Palestinians call to exclude genocidal Israel from baseball ⚾
The Israeli national baseball team is set to participate in the US Major League Baseball’s World Baseball Classic (@wbcbaseball) 2026, taking place 5-17 March in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Miami and Houston in the United States, and Tokyo, Japan.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including more than 800 sportspeople, among them:
- Mustafa Ahmad Abd Tafesh, Palestine Baseball National Team;
- Ashraf Awad Murad, former national team player and director of the Palestinian Federation of Baseball and Softball (PFBS);
- Mohannad Khalil Mahmoud Ayoub, Hilal Sports Club baseball player;
- Ahmad Ali Ahmad Al-Gharbawi, 17-year-old baseball player;
- Basant Khaled Zuhdi Joudeh, 14-year-old softball player;
- Esraa Abd Ahmad Tafesh, PFBS Competitions Committee member.
In addition, all Palestinian sporting facilities in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by Israeli attacks.
The Israeli national baseball team is the public face of the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB), which includes multiple venues on stolen Palestinian land, including in the illegal settlements of Efrat and Hashmona’im. Israel’s illegal settlement regime constitutes a war crime according to international law and triggers the legal obligations of the ICJ ruling not to recognize or facilitate Israel’s illegal occupation in any way.
The World Baseball and Softball Confederation (@wbsc), of which the IAB is a member, is in breach of the ICJ ruling. WBSC has failed to take any action to sanction genocidal Israel.
In the current era of Might-Makes-Right, it is more important than ever to ensure that the rule of law is consistently upheld.
📣We call on baseball players, teams, and fans around the world to join us in refusing to allow the sport to be used as cover for Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. Pressure WBSC to exclude apartheid Israel from the World Baseball Classic and to suspend its membership from WSBC until it respects the fundamental UN-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people.
It’s time for the umpire to yell, “Genocidal Israel, you’re out!”
Link to full statement in bio.
As mainstream support for genocidal Israel hits historic lows, any artist or institution crossing the nonviolent do-no-harm Palestinian picket line—to program a complicit film, to collaborate with a complicit Israeli institution, or to attend or host an Israel propaganda event—can only serve as an accomplice in genocidal Israel’s futile efforts to rehabilitate its image.
Even artists long known for both-sidesing apartheid like Sharon Stone—who reportedly cancelled an appearance at the regime-backed Israel Film Festival in LA earlier this month—perhaps recognize this today. It’s time @sundanceorg, @berlinale and others did the same. No storytelling that engages in artwashing or propaganda can be truly independent.
The European Society of Criminology (ESC) has voted overwhelmingly Against Whitewashing Israel's Atrocity Crimes.
ESC voted by a significant majority (62% of those expressing an opinion) in favor of requiring scholars from illegal settlement institutions to indicate in their affiliations such location in accordance with international law. This would require, for example, affiliations to illegal Israeli settlement institution Ariel University to be listed as located in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The membership also voted overwhelmingly (63% of those expressing an opinion) in favor of the society issuing statements condemning Israel’s atrocity crimes against Palestinians, including its war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.
The membership consultation by the ESC Executive Board was held thanks to awareness raising by Criminologists for Palestine (@criminologists4palestine - CFP) within the society calling for consistent respect for international law and a more ethical society.
The ESC Board’s membership consultation shamefully failed to address the elephant in the room, namely CfP’s primary demand for ESC to pledge no ties with complicit Israeli institutions. A vote by show of hands during the General Assembly at the 2025 EUROCRIM conference showed near consensus support from the ESC membership for such a motion, which was undemocratically blocked by the politically biased ESC Board.
ESC must now recognize the will of its membership and work transparently and inclusively to implement the policies resulting from the vote as a first step to ensure no complicity in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights and international law.
It must also necessarily go beyond the questions it raised in the membership consultation.
Link to the full statement in bio.
Genocidal Israel has used US thermal weapons to “evaporate” almost 3,000 Palestinians, an investigation reveals.
The BDS movement calls for an end to global Israeli-US impunity through meaningful accountability measures now. Boycott. Divest. Sanction.
In his speech at the European football governing body's 50th Congress, @UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin stated: “We will keep European football out of politics.”
Palestinians: Maybe keep Israel’s bombs out of our stadiums? All Palestinian sporting facilities in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by Israeli attacks.
Maybe #BanIsrael over its Gaza genocide, which has killed 400+ Palestinian footballers?
Maybe keep Israeli soldiers taking part in a genocide out of football? The Israel Football Association (IFA) has created a new “Reservist League” of 32 teams and hundreds of soldier players.
