Captain Eli Dasa (r.) and Dor Peretz now want to lead Israel to their second major tournament after the 1970 World Cup.
Photo: imago/Jari Pestelacci
Iceland’s footballers can qualify for the European Championships in Germany in the playoffs, but their coach Åge Hareide has reservations about their opponents. “If you ask me personally, I would hesitate to play against Israel as things stand,” Hareide said 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’s national team in Budapest this Thursday. But Hareide spoke about the more than 31,000 Palestinians who, according to the UN, were killed during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. Around two thirds of them are said to be women and children. Now there is a threat of famine. “It’s very, 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.”
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Many sports associations, politicians and human rights groups are going one step further and calling for a boycott. The Middle East conflict in football: Twelve national associations from the Middle East are calling for Israel to be excluded from FIFA. The initiator was Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, 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 are spreading the slogan “Ban Israel.”
In February, 26 members of the French Parliament sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) calling for 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 for petitions. One comes from former Irish basketball player Rebecca O’Keeffe. Around 400 athletes are rallying behind their campaign: “Irish Sport for Palestine”. In their argument, these initiatives also refer to the Olympic Charter, which states: “Everyone must have the opportunity to practice sport without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit.”
In view of the consequences of war in sport, numerous organizations are demanding that Israel be treated in the same way as Russia. After the attack on Ukraine, Russia was banned from international sports. Many athletes, coaches and officials are also among the dead in Gaza, including Olympic football coach Hani Al Masdar. Dozens of sports fields, halls and association rooms 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.
But the international sports associations do not want to put Israel and Russia on the same level. When asked, the IOC recalled the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in October 2023. The reason: The ROC had tied the sports administrations in the occupied Ukrainian territories to itself and, according to the IOC, thus violated the “territorial integrity of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine «. The Olympic committees from Israel and Palestine, however, did not “extend their jurisdiction beyond their own area.”
The Palestinian sports organizations reject this interpretation and recall their everyday life before the current war. Their athletes were often held at checkpoints in the West Bank and the import of their sports equipment was made difficult.
In Israel, on the other hand, politics and sport seem to be concerned with diplomacy. “I trust that FIFA will not involve politics in football,” said Niv Goldstein, managing director of the Israeli Football Association. In addition, he emphasized, Israel has a right to self-defense. On October 7th, the terrorist organization Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped more than 230 to Gaza. Israeli media and security authorities also use sport in their line of defense. Accordingly, rockets are also said to have been fired from sports fields in Gaza, Palestinian football teams were sometimes used as recruiting cells and some sports fields in the West Bank were named after terrorists.
If Israel’s footballers win the first playoff duel against Iceland in the European Championship qualification, they would face Ukraine or Bosnia-Herzegovina on 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, for example, had to be brought to safety after a bomb threat in Bern.
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 European Championships and the Olympics.
The IOC and Europe’s football association Uefa emphasize that they are not planning any sanctions against Israel. Presumably also because influential nations in sports such as the USA, Germany and France are on Israel’s side. But will other 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 sponsors are also holding back because they can only lose in this area of tension. Sportswear manufacturer Puma is letting its contract with Israel’s football association expire, a decision that was reportedly made as early as 2022. In Israel, Puma was heavily criticized, and supporters of the boycott demands celebrated it as their own success.
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