If the U.S. was still in its heyday of its expansionist frenzy but had twenty-first century technology, I imagine the visible effects of colonisation across the continent would look very similar to those in Palestine. It is only because the US military subjugated Indigenous Peoples by the end of the nineteenth century that we do not see the level of surveillance and checkpoints, or an Apartheid Wall on every reservation. (Waziyatawin, 2012, p. 173)
Introduction: An Indigenous Team on the World Stage
The Haudenosaunee people1 are widely recognized as the originators of the sport of “lacrosse.” In 1983, Haudenosaunee leaders and activists Oren Lyons, Rick Hill, Wes Patterson, and Carol Patterson founded the Iroquois Nationals2 men’s lacrosse team as a deliberate political effort to publicly assert the Haudenosaunee’s self-determination (Downey, 2018). Traveling with the Haudenosaunee passport, the team is endorsed by the hereditary confederacy council and rejects funding from the Canadian or the U.S. government (Downey, 2018). As a potent symbol that represents Indigenous peoples in international sport, the Iroquois Nations face obstacles in achieving recognition and traveling internationally with the Haudenosaunee passport (Downey, 2012). For example, in 2010, the Iroquois Nationals withdrew from the World Lacrosse Championship (WLC) hosted in Manchester, United Kingdom, after a prolonged passport dispute involving the U.K. and the U.S. governments (Chen & Mason, 2024). This, however, was far from the end for the Iroquois Nationals to face challenges of representing a sovereign Indigenous nation in international competitions. In 2018, the Iroquois Nationals’ participation in the WLC hosted by Israel was a high-profile case that raised a series of questions about Indigeneity, representation, and transnational solidarity—all relevant to the fields of Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, Palestinian studies, and critical sport studies.
The 2018 WLC and the Call for Global Indigenous Solidarity
Israel’s hosting of the 2018 WLC drew attention from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is led by the Palestinian BDS National Committee—a broad coalition of groups and supporters who organize boycotts of companies that are complicit in, or benefit from, the oppressions of the Palestinians. Before the tournament, Israel was condemned by the United Nations for its massacre of Palestinians in Gaza (“UN General Assembly,” 2018),3 who launched their nonviolent “Great March of Return” to protest against Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land and then U.S. President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (Abusalim, 2018; Brake, 2018). On the 70th anniversary of the Nakba,4 between April and June 2018 alone, more than 120 Palestinians were killed by the Israel Defense Forces (“UN General Assembly,” 2018).5
Evoking the ideal of global Indigenous solidarity, the BDS movement requested the Iroquois Nationals to boycott the 2018 WLC. In a letter addressed to the team, the BDS organizers wrote: “As Indigenous peoples, we have both seen our traditional lands colonized, our people ethnically cleansed and massacred by colonial settlers” (Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel [PACBI], 2018, para. 2). Despite this call from BDS and other Palestinian advocacy groups and organizations, the Iroquois Nationals proceeded to visit Israel after the Haudenosaunee passport was greenlit as a valid travel document by Canadian and Israeli officials (Brake, 2018). Their visit gained attention from all sides of the Palestinian/Israel “conflict” as well as the Haudenosaunee communities (Abunimah, 2018). As will be discussed in more depth, although Israeli officials and pro-Israel groups welcomed the Nationals’ visit with enthusiasm and attempted to frame Israel as a pro-Indigenous force, the team received criticism within the Indigenous communities for crossing the proverbial “picket line” of boycotting Israel in academic, sport, and cultural realms, prioritizing opportunistic gains over a principled stance of global Indigenous solidarity against colonialism and imperialism.
Connecting History to the Present Moment
What does it mean to conduct the work of Palestine solidarity in spaces that are themselves still colonized?
Building upon emerging research on sport in Israel/Palestine, critical Indigenous scholarship on sport, and literature on settler colonialism, Zionism, and imperialism, this paper brings together these fields of inquiry into conversation with each other and highlights the urgency for sport scholars to connect the struggles of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas with that of the Palestinians, and vice versa. This is done in two parts: First, drawing upon literature from the aforementioned fields, I discuss the historical, political, and cultural contexts that are essential for understanding the Iroquois Nationals’ 2018 visit to Israel; in the empirical part of the paper, I then present a thematic analysis on the public responses from prominent individuals and organizations relevant to that event.
In the “contextualization” section, I first situate Israel’s hosting of the 2018 Lacrosse World Championship against the backdrop of Zionist settler colonialism before I explain the usefulness of Indigeneity for the Palestinian liberation struggle against the Israeli colonial occupation. I then discuss how sport remains a terrain highly contested by both the Palestinian liberation struggle—with the BDS movement as one of its recent expressions—and the Israeli “hasbara” (public diplomacy or propaganda); while the BDS movement seeks to delegitimize the Israeli state via campaigns in the sport industry, Israel has deployed sport, the 2018 lacrosse tournament included, as part of its larger strategy to obscure the suffering of the Palestinians under colonialism and occupation. Finally, I highlight Israel’s attempt to fend off international censure and normalize the settler project by associating itself with Indigenous peoples, variously termed as Zionist “redwashing”8 (Toensing, 2013) or “brownwashing” (Hochberg, 2017), as yet another important context necessary to comprehend the Iroquois Nationals’ participation in the 2018 tournament in Israel.
