Belfast (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Nagham Abu Samrah was 24 years old Palestinian karate champion from Gaza. She had the potential to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympic games. Unfortunately, an Israeli attack on her home killed her sister and left her seriously wounded . Unconscionably, Israeli authorities delayed her permission to leave Gaza for treatment, and when she finally reached an Egyptian hospital, she died soon thereafter.
Sadly, Nagham was not the only Palestinian athlete to have been killed by Israel. In its letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) urging it to ban Israel from participating in Paris Olympics, The Palestinian Olympic Committee pointed out that since October 7, “Approximately 400 Palestinian athletes have been killed, and the destruction of sports facilities exacerbates the plight of athletes who are already under severe restrictions.”
Israel invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, in violation of international law. No international body had ever awarded Gaza to Israel. It was under the stewardship of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and Egypt until a Palestinian state could be established, as had been pledged by the British Empire in the 1939 MacDonald White Paper. Israel “de-developed” the Gaza economy, cutting it off from its traditional markets, and illegally implanted Israeli settlers there. As Michael Jansen explained, the International Court of Justice ruled in mid-July, 2024, that Israel’s presence in Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank since 1967 has been illegal:
- The Court contended that Israel has violated international law by denying Palestinians their right to self-determination in the territories occupied in 1967. The ICJ argued that Israel’s 57-year occupation is permanent rather than “temporary . . .” The ICJ said Israel violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates belligerent occupation, by transferring its citizens into the occupied lands. Israel has illegally extended Israeli law to the settlements and has imposed on Palestinians a separate, discriminatory regime (akin to outlawed apartheid) and de facto illegally annexing the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Deliberate attacks on Palestinian men and women athletes are not new. In 2014, two Palestinian soccer players, Jawhar Nasser Jawhar and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, were stopped by the Israeli army on their way home after training and shot in the feet. Attack dogs, unleashed on them, mauled their limbs. They were dragged and beaten until the attackers were sure they would never be able to play soccer again.
In fact, Israel’s war on Palestinian sports in general is much older than that. I remember as a child during the first uprising between the years 1987 and 1993 which involved stone-throwing, the Israeli authorities suspended the soccer league and, indeed, sport activities. Israel also used the local soccer stadium in Nablus city as a military camp.
BBC Video: “The Palestinian Olympic athletes competing in Paris 2024”
As we all know, Palestinian athletes are not the only target of Israel. Well over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza alone and more than 90,000 have been wounded since October 7, 2023. That this total war and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians (as most of them have been) could be justified as “fighting Hamas” is not plausible. It is a war on Gaza’s noncombatants, including its athletes.
It is profoundly troubling that Israel’s flag bearer in the Olympics, Peter Paltchik, is reported to have signed bombs targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Peter, who was born in Ukraine, is a settler colonialist who came from Europe to colonize the land of Palestine while cheering the savagery inflicted on the indigenous Palestinians by Israel.
Given all of the above, the normal response from the International Olympic Committee would have been to ban Israel from participating in the Olympics. Unfortunately, however, the opposite happened. While Nagham and hundreds of other Palestinian athletes were killed by Israel before being given the opportunity to participate in the Olympics, Israel is there in Paris, since the IOC ignored calls to ban Israel from participating. By doing that, the IOC let itself down before anyone else.
This stance shows that the IOC is unprincipled and morally bankrupt organization. Nearly two years ago, it banned Russia and Belarus from participating in the Olympics after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Russia, is banned by the European Union also from participating in any continental or international competition including the FIFA World Cup and all the European UEFA competitions. Israel is not even in Europe, and is guilty of the same crimes of illegal invasion and occupation as Russia. This situation makes the FIFA, IOC and UEFA complicit with the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Furthermore, the IOC banned Apartheid South Africa from participating in the Olympics between the years 1964 and 1992 due to its implementation of racist policies known as apartheid. Ironically, the International Court of Justice has found that Israel is guilty of the crime of Apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.Still, the IOC failed to treat Apartheid Israel in the same way it treated Apartheid South Africa — which was an ally of apartheid Israel. International sanctions on South Africa Apartheid regime were crucial to bringing the era of racial segregation and discrimination to an end.
The IOC and France missed an opportunity to pressure Israel to stop the bloodshed and to be on the right side of history. They chose not to do so at the expense of their reputation and credibility. They also ensured Israel’s status as a state that can act with full impunity.
The appropriate response for that would have been for the governments that declared their support for the Palestinians to send a strong message to the IOC and France by boycotting the Olympics or at least to show some other form of protest against allowing Israel to participate in the Olympics. But unfortunately, politics and foreign policies are more likely to be based on interests, not ethics. Some governments will only pay lip service to the Palestinian cause as long as it serves their interests — something that we the Palestinians seem to struggle to understand. This collective failure of the international community to act will only encourage Israel to continue uninterrupted with its daily murder of the Palestinians, the bulk of whom are women and children.
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