Ban Israel from international sports and culture

Now do the same to Israel (Source: here)

It is time to ban Israel from all international cultural and sports activities, including the Olympics, World Championships, and bilateral and international cultural events, such as the Eurovision Song Contest.

In addition, it is time to step up the campaign to boycott all Israeli exports as well as tourism to Israel.

In the past couple of weeks, the people of Spain have taken a lead in protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza by targeting (using peaceful means) the participation of Israel Premier Tech (IPT) in the La Vuelta cycling race.

The Spanish people have been right to protest. IPT has no place in La Vuelta as long as Israel is killing 20,000 children in Gaza.

The Netherlands national broadcaster has also announced that it will join Slovenia, Iceland, Spain, and Ireland in boycotting next year's Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates. Other countries should join this initiative and broaden it to ensure Israel's exclusion from other cultural events too.

The Spanish protests and the Eurovision action are good starting points, but much more is needed. To get a sense of what is needed think back to Apartheid South Africa. During the height of Apartheid, South Africa was banned from participating in all international sports. The ban first came into effect at the Olympic Games in 1964 and South Africa was subsequently banned from most other international sports, including soccer due to the country’s overtly discriminatory racial policies.

The ban on Apartheid South Africa's participation in sports and cultural events was the result of a successful and well-coordinated global movement. United Nations and the Commonwealth both supported the sports boycott with the aim of pressuring South Africa to end Apartheid. Sanctions were not lifted until the Apartheid regime’s discriminatory laws were repealed in the early 1990s.

The case for isolating Israel is even stronger than the erstwhile case for banning Apartheid South Africa. Israel operate an extremely brutal and inhumane and overtly racist Apartheid system against Palestinians. Israel is also executing a vicious genocide in Gaza, which, ironically, now closely resembles an awful mix of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland and Lebensraum policies during the Nazi era.

To make matters worse, Israel remains in blatant breach of numerous UN resolutions, notably - but not confined to - UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on Israel’s expansion into Palestinian territories and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Israeli forces to be withdrawn from Lebanon. The UN has also passed numerous resolutions calling for Israel to end its "unlawful presence" in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In reality, the number of Israeli breaches of UN resolutions understate Israel’s pariah status, because many other resolutions, which have extremely broad global backing have been vetoed solely by the United States, whose foreign policy is heavily influenced by lobbyist from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

It is obvious to any objective observer that Israel has become a death cult, a regional pariah, a terror state. Israel must be reform or face complete ostracisation from the international community until such a time it conforms with international law, ends the occupation of foreign lands, and treats other races equally.

The End