To Go or Not to Go? Contextualizing the Iroquois Nationals’ Trip to Israel
We are asking you to respect our nonviolent picket line by withdrawing from the 2018 World Lacrosse Championships, denying Israel the opportunity to use the national sport of the Iroquois to cover up its escalating, violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians throughout our ancestral lands. (para. 17)
To properly understand the foregoing statement, several questions about the historical and contemporary contexts behind the tournament warrant attention: Is Israel occupying the Palestinian land as a colonial force? Is the lacrosse tournament part of a larger campaign to “cover” Israel’s wrongdoings? Furthermore, are the Iroquois Nationals—the only team representing an Indigenous sovereign nation on the world sport stage—being used to “cover up” the wrongdoings?
Zionist Settler Colonialism
If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison on your behalf . . . . Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot–or else I am through with playing at colonization. (as cited in Brenner, 1984, p. 78)
Other peoples have colonized great countries, rich countries. They found when they entered there backward populations. And they did for the backward populations what they did . . . . I would like to say that, as compared with the result of the colonizing activities of other peoples, our impact on the Arabs has not produced very much worse results than what has been produced by others in other countries. (as cited in United Nations, 1947)
The present-day so-called “complexity” of the Israeli–Palestinian “conflict” cannot be understood without situating the state of Israel as a material expression of the larger Zionist settler colonial movement, with its unique combination of nationalism and colonialism (Awad & Levin, 2020; Dana & Jarbawi, 2017; Pappé, 2008). Zionism emerged in the second half of the 19th century as one response to the “Jewish Question”: as a “national revival movement” to address the anti-Semitism faced by Jewish people in Europe. Whereas many Jewish individuals joined socialist organizations to fight for the liberation of peoples across the world, Zionism focuses on establishing a Jewish ethnostate as the solution (Pappé, 2008). Unfortunately, Zionism as a movement has induced profound consequences in the distant land of Palestine, with Europe colluding in exporting its own “homegrown problems” (Dana & Jarbawi, 2017, p. 198).
From decades before the violent birth of Israel in 1948 that displaced 750,000 Palestinian people to the post-1967 occupation of Palestinian territories, the Zionist project has achieved a considerable degree of “success” and continues its violence through subsequent wars, the siege on the Gaza Strip, the building of the Apartheid Wall, and the ongoing construction of illegal settlements on the West Bank (Khalidi, 2020). Dana and Jarbawi (2017) provided an in-depth analysis of the peculiar characteristics of Zionism (see Table 1). As legal scholar Erakat (2019) argued, when colonialism had not yet been discredited worldwide, Zionists sought to collude with, rather than resist, colonial domination to establish a Jewish state.9 On the other hand, the Zionist settler colonial project faces resistance from the Palestinians. As Jewish Voice for Peace (n.d.a) argued, although the founding of the state of Israel was based on the idea of a “land without people,” the existence and sustenance of Palestinian life, culture, and organizing are a powerful means of resistance and a refusal of Zionism, a political ideology founded on erasure. It is also vitally important to note that for over a century, Jews around the world have maintained a robust critique of Zionism and the state of Israel (Lorber, n.d.).
The “Peculiar Characteristics” of Zionism
| Characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Transnational | In contrast to conventional nationhood that centers on common linguistic, cultural, and historical ties with shared territory, Zionism seeks to bring together the heterogeneous world of Jews to establish a nation state. |
| Mythological | Zionism relies on biblical mythology as the primary source of national identity formation, yet its “founding fathers” maintained secular principles. |
| Monopolistic | Zionist claim to the land of Palestine is based on a monopolistic right of nationhood granted by “divine will.” Jews are reinvented as an ethnonationalistic group searching for political self-determination, whose “emancipation” could only materialize by the monopolistic control over the land. |
| Exclusionist | Early Zionist leaders envisioned the Jewish state as part of the European colonial project. Zionism deliberately disregarded the presence of people on the land, which was distorted as an abandoned/deserted area to justify Jewish immigration. |
| Ahistorical | Zionist claims about the land of Palestine belonging to the Jewish nation are grounded in ahistorical connections between the ancient Israelites and modern Israelis. This disregards the substantial historical phases that shaped the region’s rich civilizational background, cultural and social formations, and the fact that the land of Palestine had been a site of coexistence and harmonic interactions among diverse groups. |
| Dependent on Western imperialism | Zionism has closely aligned with Western imperial powers (e.g., British and the United States), which have been its external sponsors. The Zionist project is a strategic extension of the Western geopolitical interest in the region. |
| Manipulative | Zionism misuses “anti-Semitism” and manipulates Jewish suffering to inflict violence, dispossession, and structural racism against another group of people. |
Note. Adapted from “A Century of Settler Colonialism in Palestine,” by T. Dana and A. Jarbawi, 2017, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 24(1), pp. 198–200, Editors in chief: Paul Butler and Luiza Osorio G. da Silva. Copyright 2017 by The Brown Journal of World Affairs.
