Israel’s uncertain place in international sport

Opinion: FIFA’s decision on whether to suspend Israel from international football is due by the end of August, and it’s unclear what stance it will take.
Though FIFA and the International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from international competitions for about 30 years because of its apartheid policies, neither have so far implemented a ban against Israel.
This is despite the International Court of Justice delivering a watershed non-binding advisory opinion a week before the Paris Olympics, declaring Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestine illegal.
Human rights advocates have claimed the court’s opinion as an historic ruling that found Israel responsible for apartheid.
Football’s global governing body postponed – until after the Paris Olympics – the outcome of a legal review requested by the Palestinian Football Association in May to suspend Israel, which in effect opened the door for the Israeli men’s football team to participate in the Olympics.
FIFA said both parties had made requests for extensions “to submit their respective positions” and that the independent assessment would now be shared with FIFA by August 31 at the latest.
Why was Israel permitted to participate in the Olympics and how will FIFA proceed?
In the 10 months since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel killed 1200 people, 110 of 230 hostages taken are still held by Hamas. Israel’s retaliation war on Hamas has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians – 16,500 of whom are children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Hamas says about 10,000 Palestinian airstrike victims are considered missing, buried in collapsed buildings. Schools, hospitals, universities, agricultural and commercial infrastructure and sporting facilities, which Israel’s military says it has targeted as Hamas command centres, have been eviscerated.
The International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, its land annexation and settlement policies, its exploitation of Palestinian natural resources, its continued displacement of Palestinian citizens, its offensive in Gaza, and the extension of Israeli laws into the Occupied Palestinian Territories breached the laws of international human rights.
The court found Israel guilty of implementing discriminatory racial segregation between Palestinians and Israelis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Neither International Olympic Committee chiefs nor the French government objected to Israel’s participation in the Games, despite there being a historical precedent.
Further to its Olympic Games ban, apartheid South Africa was expelled from the International Olympic Committee altogether in 1970 for violating the fundamental principles of Olympism, which prohibit any form of discrimination.
New Zealand almost found itself expelled too after 28 African nations boycotted its presence at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games because of its ongoing support for white apartheid sport.
Israel now violates those same principles but has not been sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee. This comes on the back of the committee amending the Olympic Charter in 2023 to strengthen its human rights commitments – eight days after Israel launched its war on Hamas.
By the 1980s South Africans felt the bite of international economic sanctions, and a widely observed sporting boycott left apartheid representatives few allies with whom to compete. Only rugby – the cultural institution most valued by the white government and its support base –  remained afloat throughout apartheid, largely because of regular reciprocal tours with New Zealand.
Whether such a historical parallel will factor into FIFA’s decision surrounding Israel is not clear.
Both the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (modelled on the anti-apartheid movement) have called for boycotting Israeli sport.
Certainly the International Court of Justice verdict was clear in its expectation of the international community “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
For decades, Palestinians have asked the international community to recognise their daily realities as reincarnated apartheid. South Africans themselves, have until relatively recently, seemed surprisingly reticent to endorse Palestine’s apartheid pleas, perhaps given the cachet the term caries. 
Now the court’s ruling has brought that terminology front and centre.
In much the same way black South Africans were forcibly removed from lands reclassified and reserved as “Whites Only” areas, and their settlements were bulldozed, Palestinians have watched the illegal and violent annexation of areas for which they now require permits from Israel to re-enter.
And much like the apartheid Bantustans, most Palestinians living in the West Bank have been banished to the desolate and overcrowded Area A, where they are permitted a limited form of self-determination, while Israel has either partial or full control of the remaining 82 percent of the territory.
For Israel, the Games were an unparalleled success. Protests were limited and its athletes produced the country’s best-ever showing at the Games, returning with one gold, five silver, and one bronze.
The Times of Israel reported that athletes “brush[ed] off threats and boos” as they headed to France “with a goal of making their presence known and refusing to retreat in the face of threats and efforts to boycott and ban them”. 
New Zealand’s continued rugby ties with apartheid South Africa in the 1960s and 70s shored up white confidence in its regime, loosening the pressure for reform and arguably prolonging apartheid.
Israel too will be emboldened by its Olympic success.
FIFA has previously permitted Israeli club matches on land illegally annexed in the West Bank, whereas it expelled Russia – as did the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee – from international football within a week of their invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, leading the Palestinian Football Association President Jibril Rajoub to question whether FIFA considers “some wars to be more important than others, and some victims to be more significant”. 
With the Paralympics kicking off on August 28, Israel will so far be fielding 28 athletes at those Games unless the International Olympic Committee or the International Paralympic Committee intervenes.