Maybe keep Israel’s colonial football teams and pitches off our land? The IFA includes in its official leagues teams in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
Maybe keep the head of the complicit Israel Football Association out of your Executive Council?
Until respects international law and bans apartheid Israel from football, let’s continue to peacefully disrupt matches.
A number of US corporations, all BDS targets, were so alarmed about their inclusion in a UN report on corporate complicity in Israel’s crimes that they asked Trump to intervene, according to a new investigation by Reuters. In response, Trump imposed illegal sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Francesa Albanese.
If there was ever a need for a global wave of resistance to this might-makes-right order, it is now.
BDS alert: According to a report from Argus Media, Venezuelan oil is being shipped to genocidal Israel through Italy, on the oil tanker Poliegos.
The BDS movement calls on trade unions, grassroots movements and wider civil society to act now and stop this vessel.
Dockworkers in over twenty Mediterranean ports launched strikes and protests against war and rearmament on a historic international day of action on 6 February.
Workers also sent a message against genocide, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people — in Türkiye, Greece, Italy, France and the Spanish State — refusing to be complicit in the shipment of military materiel, energy and other materials that enable Israel’s occupation, apartheid and genocide against Palestinians.
Due to inspiring workers’ actions, vessels operated by ZIM, apartheid Israel’s flagship shipping company, were reportedly left unable to dock in Italian ports for some time.
The BDS movement salutes dockworkers and trade unions everywhere refusing complicity in Israel’s atrocity crimes. We call on workers everywhere to escalate BDS pressure.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) calls on all principled scholars to boycott the conference “Opposing Racial Discrimination: Historical Struggles and Legal Perspectives” to be held at Hebrew University, May 11-12, 2026.
How can a conference purporting to address the role of international law in confronting racial prejudice be held at an institution complicit in grave crimes such as apartheid and genocide?
During Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, Hebrew University has openly declared it has provided “diverse logistics equipment to several military units” serving in the genocide.
As legal scholars have noted, Hebrew University is partially built on land illegally expropriated from Palestinian owners in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem.
Hebrew University has additionally offered its campus buildings to Israeli forces for the express purpose of oppressing the surrounding occupied Palestinian communities. Hebrew University itself hosts a military base on campus to offer academic training to Israeli soldiers, including during times of genocide.
Hebrew University embodies absolute disregard for international law, racial justice and equality.
In the current era of might-makes-right, where universal principles are being shredded, we cannot allow, or afford for international law to be hijacked by those working to undermine it. This includes rogue states and their complicit institutions.
We call on principled scholars to boycott the conference and to work for accountability by ending institutional ties with Hebrew University and all complicit Israeli institutions.
Link in bio to statement.
BREAKING: Following the lead of the Spanish State and Slovenia, the Belgian federal government has passed a Royal-Decree Law implementing partial military-trade sanctions against Israel, citing the provisional measures and the “serious risk of genocide” indicated by the International Court of Justice.
This is an important win — but not a total victory. We need to keep up the pressure so that Belgium — and all states — implements a full, comprehensive military embargo, both at a regional and federal level, to fulfill its obligations under international law.
“Dockworkers don’t work for war!”
Our struggle for justice and liberation in Palestine is inseparable from the global struggles against systemic racism, exploitation, oppression, and climate devastation.
The BDS movement salutes the upcoming International Day of Action against complicity in wars, called for by Dockworkers on 6 February, and calls on trade unions and solidarity networks to join and support it.
On that day, dockworkers and port workers from Italy, Greece, Euskadi, Turkey and Morocco will demonstrate and strike using all forms of peaceful actions to end the complicity of their ports with genocidal Israel.
The BDS movement calls on all people of conscience to support the day of action by joining the dockers and port workers in their mobilization, posting photos, supporting the day of action on social media, and intensifying grassroots pressure on your government to impose targeted, lawful sanctions on Israel, including a comprehensive military and energy embargo.
The genocide has not stopped and neither will we.
Breaking: leading figures are among over a hundred Senegalese cultural workers calling on President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to join other world leaders in sanctioning genocidal Israel over “the horror unfolding in Gaza”.
In a letter published today by African Artists Against Apartheid - Senegal, award-winning filmmakers Mati Diop and Alain Gomis, pioneering dancer and choreographer Germaine Acogny and renowned writer Ken Bugul say: “the Senegalese people are waiting for action”.
