Israeli athletes have often been excluded from competitions – but the current protest movement is reaching a new dimension. If Israel’s footballers qualify for the European Championships, the host Germany will have to take huge security precautions.
Israel’s national soccer team plays against Iceland on Thursday. If it survives the second play-off round and qualifies for the Euros, the country will take part in its second major tournament since the 1970 World Cup in the summer.
Albert Gea / Reuters
Iceland’s national team can qualify for the European Football Championship in Germany in the play-offs. But her coach Åge Hareide has reservations about the opponent: “If you asked me personally, I would hesitate to play against Israel as things stand,” said Hareide in an interview a few days ago. “Because of what is happening in Gaza and what they have done to women, children and other innocent civilians. This shouldn’t be happening and we shouldn’t be playing this game.”
Iceland will face Israel in Budapest on Thursday. But Hareide preferred to talk about the more than 31,000 Palestinians who, according to Hamas and the UN, were killed during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza – around two thirds of them are said to be women and children. Due to the threat of epidemics and famine, this number could rise rapidly. “It is very difficult for me to stop thinking about these images that we see every day,” said Hareide. “But if we don’t play, we will be banned and risk further punishment.”
Twelve football associations are calling for Israel to be excluded from world football
Numerous sports associations, members of parliament and human rights groups are going one step further and calling for a boycott of Israel. In football, twelve national associations from the Middle East are calling for Israel to be excluded from the world football association Fifa. The initiator was Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, the president of the West Asian Football Association. The signatories also include the influential associations from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And in the Palestinian territories, more than 300 sports clubs spread the slogan “Ban Israel”.
Sport is also coming into focus at the political level. In February, 26 left-wing members of the French parliament sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) calling for sporting sanctions against Israel. In the European Parliament, 13 members took part in a similar initiative. In addition, politicians, activists and athletes in several countries are networking to petition against Israeli sport. One comes from former Irish basketball player Rebecca O’Keeffe. Around 400 athletes are rallying behind their “Irish Sport for Palestine” campaign.
In their argument, the initiatives refer to the Olympic Charter. It says that the practice of sport is a human right: “Every person must have the opportunity to practice sport without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit.”
The war in Gaza is a contrast to this provision: several hundred athletes, coaches and officials are believed to have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including football coach Hani al-Masdar. Dozens of sports fields, halls and dressing rooms in Gaza have been destroyed, including those of the Palestinian Olympic Committee. In addition, the Yarmouk Stadium, where football has been played since 1938, was used by the Israeli army as an internment camp.
Against this background, numerous organizations are demanding that Israel be treated in the same way as Russia in sport. After the attack on Ukraine, umbrella organizations such as the European Football Association (Uefa) and FIFA excluded Russian teams from their competitions. At the Olympic Games in Paris, athletes from Russia are only allowed to compete as “neutral athletes” without national symbols.
Numerous sports associations are calling for sporting sanctions against Israel – but the IOK and UEFA are not planning any measures.
Carl Recine / Reuters
The international sports associations, however, do not want to put Israel and Russia on the same level. When asked, the IOK recalled the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROK) in October 2023. The reason: The ROK had tied the sports administrations in the occupied Ukrainian territories to itself and, according to the IOK, thereby violated the “territorial integrity of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine ». In contrast, the IOC argues, the independent Olympic committees from Israel and Palestine have not “extended their jurisdiction beyond their own area”.
Many Arab sports organizations reject this interpretation. The twelve football associations calling for Israel’s exclusion also address FIFA and the IOC in their open letter: “Silence in this critical situation can be perceived as tacit approval of the unlawful practices of the occupation, which may involve those involved in these serious atrocities get caught up.”
The Palestinian sports organizations also recall their everyday life before the war: their athletes were often held at checkpoints in the West Bank. Israeli authorities have often made it difficult to import their sports equipment. On the other hand, football teams from the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the UN has classified as violating international law, also take part in competitions run by Israeli associations.
Israel recalls that its athletes have been repeatedly excluded and boycotted
In Israel, on the other hand, politics and sport seem to be concerned with diplomacy. After all, the country has a decades-long history in which Israeli athletes were repeatedly excluded and boycotted. “I trust that FIFA will not bring politics into football,” said Niv Goldstein, the executive director of the Israeli Football Association, in a television interview. In addition, he emphasized, Israel has a right to self-defense. On October 7th, the terrorist organization Hamas killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped more than 230 to Gaza.
Israeli media and authorities also use sport in their line of defense. Hamas is also said to have fired rockets from sports fields in Gaza. Palestinian football teams were sometimes used as recruiting cells. Some sports fields in the West Bank are said to be named after terrorists. And the Jewish state is sometimes not even shown on the map on the banners of Palestinian clubs.
If the Israeli national football team survives the first play-off round against Iceland in the European Championship qualification, they would face Ukraine or Bosnia-Herzegovina next Tuesday. If Israel is successful, it would be facing its second major tournament since the 1970 World Cup. This would pose major security challenges for the host Germany.
The few Israeli athletes who have taken part in international competitions since October 7th have had to rely on personal protection and secret accommodation. The Israeli fencers had to wait in the dressing room after a bomb threat in Bern. The footballer Sagiv Jehezkel was temporarily arrested in Turkey for an action in solidarity with the Hamas victims.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents has also increased dramatically in Germany. Groups like the BDS movement, which wants to isolate Israel economically and is classified as anti-Semitic by the Bundestag, are also taking up sport. On the Internet, BDS, which stands for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions,” is calling for protests, sit-ins and “peaceful disruptions” at competitions, possibly including the Olympic Games in Paris.
The IOK and UEFA emphasize that they are not planning any sanctions against Israel. Presumably also because influential sports nations such as the USA, Germany and France are on Israel’s side. But will smaller associations act similarly as the number of victims in Gaza continues to rise? The world ice hockey association initially excluded Israeli national teams, but reversed this decision after criticism.
The big sponsors are also holding back for the time being because they can only lose in the current situation. The sporting goods manufacturer Puma, for example, is letting its contract with the Israeli Football Association expire – a decision that was allegedly made in 2022. Puma was heavily criticized in Israel. Supporters of the boycott demands celebrated this as their own success.