445 Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 9: 445–470, 2002 Copyright © 2002 Taylor & Francis 1070-289X/02 $12.00 +.00 DOI: 10.1080/10702890290091615 THE ISLAMIC SOCCER LEAGUE IN ISRAEL: SETTING MORAL BOUNDARIES BY TAMING THE WILD Tamir Sorek Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel This article strives to use the institutional and discursive strategies employed by the Islamic Movement in Israel in the soccer sphere to illustrate wider theoretical argu- ments about setting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the public sphere. The Islamic Movement uses an isolationist strategy, by creating the independent Islamic Soccer League. In contrast, social agents who strive to promote integration in Israeli society or, alternatively, Arab-Palestinian national pride encourage the involvement of Arab teams and players in the Israeli Football Association. The article argues that the isolationist strategy is inherent in the attempts of a religious movement to articulate a definition of collective identity that is based on a sacred moral code. Then, relying mainly on the contents of the sports sections of the Islamic press, the article analyzes the inevitable tensions stemming from the use of an institution with a strong secular orientation for the purpose of reproducing religious identity. Key Words: minorities, religion, Islam, sports, Israel Since 1986 the Islamic movement in Israel has been running its own independent soccer league. This league, separate from the Israeli Football Association, defies the general tendency of the Arab soccer players and fans in Israel to use soccer as a channel for integration. This article strives to use the institutional and discursive strategies employed by the Islamic Movement in the soccer sphere in order to illustrate wider theoretical arguments about the modes of setting boundaries for inclusion and exclusion by a religious organization and national minority in the public sphere, in conditions of competition between differing optional codes of identity. This article therefore includes two mutually dependent arguments. First, the at- tempt to construct an identity based on cultural-moral principles with a universal orientation gives the boundaries of identity an a priori diffuseness and permeabil- ity. Therefore, when faced with such a symbolically powerful domain as soccer, and in conditions of relative weakness, social agents trying to promote such an identity tend to turn inward on themselves, and construct an autonomous frame-