Those joining today’s statement, including filmmaker Pape Badara Seck, actor Josephine Mboup, film critic Baba Diop and curator Salimata Diop, call on the President to end diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, and prevent transfers of military materiel to Israel through Senegal’s territorial waters and ports.
They added, “it is in times of crisis that nations forge their greatness. Africa, which has experienced slavery, colonialism and apartheid, must say no to injustice and oppression… Mr President: what role will your government play in retrieving international law from Gaza’s rubble?”. #lettreadiomaye
BDS warns of less visible genocide as Trump announces second phase of “ceasefire.”
We call on all people of conscience to:
- Escalate BDS campaigns;
- Redouble the pressure for lawful, targeted sanctions globally, and;
- Intensify grassroots pressure to confront US and Israeli aggression everywhere, from Gaza to Venezuela.
Resisting the might-makes-right order, in solidarity with the peoples of Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba and Greenland.
Boycott, divest from, or exclude from contracts these complicit US companies.
A new network of universities for Palestine has been established in Senegal. The network is calling on the Senegalese government to sever all ties with genocidal Israel.
We call on universities and student groups to mobilize now and escalate BDS campaigns to help end Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians.
The genocide has not stopped and neither will we.
The Good News: Following a massive outcry from Celtic FC fans and Palestinians, the club announced it would not go through with a transfer deal with complicit Israeli club Maccabi Netanya, which has ties to an Israeli drone company making a “killing” from Israel’s genocide against 2.3M Palestinians in Gaza.
The Bad News: Sunderland AFC signed the same transfer deal with Maccabi Netanya. We urge Sunderland fans to follow the example of Celtic fans, raising awareness on Maccabi Netanya’s complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide and urging the club to rescind the deal.
Maccabi Netanya is owned by Aliya Capital Partners, which has invested $30 million in Israeli drone company XTEND.
Since the start of Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, XTEND has sold thousands of drones, including armed drones, to the Israeli military.
The CEO of Aliya Capital Partners is the chair of Maccabi Netanya and sits on the board of XTEND.
[Share this message with @sunderlandafc]
And join Celtic FC fans raising funds for some of the victims of Israeli drones, the Al Irada FC amputee football team.
Link in bio to donate to the Dignity Not Drones fundraiser.
The US administration has unilaterally announced a so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza led by US President Trump in a statement that completely omitted any mention of Palestinians.
The BDS movement condemns and rejects this thinly-veiled attempt to normalize Israel's ongoing genocide, rehabilitate its genocidal regime, and rescue it from its global isolation. The Indigenous Palestinian people will never give up our inalienable rights.
We call for escalating all forms of BDS pressure and for forming the broadest possible intersectional coalitions.
Read our full statement by following the link in our bio.
Even Zubin Mehta–a Zionist for most of his life who in 1967, as Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, ‘arrived in a plane full of ammunition from Europe’ to support apartheid Israel’s aggression, occupation and expulsion of hundreds of thousands more Palestinians–is beginning to see the light.
Too little, 50 years too late, but perhaps this can inspire younger classical musicians to speak out against injustice, oppression and racism early on, regardless who the perpetrators and who the victims may be.
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra says it is genocidal Israel’s “cultural ambassador to the world”. It should be boycotted by all progressives.
Israel has demolished buildings inside the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in occupied Jerusalem, and raised the Israeli flag over the premises.
This is the latest Israeli attack on the UN and on the rights of Palestinian refugees. Escalate BDS pressure now to expel apartheid Israel from the UN. It’s long overdue.
#UNseatIsrael
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) salutes the membership of the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) who continue to overwhelmingly stand for Palestinian rights.
The AHA and MLA voted by 79% in favor of a joint resolution condemning repression in the US and the silencing of academic dissent against the ongoing “US-sponsored Israeli genocide in Gaza,” which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The AHA also voted by 78% for a resolution condemning Israel’s scholasticide in Gaza and to establish a committee that “in cooperation with universities in Gaza and their representative bodies, will support efforts to ensure the survival and rebuilding of Palestinian higher education.”
In a shameful and anti-democratic move, the AHA Council stepped in to veto both resolutions, and not for the first time.
Last year this time, the 16-member AHA Council vetoed a similar motion condemning Israel’s scholasticide, well documented by United Nations experts and major human rights organizations, despite the overwhelming majority voting in favor.
Also last year, the MLA Executive Council denied its membership to even vote on a motion condemning Israel’s scholasticide and calling to uphold MLA’s commitment to “justice throughout the humanities ecosystem” by “ending institutional complicity with genocide” through support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Eight former MLA presidents condemned the blocked vote.
