Earlier this year the Adelaide-based Australian Friends of Palestine Association planned and delivered a campaign to protest WOMADelaide, Adelaide’s premier music festival. The board of this festival had defended and lauded Zionist supporter, Ziggy Marley, and promoted political activism from a Ukrainian group. Meanwhile a Palestinian group, 47 Soul, was disinvited from this event. Our protest of this shameful prejudice galvanised considerable support within the confines of the event in the local community and even built international connections with political activists in New Zealand where Ziggy Marley was an invited guest of WOMADNZ.
Our organisation is now in the midst of an international campaign to ensure that an Israeli team is not registered for any events in the International Cycling World Tour 2025 and especially with the South Australian Tour Down Under.
Until recent years we have always been proud that our city hosts the Tour Down Under, which is considered the pre-eminent cycling Tour in the Southern Hemisphere. However, in 2023 and 2024 we were surprised and disappointed to find that the Israel Premier-Tech team was racing in Adelaide.
Due to the work of AFOPA’s BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaigns many people in our city have rejected the presence of businesses and cultural events that whitewash the crimes of the state of Israel. For example, Israeli businesses like Max Brenner chocolate shops which set up in the heart of the city amid great fanfare, found their café bereft of customers and had to close after a few months. So in January 2024 three months into the genocide in Gaza many of Adelaide’s citizens were appalled that the Israeli flag was flying high over our city in the line-up of international cycling teams. We protested and that same night “persons unknown” removed the flag and it was not replaced. An Israeli branded cycling team was not welcome in 2024 and will be even less welcome in Adelaide in 2025 as the genocide in Gaza continues and the occupation persists in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
As part of our TDU campaign we have written to members of the Union Cycliste Internationale’s (UCI’s) Management Committee which is international cycling’s governing body requesting that they suspend all Israeli branded teams and Israeli cyclists in international Tour events. We reminded them that the presence of any Israeli branded team in UCI competitions while Israel is prosecuting ethnic cleansing and genocide against the people of Gaza will damage their organisation’s reputation.
We also noted that a precedent has been set for our request. The UCI favourably responded to Frank Slevin’s (British Cycling President’s) request to suspend Russia and Belarus as a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine. In May 2023 the UCI Management Committee approved severe sanctions on Russia and Belarus:
…the non-acceptance of any application for registration of Russian or Belarussian teams as UCI Teams in any discipline and the ban of the use of any emblem, name, acronym, flag or anthem linked to Russia or Belarus.
The UCI Management Committee’s hypocrisy is evident in their condemnation of the aggression of Ukraine by the Russian government and call for a rapid resolution of the conflict in accordance with the provisions of international law, while in contrast they appear perfectly happy that their events are being used by wealthy individuals to sportswash the well documented crimes of Israel. For example, the Israeli-Canadian billionaire, Sylvan Adams, bankrolls the Israel Premier-Tech team and the euphemistically named “Peace Ride” through Israel, Bahrain and UAE.
Adams uses his money to buy talented cyclists to achieve a simple goal, to sportswash Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. As Adams admitted in the Jewish Chronicle he is using some of the best cyclists in the world so that the idea of “Israel is being disseminated to hundreds of millions of people. It’s the culmination of a personal passion and a worldwide advertising board to win hearts and minds to the Israeli cause”.
As we know the Israeli cause is the Zionist settler colonial project which is murdering and ethnically cleansing the indigenous inhabitants, the Palestinians.
Boards like the UCI and WOMADelaide make a mockery of the commonly held belief that sport and art are above politics and somehow more sacred than other pursuits. Financial and political considerations seem paramount and it would appear that the boards favour countries which have a common denominator; their military adventures are backed by the US government.
Finally, in addition to all of the above, it is essential to recognise that the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of 19 July requires member States, that is all States which nominate representatives to the UCI, to cease all ties with Israel, including sporting ties, until Israel ceases the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.
Margaret Cassar
Margaret Cassar Executive Member of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association Convenor of Adelaide BDS movement
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