The Politicization of International Hockey and Soccer

By Henry Srebrnik, Saint John Telegraph-Journal

The Winter Olympics, including the men’s hockey tournament, are over, and the winners of the hockey medals were the United States gold, Canada silver, and Finland bronze. The American media were over the moon. But actually, they should all have an asterisk beside their awards, because a major hockey power, Russia, was not allowed to compete in the games.

The politicisation of international sports has also roiled soccer. There has been talk of a potential boycott of the World Cup being hosted by the United States, along with Canada and Mexico, this summer.

The Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RIHF) was not admitted to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Council meeting held Jan. 21 and expressed its disappointment at not being able to participate. The RIHF announced it would appeal the IIHF’s decision to disqualify its teams from participating in international competitions during the 2026-2027 season to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Meanwhile, as a result of the continuing ban, prominent Russian players within the National Hockey League, as well as players in other leagues, were conspicuous by their absence this year. They included Alex Ovechkin – the all-time NHL goal scoring leader – and major stars like Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy,

With no Russian team, it wasn’t “real.” You simply cannot describe this as being the best of the best in the world without a nation that accounts for approximately 6.8 per cent of the players in the top professional hockey league. Who would watch the Stanley Cup playoffs if the seven NHL teams were excluded from even competing? Who today would condone major league baseball fielding all-white teams, which was the case before Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947?

It’s not just that a Russian team couldn’t play. Their presence might have made a difference in how the other teams ended up. Some might have done better, others less so, had they also played against Russia. And that could have affected the final standings.

“We were hoping for this year, but I guess not and it’s tough,” Boston Bruins player Nikita Zadarov told the ESPN television network. “Everyone is excited about the Olympics but us,” Columbus Blue Jackets Kirill Marchenko stated prior to the opening. “And of course we would love to be at the Olympics. Russia would have a great team because our roster would have looked so nice.”

Artemi Panarin of the Los Angles Kings suggested that “probably 98 per cent of the hockey players would love to play against us and they’re not thinking about anything else.” Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals star, who would have been the likely pick to captain a Russian Olympic squad, didn’t comment publicly.

Russia is also banned from international soccer. But the role of U.S. in hosting soccer’s World Cup has also come into question in recent months. It has even led to a cross-party group of politicians in Great Britain signing a motion in parliament calling on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to consider expelling the U.S. FIFA is the governing body that organizes soccer events all over the world.

With relations between Europe and the United States strained, calls for European teams to boycott the tournament are beginning to gain traction. Politicians, fans and soccer executives are among those who believe that the actions of President Donald Trump’s administration, particularly in relation to his calls to annex Greenland, a Danish entity, make participating in the competition problematic.

It isn’t just Danish politicians who could be forced to consider their options. In Germany, Roderich Kiesewetter sits on the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee and expressed his concerns. “If Trump follows through on his announcements and threats regarding Greenland and starts a trade war with the EU, it's hard for me to imagine European countries participating in the World Cup,” he told the Augsburg Allgemeine newspaper.

Dutch broadcaster Teun van de Keuken has backed a public petition urging withdrawal from the competition while French parliamentarian Eric Coquerel has warned that participation risks legitimising policies that he argued undermine international human rights standards.

The producer of television and radio programs is leading a petition against participation by the Netherlands. He is now looking for the best way to get the petition to a broader global audience and tap into what he believes is broad fan dissatisfaction with the tournament. “This boycott idea is now popular amongst football fans, like me,” he contends. “I wouldn't like it if this happens as we won’t have a World Cup. But I think now the political situation is more important.”

Meanwhile, African countries, especially those with Muslim populations, are also contemplating a boycott due to Washington’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza. A coordinated boycott would require joint decisions by governments representing the qualified teams -- Morocco, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cape Verde and South Africa -- supported by the African Union, regional institutions and the Confederation of African Football.

But none of this will fly. After all, Trump was handed the “FIFA Peace Prize” at the World Cup draw in Washington D.C. in December, with FIFA President Gianni Infantino telling Trump, “We want to see hope, we want to see unity, we want to see a future. This is what we want to see from a leader.”