Indigeneity as a Framework of Palestinian Resistance
Although many advocates within the field of international and human rights law deploy the framework of apartheid,10 focusing on the longstanding systemic inequalities that privilege Jews over Palestinians and the abuse of human rights of Palestinians in both Israel and the Occupied Territories, there has been increasing scholarly attention on framing the Palestinians as an Indigenous people resisting Zionist settler colonialism (Nabulsi, 2023). As Amara and Hawari (2019) noted, apartheid and settler colonialism are not mutually exclusive as apartheid is one of the many mechanisms to control and manage Indigenous peoples, as seen in the example of South Africa. Therefore, Indigeneity is an important framework for the Palestinian liberation movement because it considers all Palestinians—those under occupation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, those with Israeli citizenship, and Palestinian refugees overseas—together as a people facing attempted erasure (Amara & Hawari, 2019).
More importantly, highlighting the Indigeneity of Palestinian people can de-exceptionalize the Zionist project and situate it within a global context of settler colonialisms that manifest differently with specific local characteristics (Amara & Hawari, 2019; Desai, 2021). In a comparison between settler colonial societies in North America and Israel, Desai (2021) noted that colonizers used race to manage and eliminate their native populations but in distinct ways: Whereas Canada and the United States enforce assimilation, Israel imposes racial purity. Yet these two seemingly separate processes of settler colonialism are intimately connected and should be properly situated within the global system of capitalism and imperialism (Desai, 2021). It is with this internationalist understanding of Indigenous solidarity and anticolonial resistance that the BDS movement made its appeal to the Iroquois Nationals before the 2018 WLC.
The BDS Movement
The repeated setbacks for Palestinian liberation within the global political arena dominated by the U.S. prompted alternative responses in civil society (Barghouti, 2011). Modeled after the international movement to abolish South African apartheid, the PACBI was initiated in 2004. In July 2005, the campaign expanded when the majority of Palestinian civil society called on international solidarity in the form of BDS to compel Israel to end the occupation and respect Palestinian self-determination, officially launching the BDS movement. Endorsed by more than 170 Palestinian organizations, trade unions, NGOs, and networks, the BDS movement has three main demands: ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the illegal Apartheid Wall; recognizing the rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting, and promoting the right of return for Palestinian refugees according to the UN Resolution 194 (“What Is BDS,” n.d.). Although some artists and cultural workers continued to visit, exhibit, and perform in Israel on the ground of “bridge-building” (Dart, 2016), BDS has provided a powerful nonviolent tool of civil resistance in supporting the Palestinian cause worldwide.
There have been numerous BDS campaigns that target the relationship between various sport organizations and Israel (Maharmeh, 2023). MacLean (2014) discussed the BDS call for boycotting the UEFA U21 Championship and highlighted its differences compared with the South African sport boycott during Apartheid (not playing soccer in Israel vs. not playing rugby against South Africa). In the United States, the BDS campaign resulted in the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association ceasing collaboration with Leupold & Stevens, a Beaverton-based company that manufactures telescopic sights used by the Israel Defense Forces (Brown, 2018). Globally, a number of teams and sport organizations have paused or ceased their collaboration with Israel (Bloomfield, 2022), with the “Boycott Puma” campaign as a notable case (Dart, 2023). By highlighting the contradiction between Puma’s self-marketing as a company with concerns about equality and its financial support for the Israeli apartheid, in which the Israeli Football Association remains complicit, the “Boycott Puma” campaign called for consumers, sports teams, and other organizations to boycott the company (Boycott Puma, n.d., para. 5).
Israeli Hasbara, Lacrosse, and Settler Moves to Indigeneity
Alongside a growing narrative that compares Israel with apartheid South Africa, the BDS movement represents an increasing momentum of international support for the human rights of the Palestinians. Facing its declining legitimacy and the challenge to control the narrative about the “conflict,” Israel deployed the language of “complexity” in its defense (Sahhar, 2015) and invested in public relations campaigns to reinforce and extend its support from the West (Dart, 2016).
The “Brand Israel” campaign was launched in 2005 by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of Israel’s hasbara (to explain or propagandize) to curb the momentum represented by the emerging BDS movement (Dart, 2016). It has sought to align progressive social movements with the Israeli state. For example, Sasa (2023) noted that Israel’s establishment of “protected areas” in historic Palestine sought to further the colonization of Palestinian land, prevent the return of Palestinian refugees, Europeanize and dehistoricize Palestine, obliterate Palestinian identity, and greenwash the crime of apartheid. Besides “greenwashing” (Hughes et al., 2023), scholars have also studied Israel’s promotion of LGBT rights (i.e., “pinkwashing”; see Shafie, 2015) and veganism (i.e., “veganwashing”; see Alloun, 2020) as examples of co-opting progressive causes within a nationalistic discourse that obscure settler colonial violence and occupation: Palestinians, if their existence is ever acknowledged in these hasbara campaigns, constitute the foil and negated subtext (Alloun, 2020). It is against this backdrop that the role of sport in hasbara must be considered.
Sport Hasbara, Sport Public Diplomacy, and Sportswashing?
