Basketball Ireland Allows Sports Washing Opportunity For Apartheid Israel
Last Thursday, Ireland’s women’s national basketball team played the Apartheid state of Israel in a FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2025 Qualifier in Riga, Latvia. In the weeks and days leading up to the fixture, Basketball Ireland, the national authority for the sport in the country, along with a majority of the playing squad, disregarded calls to respect the sports boycott against Israel called by the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement (BDS).
In the midst of Apartheid Israel’s genocide against the men, women and children of Gaza, calls to boycott the fixture came from across Irish society, with many sporting organisations and high-profile sportspeople involved in basketball, Gaelic football, hurling, soccer, rugby and athletics calling for Ireland’s women’s national basketball team to boycott the fixture in a show of opposition to the Apartheid state of Israel and the unspeakable crimes they are perpetrating against the people of Palestine.
Five members of the team made the courageous decision to boycott the fixture, but unfortunately their team mates decided against taking the same action.
Israel’s women’s national basketball team showing their support for the IOF.
In the days leading up to the fixture, Basketball Ireland released a statement attempting to rationalise their stance, citing the position of FIBA Europe, the governing body of the sport on the continent.
“We are all very concerned about the events unfolding in Gaza and are extremely sympathetic to the dreadful situation that people are having to deal with. Since the conflict arose, Basketball Ireland has been in regular correspondence with FIBA Europe, where we have raised strong concerns about these fixtures with Israel, including the option to not play the games, however FIBA Europe is insistent that we fulfil the fixtures, the first of which will be in a neutral venue in Riga, Latvia, on February 8th.”
The statement continued,
“Basketball Ireland would be subject to a fine from FIBA Europe of up to €80,000 should we fail to fulfil the fixture with Israel in Riga next month. An additional fine of up to €100,000 would also be levied should we not play the return fixture later this year. Basketball Ireland would also be removed from FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers and also barred from competing in the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2027 Qualifiers, resulting in an effective 5-year ban from competing at international level for our senior women’s team.”
FIBA Europe is the same body which was quick to expel both Russia and Belarus from participation in international competition following the formers illegal invasion of Ukraine, yet it still enthusiastically backs the membership and participation of the Apartheid state of Israel in its events. This is despite the Apartheid state of Israel being engaged in a vicious campaign of genocide against the people of Palestine that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 Palestinians, almost 13,000 of which are children.
Regardless of FIBA Europe’s threats to sanction Basketball Ireland for the non-fulfilment of the fixture, the organisation had an opportunity to stand against apartheid and genocide, and in doing so exposing the hypocrisy of FIBA Europe. But it decided against taking such a stance.
An IOF in the foreground with Israel’s women’s national basketball team training in the background.
Only days before the fixture was due to take place, Apartheid Israel’s women’s basketball players took part in a final training session before facing Ireland - a training session in which they invited armed members of the Israeli Offence Forces to attend, allowing a chance for players to show their support to the IOF’s actions in Gaza. No condemnation of this incident was forthcoming from either Basketball Ireland or FIBA Europe.
The genocide in Gaza, including the murders of countless Palestinian sportspeople, and open shows of support for the IOF from Apartheid Israel’s players were not enough to register any outrage from Basketball Ireland, that is of course until they were accused of anti-semitism by their opposition.
The day before the match, Israeli basketballer Dor Saar slandered the Ireland team as "quite anti-Semitic". Basketball Ireland declared these comments as "inflammatory and wholly inaccurate", with the organisation then spurring into action, releasing a statement declaring that its players would not take part in "traditional pre-match arrangements".
The squad declined to line-up alongside the Israeli squad for the singing of the national anthems, as well as refusing to shake the hands of their opposition.
Players from Israel’s women’s national basketball team stand talking to IOF soldier Hagi Michaeli.
These empty gestures, spurred on by false accusations against the squad itself rather than by outrage at Apartheid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, was met with condemnation from those in support of the genocide, and welcomed by some of those who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. But for many Palestine solidarity activists, these deeds were meaningless.
In the match itself Apartheid Israel ran out 87-57 winners, with many supporters of the genocide in Gaza seeing this as a major win in a decades long campaign of sports-washing that seeks to legitimatise the Apartheid state of Israel, the stealing of Palestinian land, and the ethnic cleansing of its population.
The international BDS Movement calls for a sporting boycott, as part of a wider cultural, academic and consumer boycott, against Apartheid Israel and it’s sports teams as,
“Israel has deliberately and systematically destroyed Palestinian stadiums and sports infrastructures and detained Palestinian players and athletes. It has restricted their freedom of movement, banning Palestinian athletes in the occupied West Bank from training with their counterparts in the Gaza Strip, and subjecting them to interrogations at checkpoints when traveling across the West Bank or abroad to take part in international competitions. Israeli forces have in the past deliberately targeted the feet of teenage Palestinian footballers with live ammunition.”
Palestinian civilians are arrested, stripped and humiliated by the IOF on the pitch of Gaza Stadium.
Irish sporting organisations should abide by these calls to boycott sports teams from the Apartheid state of Israel, just as Irish sports teams in the past boycotted sports teams from Apartheid South Africa. But it is up to each and every one of us to encourage Irish sporting bodies to decline participation in Apartheid Israel’s campaign of sports-washing, and if they choose to disregard these calls, we must hold them to account.
Opportunities to discourage Irish participation in Apartheid Israel’s sports-washing campaign will come up again in the very near future, with Ireland’s U-17 women’s football team set to fulfil a fixture against Apartheid Israel in Albania on the 23rd of February.
Over the coming months there is also a possibility that League of Ireland teams will be drawn against sides from Apartheid Israel in European competition, and in November Ireland’s women’s basketballers face Apartheid Israel again in qualification for EuroBasket 2025.
We need to be ready to oppose these attempts to sports-wash Apartheid Israel and their campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people!