{"id":57113,"date":"2025-08-09T14:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/57113\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T14:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:51:10","slug":"canada-must-boycott-davis-cup-match-with-israel-mondoweiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/57113\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada must boycott Davis Cup match with Israel \u2013 Mondoweiss"},"content":{"rendered":"

In mid-July, over thirty countries met in Colombia to discuss sanctions against Israel for its ongoing campaign in Gaza. In line with international law, twelve of those<\/a> countries resolved to immediately ban arms sales to Israel and appraise all public contracts for complicity with companies profiting from Israeli occupation and genocide. Those countries also reiterated their commitment to prosecute individuals guilty of war crimes in Gaza. The other countries at the meeting indicated the possibility of signing on to these forms of sanction by mid-September.<\/p>\n

Canada, which has just announced<\/a> that it may conditionally recognize a Palestinian state in September, was not among either group.<\/p>\n

Instead, at just about the same moment in mid-September that others will further contemplate sanctions and a growing number of nations will acknowledge Palestinian sovereignty, Canada will host<\/a> Israel in a tie of the the Davis Cup international tennis tournament in Halifax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Canadian scholars of exploitation and harm in sport, we consider that decision to be an egregious and indefensible violation of Canada\u2019s responsibility to international law and a basic commitment to human rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It must be reversed.<\/p>\n

How can Canada consider inviting a country onto our tennis courts that has effectuated atrocity?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Between October 2023 and January 2025, Nature<\/a> reports that 84,000 people have died in Gaza as a consequence of Israel\u2019s campaign of reprisal for Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, more than half of whom were children, women aged 18-64, or people over 65. More recently, at least 800 people have been killed between May and July 2025 by Israeli troops and American mercenaries at GHF \u2018aid\u2019 sites as they desperately seek provisions due to Israel\u2019s deliberate blockade of Gaza, which has produced conditions<\/a> of ever-worsening mass starvation<\/a>. At this moment, the UNRWA has said<\/a> that they have \u201cenough food for the entire population of Gaza\u201d for three months sitting at the Egyptian border, forcibly denied entry to Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, these events have been widely characterized as a genocide<\/a> by those with scholarly expertise<\/a> in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sport is no mere triviality amid this horror. As of late June 2025, the Palestinian Football Association has recorded the deaths<\/a> of 785 Palestinian athletes and athletic officials at the hands of Israel, including 437 footballers (Palestine\u2019s most popular sport), since October 7, 2023. At least nine<\/a> additional deaths have been documented in July 2025. In an academic journal article currently under review, we have characterized this systematic practice of targeting Palestinian athletes, coaches, and sporting infrastructure by Israel as athleticide, a modality of genocide designed to undermine and erase a people\u2019s identity through the destruction of one of their most popular and visible forms of cultural expression.<\/p>\n

In fact, amid growing global condemnation of Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, sport has become a key battleground in the campaign to hold the Israeli state accountable. As the regime faces a deepening crisis of legitimacy, calls to sanction Israel in international sport have intensified. This includes what has been called \u201csport hasbara\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the strategic use of sport to promote a positive image of Israel and deflect criticism of its policies.<\/p>\n

One recent example of this practice is the organized NBA player trips to Israel in the mid 2010\u2019s, led by Israeli NBA players or those who have played in Israel. Although nominally apolitical, the purpose of these trips has in fact been characterized by organizer and former NBA player Omri Casspi in the Israeli media as \u2018combatting\u2019 the BDS movement.<\/a> As Casspi explained, \u201cfor most of them it is their first time in Israel. They are here and now they get to see who we really are\u2026Some of them thought that people here were running around and shooting each other in the street. And now they see how different the reality is versus what they thought is going on here. It is a lot of fun to see them playing with the local kids, and it was a really moving experience to be at the Western Wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most Israelis, members of the Israeli Davis Cup team slated to play in Canada have served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Daniel Cukierman, the top-ranked player on the team, has said of the IDF in an interview<\/a> prior to October 7, 2023, \u201cI think Israel is a special place for someone to grow up an athlete because we have the Army\u2026. being Israeli means serving in the Army and we take pride in that, despite the disadvantages it can cause to an athlete developing their career.\u201d Cukierman\u2019s father Edouard \u2013 who immigrated from France specifically to enter the army as an 18-year-old, and was an IDF spokesperson for 15 years following his service \u2013 is a venture capitalist and \u2018international advocate for Israel\u2019<\/a> who funds startups in the high tech sector, as well other companies that \u201cbecome vital cogs in the well-oiled IDF machine\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By welcoming this Israeli team onto Canadian soil to participate in competition, Canada has elected to tacitly endorse Israel\u2019s nearly two-year-long relentless assault on Gaza\u2013and in effect participate in the production of sport hasbara.<\/p>\n

Yet, it is not too late to reverse course.<\/p>\n

There is considerable precedent for sports as a site of political boycott and resistance to human rights violations. From 1964 until 1988<\/a>, South Africa was banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because of its system of Apartheid, which in part prohibited non-white people from representing the country in sports. Similarly, the IOC and FIFA<\/a> have taken recent stances against Russia\u2019s imperialist campaign in Ukraine, banning the national team from participation in major international events.<\/p>\n

Still, to date, there has been a Palestine Exception<\/a> to the application of these principles by the IOC and FIFA, despite major public campaigns<\/a> and legal efforts<\/a> to the contrary.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there have been examples of athletic protest specifically against Israel.<\/p>\n

Arab and Muslim countries<\/a> boycotted Israel in athletic competitions as early as the 1970s. Iranian athletes specifically have refused to compete against Israelis since 1979. More recently<\/a>, former Irish national basketball captain Rebecca O\u2019Keeffe called for her team to boycott a match against Israel. While the call was ultimately not fully heeded, the team did refuse to shake hands and take part in pre-game formalities, including the Israeli national anthem.<\/p>\n

Canada doesn\u2019t just have a moral obligation to follow these examples; it is actually required to do so by international law.<\/p>\n

According to the International Court of Justice\u2019s 2024 Advisory Opinion on Israel and the Occupied Territories<\/a>, all UN member states \u2013 including Canada \u2013 have an obligation not to render aid or assistance to cultural activities that sustain or maintain the unlawful occupation<\/a>. It is plain that international sporting competitions are prime examples of cultural activities that legitimize Israel\u2019s position in the world order as it violates international law. Similarly, in UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese\u2019s recent report<\/a> on economic complicities in the genocide, she makes it abundantly clear that \u201ccorporate relations with Israel must cease until the occupation and apartheid end and reparations are made.\u201d This principle applies directly to Tennis Canada.<\/p>\n

Canada thus has a clear moral and legal obligation not to host Israel in any international sporting competition, including the Davis Cup\u2013a fact at least implicitly acknowledged by its own Foreign Minister in a recent shared statement<\/a> with 24 other states and the EU that concludes, \u201cWe are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have no doubt officials with Tennis Canada were dismayed to see their team\u2019s draw, knowing that it would put them in this difficult position. Withdrawing from the competition out of protest would be a challenging financial decision and a profoundly disappointing one for competitive athletes who strive to have opportunities like this over entire careers. That is not a decision any athletic organization ever wants to have to make.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be real here. No humane person could possibly suggest that those downsides outweigh the illegal and immoral alternative: tacitly endorsing and thus actively abetting ongoing genocide.<\/p>\n

Yet, as of now, that is the choice that has been made by Tennis Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to redress it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In mid-July, over thirty countries met in Colombia to discuss sanctions against Israel for its ongoing campaign in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-57113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}