In international sport, Israel was a member of organizations such as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Asian Games Federation, participating in both the AFC Asian Cup and Asian Games from 1954 to 1974, but pressures from Arab nations led to Israel’s expulsion from the AFC in 1974 and the Olympic Council of Asia (the reorganized Asian Games Federation) in 1981. In the meantime, there were incidents of individual Arab teams and athletes refusing to compete against Israeli teams or athletes (Maharmeh, 2023). As a result, since the 1990s, Israel has sought to integrate itself into European sport competitions despite its geographical location (Dart, 2017). In this sense, investment in sport events and activities also serves an important role in Israel’s national branding efforts (Galily & Shmuel-Azran, 2022). One term with a similar meaning of sport hasbara is “sportswashing” but in the Zionist settler colonial context. Boykoff (2022) considered “sportswashing” as a phenomenon whereby political leaders use sport events to appear important (e.g., politically and/or economically) or legitimate to an international audience while promoting nationalism and deflecting attention from social problems and poor human-rights records at home. Similarly, Skey (2023) observed that sport has been deployed by a government that seeks to “distract from controversial policies or a damaged reputation by associating themselves with positive brands, events or organizations, notably those associated with and/or based in the West” (p. 752).
As Dubinsky (2021) noted, the deep connection between sport and public diplomacy in Israel dates back to the late 19th century, evidenced by the emergence of the term “Muscular Judaism” in the Zionist movement. The most successful example is the Maccabiah Games, a quadrennial multisport event for Jewish athletes worldwide to compete in Israel, which aims to create strong connections between Jewish communities and the State of Israel as well as promoting Aliyah—immigration to Israel (Dubinsky, 2021). Other high-profile examples of Israeli sport hasbara include the 2011 UEFA U21 Football Championship and the Israeli cycling team’s participation in the Tour de France (Dart, 2017). Dubinsky (2021) highlighted the roles of innovation in Israeli sports, advocating for the branding of Israel as a sports-tech nation. Although these examples allowed the Israeli state to present a positive image of itself as a sporting host/participant and create a positive impression for international sport governing bodies, Palestinian advocacy groups also use sport as a battleground to highlight the oppression of Palestinians under Israeli occupation (Shihade, 2016).
When Jewish and Arab children leave their football practice, the Arab players return home to denser streets and a substantially lower quality of education, health, welfare, and public services. These gaps . . . are not only the consequences of the capitalist market but also embody the cumulative effect of an active semi-colonial political reality in which the unequal distribution of resources is compatible with the state’s ethnocratic ideology. (pp. 266–267)
On the other hand, Israel’s military attack has resulted in the death and injuries of Palestinian athletes, destroying Palestinian stadiums (Dart, 2016, 2022). Palestinians living in Occupied Palestinian Territories have little opportunity to pursue sport and recreation as the infrastructure and resources are significantly limited (Khalidi & Raab, 2020). In addition, Palestinian athletes and teams face enormous barriers to training and restriction of movement as Israeli authorities regularly refuse travel permits by citing concerns about security (Dart, 2017; Kipnis, 2022). Athletes from the Gaza Strip, for example, are often prohibited from joining their West Bank teammates to represent the national teams (Kipnis, 2022). By referring to these conditions faced by Palestinian athletes and civilians at large, the BDS movement reminded the Iroquois Nationals to be aware of Israel’s deliberate use of sport events to “divert the world’s attention from its entrenched oppression of Palestinians” (PACBI, 2018, para. 6).
Israel, Lacrosse, and the U.S. Support
We’re big believers in using sport as a platform to help connect [American] Jews with Israel. Many players with aspirations to compete at the NCAA level are justifiably so focused on training and attending recruitment camps, so Israel takes a backseat. This is a great opportunity for Jewish athletes to take a free trip to Israel, while spreading their passion for the game internationally. (as cited in Kramer, 2014, p. 137)
Although young American Jews may enjoy “Birthright” trips to Israel of various kinds, including attending lacrosse camps as part of the itinerary, an irony here is, as Jewish Voice for Peace (n.d.b) pointed out, Palestinians are prevented from going on a similar trip despite their “direct connections to the land within Israel’s borders” (para. 8).12 The recent, U.S.-supported growth of lacrosse in Israel highlights the importance of situating the call for the Iroquois Nationals to boycott the 2018 WLC within the larger historical and geopolitical context of Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine. As Sayegh (1965) observed, “Without the umbilical cord linking the Zionist settler-community with its extra-regional sources of supply and power, it has and can have little ability of its own to survive” (p. 18).
The Israeli Attempts to Redwash
I think it’s very important that the Israeli government recognizes the Haudenosaunee Nation. It’s only natural for us, as Jews, who have been strangers in our own land, to help those that have really felt shunned. Our people culturally know what it’s like to be an outcast, to be not given the proper rights, historically. (as cited in Baxter & Spirer, 2017, 48:24)
Although one may be tempted to ask Miller, “What about the rights of millions of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees?” his claim of “Jews” sharing the experience of being “strangers” in their “own land” deserves attention. Amara and Hawari (2019) highlighted how early Zionist settlers boasted European superiority—not unlike other major settler colonial projects—while also claiming to be “indigenous returnees” to Palestine based on biblical narratives, as evidenced by claims such as “making the desert bloom.” The exclusionist, ahistorical, and manipulative undertones (Dana & Jarbawi, 2017; see also Table 1) in Miller’s otherwise politically savvy comment notwithstanding, what often flies under the radar is Israel’s strategic engagement with Indigenous organizations and politicians in North America to generate sympathy and seek support from the latter.
