Editor’s note: The following open letter was published by the Movement for the Liberation of the Nakba (MLN) on June 19, 2024. MLN is a coalition of organisations and individuals from Australia, India, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Palestine, South Africa, South Korea and the UK, whose aim is to spread knowledge about Palestine in the region and space known as the Global South.
June 19, 2024
Thomas Bach
president
Operating officer
International Olympic Committee
Kia Ora Koutou,
The enormous power of sports boycotts must be used to counter Israel's genocidal war
MLN is a coalition of organisations and individuals from Australia, India, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Palestine, South Africa, South Korea and the UK, whose aim is to spread knowledge about Palestine in the region and region known as the Global South.
We are writing to you because sport, and the boycott of sport, has great power for the good of humanity, and we believe this power should be used to support the struggle of the Palestinian people.
Sports impacts everyone.
When Papuwa Sewgoram stood in the rain outside the whites-only clubhouse to collect his trophy after the 1965 Natal Open golf tournament, millions around the world witnessed the ugly reality of apartheid.
Nelson Mandela said that in his cell on Robben Island, where he served 16 years, prisoners celebrated when they heard that a 1981 rugby match between Waikato and the Springboks had been called off because anti-apartheid protesters had invaded the pitch. They grabbed the bars on their cell doors and rattled the doors inside the prison. It was like the sun had come out, Mandela said.
The positive power of sport and sports boycotts was demonstrated when South Africa was excluded and then expelled from the Olympic movement. This intervention led to a quicker end to apartheid in South Africa. Such positive impacts have been demonstrated many times in international sport.
“Like apartheid-era South Africa, Israel uses participation in international sport as a means to normalize systematic discrimination against Palestinians. Palestinians have responded with the same calls for boycott that black South Africans did. Palestinian civil society groups call on us to isolate Israel and hold it accountable for violations of international law and crimes against humanity.
The indiscriminate killings taking place in Gaza, described by many as the first live-streamed massacre, are just the latest example of Israeli leaders' industrial-scale slaughter of Palestinians. In January this year, Israel killed Palestinian Olympic soccer coach Hani al-Masdar and destroyed the offices of the Palestinian Olympic Committee in Gaza.
The committee states it is “politically neutral but not apolitical,” noting that the world knows about the steps it took to hold Russia accountable after its invasion of Ukraine.
Last year, the IOC banned Russia and Belarus from officially representing the country at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Athletes from both countries were told they could not compete under their country's flag and could only compete as “individual neutral athletes” as long as they did not “actively support war” and were not “contracted with the Russian or Belarusian military or state security services.”
We call on the Council to hold Israel accountable using the same measures it has taken in the cases of Russia and Belarus.
Given what humanity has witnessed over the past eight months, it is inexcusable that Israel should be allowed to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics. We believe that Israel should be banned from participating in international sporting organizations and events until it ceases its gross violations of international law, particularly its apartheid policy and the genocidal policies/practices it is carrying out in Gaza.
As we have said, the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board has taken decisive action when European countries have been attacked, and as opinion polls attest to the vast majority of humanity, we expect it to do the same against the country responsible for the indiscriminate murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion, every life deserves equal consideration from the Olympic Movement.
We look forward to hearing from you.
For solidarity, justice and peace.
Chandra Muzaffar
Hassanal Noor Rashid
Amjad Al-Qasis
Professor Joseph Camilleri
Professor Junaid Ahmad
Lisa Pires
Lana Latour
Lubna Shomali
Naeem Jina
Nasser Ibrahim
Ranjan Solomon
Nida Arif
Rifat Cassis
Professor Shad Faruqi
Noor Hakim Ismail
Professor Ilan Pappe
Steve Riddle
John Mint