 

 

Israel Has Always Been Treated Differently

By Henry Srebrnik, Jewish Post, Winnipeg

We think of the period between 1948 and 1967 as one where Israel was largely accepted by the international community and world opinion, in large part due to revulsion over the Nazi Holocaust. Whereas the Arabs in the former British Mandate of Palestine were, we are told, largely forgotten.

But that’s actually not true. Israel declared its independence on May 14,1948 and fought for its survival in a war lasting almost a year into 1949. A consequence was the expulsion and/or flight of most of the Arab population. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, millions of other people across the world were also driven from their homes, and boundaries were redrawn in Europe and Asia that benefited the victorious states, to the detriment of the defeated countries. That is indeed forgotten.

Israel was not admitted to the United Nations until May 11, 1949. Admission was contingent on Israel accepting and fulfilling the obligations of the UN Charter, including elements from previous resolutions like the November 29, 1947 General Assembly Resolution 181, the Partition Plan to create Arab and Jewish states in Palestine. This became a dead letter after Israel’s War of Independence. The victorious Jewish state gained more territory, while an Arab state never emerged. Those parts of Palestine that remained outside Israel ended up with Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank). They were occupied by Israel in 1967, after another defensive war against Arab states.

And even at that, we should recall, UN support for the 1947 partition plan came from a body at that time dominated by Western Europe and Latin American states, along with a Communist bloc temporarily in favour of a Jewish entity, at a time when colonial powers were in charge of much of Asia and Africa. Today, such a plan would have had zero chance of adoption.

After all, on November 10, 1975, the General Assembly, by a vote of 72 in favour, 35 against, with 32 abstentions, passed Resolution 3379, which declared Zionism “a form of racism.” Resolution 3379 officially condemned the national ideology of the Jewish state. Though it was rescinded on December 16, 1991, most of the governments and populations in these countries continue to support that view.

As for the Palestinian Arabs, were they forgotten before 1967? Not at all. The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 194 on December 11, 1948, stating that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.” This is the so-called right of return demanded by Israel’s enemies.

As well, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established Dec. 8, 1949. UNRWA’s mandate encompasses Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war and subsequent conflicts, as well as their descendants, including legally adopted children. More than 5.6 million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA as refugees. It is the only UN agency dealing with a specific group of refugees. The millions of all other displaced peoples from all other wars come under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Yet UNRWA has more staff than the UNHRC.

But the difference goes beyond the anomaly of two structures and two bureaucracies. In fact, they have two strikingly different mandates. UNHCR seeks to resettle refugees; UNRWA does not. When, in 1951, John Blanford, UNRWA’s then-director, proposed resettling up to 250,000 refugees in nearby Arab countries, those countries reacted with rage and refused, leading to his departure. The message got through. No UN official since has pushed for resettlement.

Moreover, the UNRWA and UNHCR definitions of a refugee differ markedly. Whereas the UNHCR services only those who’ve actually fled their homelands, the UNRWA definition covers “the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948,” without any generational limitations.

Israel is the only country that’s the continuous target of three standing UN bodies established and staffed solely for the purpose of advancing the Palestinian cause and bashing Israel -- the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People; and the Division for Palestinian Rights in the UN’s Department of Political Affairs.

Israel is also the only state whose capital city, Jerusalem, with which the Jewish people have been umbilically linked for more than 3,000 years, is not recognized by almost all other countries.

So from its very inception until today, Israel has been treated differently than all other states, even those, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Sudan, immersed in brutal civil wars from their very inception. Newscasts, when reporting about the West Bank, use the term Occupied Palestinian Territories, though there are countless such areas elsewhere on the globe.

Even though Israel left Gaza in September 2005 and is no longer in occupation of the strip (leading to its takeover by Hamas, as we know), this has been contested by the UN, which though not declaring Gaza “occupied” under the legal definition, has referred to Gaza under the nomenclature of “Occupied Palestinian Territories.” It seems Israel, no matter what it does, can’t win. For much of the world, it is seen as an “outlaw” state.