Since the early 2000s, hundreds of First Nations leaders, educators, students, and clergypersons in Canada, including former Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine and Ovide Mercredi and Chief of Norway House Cree Nation Ron Evans, have traveled to Israel, invited by Zionist or Israel lobby groups (Engler, 2018). In the United States., Indigenous politicians such as Ben Shelly (Navajo), Myron Lizer (Navajo), Tom Cole (Chickasaw), and Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) incorporated anti-Palestinian statements in their political platforms (The Red Nation, 2019). A few months before the 2018 WLC, the Seneca Nation, one of the six nations in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, officially celebrated Israel’s Independence Day, issuing a statement that proclaimed “the Seneca Nation and the State of Israel share in common a passion for freedom and a willingness to fight for and defend our sovereignty and our shared right to be a free and independent people” (as cited in Willig, 2018, para. 2).
this is tantamount to laying a wreath at Vorster’s grave in the interest of [honoring apartheid] or traveling to the U.S. to share the values of the Custer Committee celebrating the massacre at Wounded Knee . . . . It does not take too much historical digging to find out that Israel is the newest colonizing settler state in the world, that it displaced several million Palestinians, corralled them into refugee camps and denied them the basest of human rights. Hunger, displacement from their homelands and lack of medical care all dog the Palestinian people: the original citizens of Palestine. (para. 1–2)
Kānaka Maoli scholar J. Kehaulani Kauanui used the term “redwashing” to describe how Israel appears to promote the interest of Indigenous Peoples in North America as a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violence against the Palestinian people. More specifically, by making claims about Indigeneity in the land of Palestine, some Zionists appeal to Indigenous Peoples in North America based on “shared experiences” of genocide (evoking the Holocaust) and suffering of displacement, exclusion, and prejudice (Toensing, 2013). Indigenous advocacy group The Red Nation (2019) used the term “anti-Palestinian opportunism” to critique some Indigenous individuals’ alignment with the Zionist project: “it’s lucrative for Indigenous peoples in settler societies to be anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, or anti-Muslim—because that’s the status quo for US imperialism interests.”
The foregoing sections demonstrate that the Iroquois Nationals’ visit to Israel must be understood in the larger context of Zionist settler colonialism, the BDS movement, sport hasbara, and Zionist redwashing. These contexts together raise questions on how the Iroquois Nationals would justify their decision to visit and how their visit would be perceived by groups with various political powers and affiliations in relation to the Israel/Palestinian “conflict.” Next, I explore these different responses with a thematic analysis and discuss how they might be understood in the larger conversation of sport, Indigenous solidarity, and anticolonial/imperialist struggles.
Thematic Analysis: Responses to Iroquois Nationals’ Trip to Israel
Thematic analysis is chosen as an appropriate method as the purpose of the empirical analysis is to identify the public discourse in response to the event and to understand how these responses were justified and rationalized (Braun et al., 2016). After a few rounds of searches in the Factiva database and internet searches with keywords such as “Iroquois Nationals,” “2018,” and “Israel,” relevant documents were downloaded for an initial screening. In total, 12 publications that met the criteria of containing substantial discussions of the event were collated for analysis. These include publications from traditional media outlets like The Jerusalem Post (Israel), Haaretz (Israel), National Post (Canada), and APTN News (Canada), web-based media sites such as Tablet Magazine, Electronic Intifada, The Palestine Chronicle, and Indianz.com, a media outlet owned by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, and online publications from organizations such as US Lacrosse and B’nai Brith Canada (see Table 2).
The Documents Analyzed (Listed in Chronological Order by Time of Publication)
| Author | Date | Source | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ali Abunimah | July 9 | Electronic Intifada | Iroquois Nationals criticized for ignoring Israel boycott call |
| Tamar Uriel-Beeri | July 9 | The Jerusalem Post | BDS calls for lacrosse team to withdraw from championship in Israel |
| Liel Leibovitz | July 9 | Tabletmag.com | Why I am rooting for the Iroquois team to win the World Lacrosse Championship in Israel |
| Doug George-Kanentiio | July 11 | Indianz.com | Doug George-Kanentiio: Iroquois lacrosse team faces pressure on world stage |
| Justin Brake | July 11 | Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) | Iroquois Nationals going to Israel despite calls to boycott World Lacrosse Championships |
| Aidan Fishman | July 12 | B’nai Brith Canada | Iroquois lacrosse team defies BDS to reach Israel |
| Nick Faris | July 12 | Vancouver Sun | “Coming to Play a Medicine Game”; Iroquois Nationals refuse to boycott Israel |
| Ilanit Chernick | July 12 | The Jerusalem Post | The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team’s incredible journey to Israel |
| Matt Dasilva | July 13 | USA Lacrosse | Iroquois unfazed by travel woes and political obstacles |
| Ryan Bellerose | July 16 | The Jerusalem Post | Jews and the dream of Indigenous peoples everywhere |
| Yves Engler | July 19 | The Palestine Chronicle | The World Lacrosse Championships and Israeli lobby groups’ search for first nations allies |
| Hillel Kuttler | July 22 | Haaretz | Players, officials hail lacrosse world tourney in Israel as big victory for host nation |
Note. BDS = Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
Excerpts related to the Iroquois Nationals’ visit to Israel were extracted from the downloaded documents. Coding started with identifying the speaker (individual or organization) and their affiliation, followed by placing their stances (as covered either in the media or organizational publications) within “approving,” “disapproving,” and “indifferent” categories. Next, the rationales of the speakers’ stances were then highlighted and categorized with different themes. As discussed earlier, the stance of the Palestinian civil society and the BDS movement was clear, and it was their request that demanded a response. In the public discourse of this controversial event, three major groups were given prominent space to elaborate their stance(s) and rationales: the Iroquois Nationals, the Israeli hosts and other pro-Israel individuals/organizations, and community members and activists of the Haudenosaunee Confederation. It is worthwhile to note that the comments and/or statements, despite their significance and visibility, may not represent the full range of thoughts and perspectives from members of these groups.