We thank those who have worked tirelessly to push two of the largest academic associations in the humanities over to the right side of history. The AHA and MLA have instead continued to shield Israel from accountability over its ongoing genocide and 77-year apartheid regime oppressing millions of Palestinians.
We have no doubt that this work will continue until both the AHA and MLA respect their own membership and its support for the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
“BDS taught me how to love Palestine more, and how to love fighting for intersectional justice everyday.”
Activists in Europe reflect on the 20 years of the BDS movement — a movement of radical hope for freedom, justice and equality.
“Its resulting humanitarian and cultural catastrophe are unacceptable.”
The Europeana Initiative, composed of the Europeana Aggregators’ Forum, the Europeana Network Association and the Europeana Foundation cultural heritage organizations, will immediately abstain from ties with heritage entities supported by or directly linked to the government of Israel over its Gaza genocide.
The UK Defence Ministry-owned Royal College of Defence Studies has banned Israeli participation in the upcoming academic year over Israel’s Gaza genocide.
The UK continues to criminally and hypocritically provide military-intelligence support for Israel’s genocide.
In June 2025, the British Medical Association (BMA) voted to “suspend engagement” with the Israeli Medical Association until it affirms medical neutrality and condemns Israel’s attacks on healthcare in Gaza.
Last summer, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands) froze institutional ties with three complicit Israeli universities over significant risks of indirect involvement in human rights violations.
On advice of the Independent Advisory Committee on Sensitive Collaborations, EUR immediately froze collaborations and exchanges with Bar-Ilan University, Hebrew University and the University of Haifa, and pledged no new research collaborations with them, over their deep ties with the Israeli military.
EUR will also refrain from participating in Horizon programs and other international consortia where there is direct collaboration with these universities.
“Academic freedom has limits when fundamental human rights are at stake.” --Annelien Bredenoord, President Executive Board EUR
PACBI urges all international academic institutions to fulfill their ethical and legal obligations by ending all ties with Israeli institutions complicit in Israel’s 77-year regime of military occupation, apartheid and, now, genocide against millions of Palestinians.
EDIT/UPDATE: The entire @adelaidewritersweek has been cancelled after the vast majority of writers boycotted. We call on all participants in the wider @adelaidefestival to withdraw too.
Chevron fuels imperialist aggression, from Venezuela to Palestine. Join the #BoycottChevron campaign now.
We will not cede our rights, our land, and our futures to fossil fuel executives.
Zohran Mamdani’s cancellation of the anti-BDS order and the IHRA policy is a significant step in countering the Palestine exception to free speech and civic rights in the US.
Activists and organizations in solidarity with Palestine, and our allies in New York City supporting BDS, must be able to exercise, without fear, their constitutional rights to stop billions of taxpayer dollars from being gifted to Israel to massacre, starve, freeze, and bomb Palestinians in Gaza — while millions in New York cannot afford rent, food, or healthcare.
Let’s escalate BDS in NYC and across the US to end this horrific complicity.
As Palestinians, we are deeply troubled by reports that @CelticFC is close to completing a £2 million transfer deal for a player from an Israeli club, Maccabi Netanya. Celtic must stop this deal.
This is not just an ordinary football transfer deal. Israeli clubs are not neutral sporting bodies.
Maccabi Netanya is owned by Aliya Capital Partners, which has invested $30 million in Israeli drone company XTEND. Since the start of Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, XTEND has sold thousands of drones, including armed drones, to the Israeli military. The CEO of Aliya Capital Partners is the chair of Maccabi Netanya and sits on the board of XTEND.
Celtic fans have long been a source of inspiration for Palestinians through their unwavering support for our liberation struggle. The Green Brigade’s tifos calling to end Israel’s Gaza genocide and to expel Israel from world football have been echoed in stadiums around the world. Celtic fans also established and fund a football and sports club aptly named Lajee Celtic based in the Aida Refugee Camp in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. This is the same refugee camp where apartheid Israel just issued demolition orders for a youth football pitch.
While Celtic supporters consistently place themselves on the right side of history, the club’s administration too often stands in opposition to them. Celtic Football Club should refuse to do business with a team representing apartheid Israel — a regime committing genocide in Gaza, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, including more than 800 sportspeople, and systematically damaging or destroying all sporting infrastructure.
A club born out of the suffering of British colonial famine should never align itself with a regime that is deliberately using starvation as a weapon.
Celtic has a choice in how it spends its supporters’ money. Funding those complicit in the genocide of Palestinians shouldn’t be on the table.
Stop the deal.
