone; the legal and governmental framework of Switzerland required it.” In that context, suspension becomes politically survivable.

This matters because, despite the fact that suspending Israel is morally right, politically justified, and supported by football fans across the world—with the exception of Israel itself and perhaps a segment of German political culture—this is still about power and protection.

Switzerland plays a crucial role here. It is arguably the only country in the world that the United States would not sanction over such a decision. Washington sanctions weak states. It pressures vassal governments. It intimidates countries like Ireland or Spain into retreating from meaningful action—whether that is refusing to pass legislation like the Occupied Territories Bill or maintaining U.S. military and economic alignment.

Switzerland is different. A significant portion of the American political, corporate, and financial elite banks in Switzerland. Senior U.S. officials—and even members of presidential families—hold assets there. There is no realistic scenario in which Washington would sanction Switzerland, because retaliation would risk exposure of financial records and elite assets. That threat alone acts as a deterrent.

This reality creates a protective shield. And UEFA officials understand that. Some of them have actively engaged with us on this strategy because they recognize that Swiss legal or governmental intervention provides the institutional cover they need to act decisively.

In short, this is not about whether suspension is justified. Everyone inside the system knows that it is. The question is how to create the political conditions that allow it to happen now, while the crimes are ongoing—and in a way that prevents those responsible from hiding behind procedural excuses.

Frankly, I would argue that Aleksander Čeferin should simply have the courage to act. I say this as someone who gave up his own career—back in 2012, when I left the Quartet envoy’s office—to stand openly for Palestine. That feels like a lifetime ago now, but the principle has not changed.

This is not a political issue. And calling it one is a distortion of the word “politics.” This is not a border dispute, a trade disagreement, or a policy disagreement between two societies. If you read the Genocide Convention, what is happening is a crime against humanity. It affects all of us.

Once genocide has been formally recognized—by the UN and by the UN Human Rights Council—there is no moral neutrality left. Anyone who does not act to protect the Palestinian population is complicit. Anyone who continues to cooperate with Israel at any level—whether through weapons, trade, or culture—is aiding and abetting that genocide.

At this point, there is no hiding behind procedure. Čeferin does not need the protection of Switzerland to do the right thing. And if he worries about how history would judge him, the reality is the opposite of what he seems to fear. He would be remembered as a hero—the first leader of a major global cultural institution to take a principled stand and expel Israel.

The only reason for delay, in my view, is personal political calculation and concern about his post-UEFA future.

Anyone who does not act to protect the Palestinian population is complicit in genocide.

Do you believe the campaign model you’ve designed can be applied to other human rights crises, and could it influence future foreign policy or diplomatic pressure?

Absolutely—and this is precisely why we built this model. Let me be clear: none of this would exist without activists. Without people marching, protesting, blocking arms shipments, and risking arrest, we would not be here. Direct action—from groups like Palestine Action, or those blocking ships in Australia and Canada—has been essential.

But we have reached a limit. In much of Europe and the UK, protests are now licensed, permitted, and contained. You apply to the police, march on a weekend, and go home. That does not disrupt power. In contrast, protests in the United States—particularly in cities like New York—remain more spontaneous, disruptive, and economically impactful. That difference matters.

Our responsibility in the West is to disrupt institutions, economies, and systems of normality until genocide stops. That is not radicalism; it is a legal and moral obligation under the Genocide Convention. Preventing genocide means stopping complicity by any means necessary.

What we have built is a political model—not symbolic activism. It is about decoupling a perpetrator state from global institutions. Our task is simple: remove Israel from the largest cultural and political platforms possible.

To do that, we assembled serious political strategists, master communicators, and advisers with deep experience in Western politics and UN institutions. We understand how these systems function—and how they collapse under pressure.

This model is absolutely transferable. It should be applied not only to Israel, but to any state committing crimes against humanity. The UAE’s role in Sudan, for example, should be confronted with the same seriousness and scale. Rogue states rely on normalization. Once that is stripped away, isolation follows.

What is missing globally is not outrage or solidarity—it is strategic coordination and funding. There are many people like me, many political strategists, who could be mobilized if resources were available. Activists provide the moral force. Strategists convert that force into irreversible outcomes.

Trump exposes what the United States and the West really are.

What you describe feels less symbolic and more like chess—every move calculated—unlike many actions that prioritize symbolism over outcomes.

 That distinction is exactly right. From the beginning, this campaign was designed to last months, possibly longer. We had contingency plans for every scenario. What surprised us was how quickly UEFA reacted. Within a day of launching the Times Square billboard, UEFA leadership contacted us directly and asked to engage.