The Iroquois Nationals
Representation on the World Stage Matters (More)
it’s important that we’re representing [our Nations] because the colonization efforts are about erasure, and we’re still here, we’re still standing. We still have our cultural values, we still have our language—so it’s important for us to maintain those things and it’s important to have a place at the table. (as cited in Faris, 2018, para. 19)
What’s going on in Israel and what’s happened to the Palestinians is wrong. A lot of people are relating it to what’s happened to Native American people in Canada and the U.S., and it is similar . . . . Morally, I want to (show) support, and I’m going to support them in the best way I can. But taking myself away from the game that’s given me so much, and something that’s very positive to our people, I don’t think is the right decision for us as Haudenosaunee people. (as cited in Faris, 2018, para. 9)
Thompson’s honest words revealed the underlying tension of the trip: On the one hand, he was reluctant to acquiesce the colonial project of Israel, but on the other hand, he was endeavoring to bring an international audience to understand the struggles of the Haudenosaunee people under Canadian and U.S. settler colonialism.
“We Come to Play the Medicine Game”
Attempting to address this conundrum, the Iroquois Nationals’ public response avoided addressing the “conflict” and, instead, emphasized the “positive effects” of sport in relieving tensions between communities under conflict. In one instance, the team’s executive director, Ansley Jemison, announced: “Our position is that we’re coming to play a medicine game . . . we’re hoping to bring some healing to the world” (as cited in Faris, 2018, para. 10). In another instance, when questioned why the team ignored the call for boycott, Jemison elevated the role of sport, “Maybe it can bring some relief to an area that’s pretty troubled” (as cited in Brake, 2018, para. 16), and claimed: “Our presence is an important factor for all Indigenous people and I think the greater good of everybody. We’re going there to try to bring unity” (as cited in Brake, 2018, para. 18–20).
This type of claim by representatives of the Iroquois Nationals is noteworthy for a few reasons. First, the emphasis on the significance of Indigenous representation in the tournament still glossed over the thorny question presented by the advocates of the Palestinian resistance: What about the Indigenous Palestinian people still under colonial occupation? A rather superficial play of the term “unity” in this case was not unlike the myths of “unity” or “peace” promoted by international sport governing bodies, such as the International Olympic Committee (Hoberman, 2011). Second, this stance was in stark contrast to the Iroquois Nationals’ own decision to forfeit the 2010 WLC tournament and the players’ principled stance of refusing to use U.S. or Canadian passports to travel to the United Kingdom, acclaimed as a successful and influential act of refusing settler sovereignty (Chen & Mason, 2024; Simpson, 2014). This glaring inconsistency prompts one to ask: What had changed in 8 years? As observed by journalist Faris (2018), other reasons behind the team’s decision might include its fear of possible repercussions: a fine of $500,000 from the tournament and, perhaps more importantly, the likelihood of losing the opportunity to compete in a future iteration of the Olympic Games.13 In addition, the team might also face financial repercussions from its major sponsor, Nike,14 if it were to withdraw voluntarily from the tournament.
The State of Israel and Pro-Israel Groups
A Victory Against BDS
It’s a shame that athletes and musicians give into pressure from groups that align themselves with terrorist organizations . . . . I choose to celebrate those who have come, and encourage everyone to be like the Iroquois—they are an incredible example . . . and the ties between Israel and Canada [and how this situation was solved] is a positive example for the rest of the world. (as cited in Chernick, 2018, para. 16)
Known as the first U.S.-born Knesset member of Israel, Lipman framed the visit of the Iroquois Nationals as an important success of Israeli public diplomacy. Other pro-Israel individuals and organizations went a step further to associate the Iroquois Nationals’ visit with claims to (be proximate to) Indigeneity: In offering sympathy to the Iroquois Nationals, they evoke the Zionist trope of being “indigenous” on Palestinian land.
Claims to Indigeneity
We prevailed, and as a result I was able to live daily as a little boy and into adulthood according to the traditions of my people in our ancestral, sacred land. The Iroquois do not enjoy these privileges and never will. But as they prepare to compete in the Creator’s game, they should know that many of their fellow indigenous folks in Israel will be cheering them on, and also that some of us in America are conscious of the great crime that was committed against them in the name of the country that we—and I—now call home. (para. 12, emphasis mine)
Lacrosse and other sports serve as a great vehicle for bringing nations together . . . . We hope that the tournament serves to strengthen the bonds between the indigenous Jewish People in the Land of Israel, and the indigenous Iroquois Confederacy across the Atlantic. (Mostyn, as cited in Fishman, 2018, para. 4–5)
Although this view might not be necessarily shared by the Iroquois Nationals, their decision to visit Israel attracted attention within the Haudenosaunee nations, where the team is held in high regard by community members. Despite the team’s popularity, a number of Haudenosaunee activists made their concerns heard in the media. This is discussed next.
Haudenosaunee Activists
The Haudenosaunee Principle Compromised
The Iroquois Nationals CEOs chose the game of lacrosse, their legacies and the settler states over standing with our Indigenous sisters and brothers and our common struggles and are not standing on the Haudenosaunee principles they espouse around the world. (as cited in Brake, 2018, para. 37)
John Kane, a Mohawk radio host and activist, similarly acknowledged the challenge for the athletes themselves to have deep knowledge and understanding of the histories and geopolitics of the region. For Kane, it was the team leadership’s responsibility to make informed decisions, and even though international play is of significance to Haudenosaunee people, he was not comfortable with “honouring Israel with our presence in light of their behaviour over the last three or four months” (as cited in Brake, 2018, para. 22), referring to the violence against Palestinians committed by the Israeli military during the Great March of Return. The tension was not lost on Kane that the Iroquois Nationals inadvertently performed for the Israelis while the ongoing violence against the Palestinians was “in the shadows of where this game is going to be played” (as cited in Brake, 2018, para. 24).
Settler Colonialisms Inseparable From Turtle Island to Palestine
The design of the wall looked like a [sic] American maximum security prison similar to Dannemora near Plattsburg . . . the wall is meant to humiliate and suppress the Palestinians, just as Trump wants to do along the American southwest in his effort to stop primarily Native people from entering the U.S. (para. 10–12)
A widely respected lecturer and author, George-Kanentiio highlighted the connection between two settler colonialisms by arguing that the ways Israelis treated the Palestinians were adopted from the U.S. playbook in “undermining, isolating and destroying indigenous peoples here.” Such examples include “restricted movements, removal to resource poor land areas, denial of nationhood, selective use of institutional violence to control dissent, suppression of culture and denial of basic human rights” (para. 13). For George-Kanentiio (2018), it would not be difficult for Indigenous Peoples in North America to recognize these glaring similarities once they have a chance to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Sport and Anticolonial Solidarity From Turtle Island to Palestine: What Is to Be Done?
Although Palestinian athletes cannot travel freely on their land under colonial occupation, the Iroquois Nationals were approved to enter Israel to be part of the 2018 WLC despite the call from the BDS movement that demanded solidarity from the team. The foregoing analysis shows the different streams of reactions to this event. Representatives of the team defended the decision with three rationales: to represent Indigenous Nations in international sport, to showcase the Haudenosaunee lacrosse talent to the world’s audience, and to supposedly bring “unity” and “healing” to the area via sport competition. Representatives of the Israeli state celebrated the visit as a victory against the BDS movement, and some pro-Israel groups exploited the idea of Jewish Indigeneity in Palestine and feigned Zionist “solidarity” with the Indigenous struggle against settler colonialism in North America. Back in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, some community members and activists criticized the visit, framing it as undermining both the Haudenosaunee principle and the spirit of Indigenous solidarity. Others urged a deepened understanding of the material and ideological interconnections between settler colonialism in Israel and the United States/Canada. Juxtaposing critical studies of sport, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and Palestinian studies, this case is particularly important to consider because it represents one of the rare examples of two streams of Israeli hasbara efforts coalescing into one: sport hasbara and Zionist redwashing. It raises urgent questions about conditions and contingencies of solidarity between Indigenous Peoples in the Americas and the Palestinians as well as the role sport might play in strengthening or weakening this solidarity under the current configurations of global capitalism and imperialism.
No Solidarity Can Be Assumptive
the refusal of the United States and Canada to recognize Indigenous sovereignty is not an excuse to trample the rights of Palestinians . . . no artistic expression, sports tournament, or academic talks trumps the right of Palestinians to live in peace in their own homeland. (para. 9)
As shown earlier, Israeli politicians like Lipman were unhesitant in recognizing the presence of the Iroquois Nationals as a win against the BDS movement. Worse still, pro-Israel media and advocacy groups conveniently performed the Zionist discursive move to Indigeneity, deploying the concept of Indigeneity and collective oppression to justify and normalize Israeli occupation and genocide of Palestinians (Scribe, 2023). Against this trap, Cree scholar Scribe (2023) argued that for their struggles to have integrity, Indigenous people in settler states like Canada must be aware of and challenge the dynamics of settler colonialism elsewhere. Moreover, the Iroquois Nationals’ visit to Israel shows that the form of transnational Indigenous solidarity can never be assumptive but contingent on specific political conditions (Erakat, 2020).