We submitted evidence through UN human rights figures. But we never assumed cooperation would last. We already had further steps planned: evidence collection against Israeli clubs through the Hind Foundation, a Europe-wide billboard rollout, and legal cases in Switzerland and other jurisdictions.

Our preference was always to work with UEFA—not against it—and allow them to reach the right decision collaboratively. But when institutions refuse to act despite overwhelming evidence, pressure escalates. Like chess, you move to the next piece.

And the irony is this: many inside UEFA want to be forced into doing the right thing. They want someone else to take the blame so they do not have to carry the political cost alone. Our role is to create conditions where inaction becomes impossible.

Now that Donald Trump is back in U.S. leadership, and given his foreign policy—especially toward the Middle East—do you think his approach will accelerate or expose the moral contradictions that campaigns like yours confront?

I actually think Donald Trump is the best thing that could have happened—not because he is a good person, but because he is revelatory. He exposes what the United States and the West really are.

There is a reason liberal elites in the U.S. and Europe dislike him so intensely. It is not because they fundamentally oppose his policies—many of those policies align perfectly with what Western powers have been doing for decades. They dislike him because he says it out loud. He strips away the language of “exporting democracy” and moral superiority.

France, Britain, and Germany have continued post-colonial extraction from Africa and Asia for decades. France, for example, still forces former colonies to bank their money in Paris and pay interest to access their own resources. That is not history—it is ongoing financial colonialism.

Trump does not pretend otherwise. He does not wrap extraction in liberal language. He says openly: we will take what we want, from whom we want, whenever we want. That honesty is uncomfortable for Western leaders because it reveals that they do not actually disagree with him—they simply prefer a more polite narrative.

Look at Venezuela. European leaders remain largely silent, not because they disagree with Trump’s actions, but because they quietly hope he succeeds—cheaper oil benefits them. The same applies to Libya and Iraq.

We fabricated lies, destroyed sovereign nations, and watched their gold reserves disappear into Western financial systems. Libya, before NATO’s intervention, provided free healthcare, education, and housing. Gaddafi was not perfect—but he threatened Western power by proposing a gold-backed African currency. That was unforgivable.

Trump accelerates exposure. He removes plausible deniability. And this time, Western publics cannot say they did not know. During Iraq, people could claim ignorance.

Media institutions manufactured consent. Today, people are watching genocide unfold in real time—on their phones, through independent media, through the explicit words of their own leaders.

When figures like Keir Starmer openly say that Israel has the right to starve children or cut off water, the mask is gone. Trump intensifies this process. He makes contradiction impossible to hide.

That is why global decoupling matters. Europe produces very little. Its power depends on resources, energy, and labor from Africa, West Asia, and Asia. If gas-producing countries had shut off supplies for one winter, Europe’s support for Israel would have collapsed overnight. Europeans will not freeze for Israel.

This is where the real leverage lies—not in moral appeals to Western leaders, but in structural independence from Western hegemony.

When figures like Keir Starmer openly say that Israel has the right to starve children or cut off water in Gaza, the mask is gone.

Is there any final message you would like to leave with our audience?

Game Over Israel is just the beginning.

I want people to focus closely on Switzerland in the coming year. There are upcoming local and federal votes in the Swiss parliament regarding UEFA’s tax-exempt status. UEFA does not pay tax because it is legally designated as an institution that promotes peace. Switzerland takes this designation very seriously—it is not given lightly.

UEFA is now in breach of that status, not only because of genocide, but because Israeli football teams based in illegal West Bank settlements are allowed to participate in UEFA competitions. That alone violates Swiss law and UEFA’s own statutes.

We want global pressure on Swiss politicians to act accordingly. Even a so-called “temporary” suspension of Israel—until those teams are removed—would, in reality, become permanent. Netanyahu’s government will never remove them. In fact, they would likely add more out of spite.

Beyond football, my final message is this: the world must decouple from the West.

Africa and Asia produce the world’s resources. Innovation is no longer Western-centric. Under sanctions, Iran has developed remarkable technology. Under genocide, Gaza has produced award-winning health innovations in conditions unseen in the 21st century.

What we need now is to accelerate a Global South realignment—what BRICS gestures toward, but must become real. Europe is far more vulnerable than it admits. If Africa and Asia withdraw cooperation, Western hegemony collapses.

And when that power collapses, policies that enable genocide, occupation, and exploitation collapse with it.

That is the future people should focus on building.