As Erakat (2020) rightly pointed out, there is no transhistorical alliance or racial imperative that guarantees solidarity between Indigenous Peoples in North America and Palestine; instead, solidarity between peoples has to be built politically. Such a political project must be anchored by a deep materialist analysis of how the Zionist settler colonial project has historically been supported by imperial forces and is currently underwritten by the United States and its Western allies. As former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig said 40 years ago, “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk” (as cited in Oren, 2011, p. 48). In other words, anticolonial struggles should look to one another not merely based on shared similarities (in this case, being Indigenous) but, importantly, bring to the forefront both the linkages between colonialisms and the common oppressor, the global ruling class of capitalism and imperialism (Desai, 2021). In this sense, Erakat (2020) noted the importance of joint struggles for mutual liberation, and Dakota scholar Waziyatawin (2012) argued that a crucial means for Indigenous Peoples in North America to offer solidarity to their “Palestinian relatives” is to challenge U.S. imperialism “at home” (p. 187).
Contesting the Sport Terrain
As much of the world continues to grapple with the live-streamed genocide in Gaza, sport scholars and practitioners are obliged to continue confronting the question of how to further the work of Palestine solidarity within/beyond the realm of sport. On the one hand, activists have rightfully advocated for the expulsion of Israel from international events (“An appeal to suspend Israel,” 2023; Boykoff & Zirin, 2023). On the other hand, if we acknowledge that Zionist settler colonialism is not an isolated phenomenon (Salaita, 2016) and that the sport industry is steeped in the capitalist world system, it is important to consider what types of resistance will be most impactful when the established sport institutions and governing bodies as currently constituted may never be equipped to take a principled stance against their guarantors.
As discussed in this paper, the Iroquois Nationals’ pursuit of representation and recognition by international sport institutions is fraught with tension. More recently, the Iroquois Nationals’ pursuit of participating in and flying the Haudenosaunee flag at the Olympic Games has received support from U.S. President Joe Biden (Klein et al., 2023) precisely at a time when the latter is accused of being complicit in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza (Center for Constitutional Rights, 2024). This raises the question: How far can “representation” go in sport and beyond? Palestine has also been represented in international sport post-Oslo (Khalidi & Raab, 2020), yet the representation and recognition have been accompanied by the deterioration of Palestinians living under occupation, with a proxy leadership that acquiesces to policies dictated by the Israeli government and international financial institutions (Haddad, 2020; Hanieh, 2021). After all, international sport, notwithstanding its symbolism, is captured by and based upon a global infrastructure of capitalism whose order is still maintained and patrolled by the ruling class in the United States and its allies, a reality that the Iroquois Nationals or any other teams that seek international recognition and business opportunities may not soon escape from (Chen, 2023). Nevertheless, we have witnessed courageous sport workers who have chosen to take a stand with the Palestinian people, as part of the greater constellations of mobilization in all societal sectors (Brown, 2017; PACBI, 2022; Zirin, 2024b). It is incumbent on us scholars and educators of sport to support in solidifying and reproducing such conditions for resistance.
Notes
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is an alliance of Indigenous nations situated in the region south of Lake Ontario, crossing the Canada–U.S. border. The Confederacy is made up of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras.
The team officially changed its name to “the Haudenosaunee Nationals” in 2022. As the event discussed in this paper took place prior to the name change, “Iroquois Nationals” is still used in the rest of the paper.
In Gaza, 2.3 million Palestinians (half of whom are children) have been denied freedom of movement and regular access to food, water, and healthcare and forced to live in a dense “open-air prison” besieged by Israel in violation of international law. In 2018, the U.N. deemed Gaza “unlivable” (United Nations, 2018).
Nakba means “catastrophe” in Arabic. It refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 by Jewish militia groups Irgun and Haganah under Zionist leadership: With raids, massacres, and depopulation campaigns, Palestinians were driven off their land en masse, paving the way for the establishment of the state of Israel. Commemorating Nakba has been criminalized in Israel (see Awad & Levin, 2020).
Among those who were targeted and killed was 21-year-old nurse Razan Al Nazar, who was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper as she was clearly dressed as a medic with her hands raised and attempted to treat a wounded protester (Martin, 2019).
Among other atrocities, in a grave violation of international law, Israel continued its attacks on tent camps for displaced Palestinians in Rafah despite the International Court of Justice’s ordering it to “immediately” cease the military operation there in May 2024 (Imbert, 2024).
In July 2024, in an analysis published by the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet, researchers Khatib et al. (2024) estimated that 186,000 people were killed in the 9-month genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, far more than the total publicized in the corporate media. In other words, 7.9% of Gaza population has died since October 7, 2023.
Not to be confused with “socialist” Zionist redwashing, another formation that bears the name of “redwashing” in the context of the Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine (see, e.g., Sabbagh-Khoury, 2023)
In the last decades of the 19th century, Zionists sought support from the German kaiser and the Russian tzar to be the patron of their endeavor (see Awad & Levin, 2020).
As opposed to the fact that The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is nonbinding, apartheid is considered a crime under international law. The United Nations, in fact, recognized the continuing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory (the West Bank and Gaza strip) as illegal.
According to Israel Lacrosse (n.d.b), recruited by Scott Neiss, U.S. coaches Bill Beroza and Howard Borkan served as coaches for the first-ever lacrosse game in Israel in August 2011, featuring teams from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Despite recognition of their rights by the United Nations, Palestinian refugees’ rights to return and to compensation have long been denied by the United States and Israel (Bashi, 2024; Jewish Voice for Peace, n.d.b).
The International Olympic Committee has approved lacrosse’s inclusion in the 2028 summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Nike became the sponsor for the team in 2006 (see Fryling, 2006).
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