As we are in an Olympic year, we might wonder whether sports can promote respect and sportsmanship to override the vile BDS movement. BDS is the movement to Boycott, Divest from and Sanction Israel. Most Jews knowledgeable about the threats to Israel understand that BDS is a real threat. There are organizations such as CAMERA, StandwithUs and the Maccabee Task Force working to counter BDS at universities and elsewhere Maccabee Task Force's website says:

“The Maccabee Task Force was created in 2015 to combat the disturbing spread of anti-Semitism on America's college campuses. We believe the BDS movement is at the forefront of this troubling trend. We maintain that BDS is an anti-Semitic movement that crosses the line from legitimate criticism of Israel into the dangerous demonization of Israel and its supporters. We are determined to help students combat this hate by bringing them the strategies and resources they need to tell the truth about Israel.”

“The (BDS) movement takes much of its inspiration and rhetoric from the successful boycotts of the 1980’s and early 1990’s that forced the South African government to abandon its system of racial apartheid. This is why the BDS movement tries so hard – despite so many facts to the contrary – to draw a parallel between Israel and South Africa.

“BDS leaders also try very hard to portray themselves as peace activists who are using non-violent means to force Israel to withdraw from the 'West Bank' and make way for a Palestinian Arab State.

“But a visit to the BDS website (www.BDSmovement.net) quickly reveals that BDS has far a more radical goal: eliminating Israel as a Jewish state. This is not an exaggeration. This is something BDS leaders readily admit.

“The problem with the BDS movement is not that it criticizes Israel. The problem with the BDS movement is that it criticizes only Israel. BDS insists on blaming the entire conflict on only one side – Israel. Such simplistic scapegoating won’t bring peace; it will only fuel extremism.”

The Cambridge Dictionary defines “sportsmanlike” as: behaving in a way that is fair and shows respect towards the other players when playing sport.
Boycotts and Shunning exist in the context of sports as well. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “sportsmanlike” as: behaving in a way that is fair and showsrespect towards the other players when playingsport

Likewise, “a person who behaves in a good or specified way in response to teasing, defeat, or a similarly trying situation” is called a “sport.”

Shouldn’t our culture, when directed towards opponents, have a large element of sportsmanship, behaving in a way that is fair and shows respect? Or is every cultural battle a “fight to the finish” that is, to a complete victory in making your enemy into a non-person with beliefs that are so evil they must be censored and whose athletes are so evil that they should be shunned? And once shunning is successful, what comes next?

Hillary Clinton claimed that “respect” should be given to all, even one’s enemies. I don’t think we should respect Iran or other genocidal countries. However, we can respect individual athletes for their athletic prowess.

What about countries? Should athletes and their governing bodies from liberal democracies consider boycotting Olympic games held in countries that are guilty of genocide or other serious human rights issues? That is a consideration with respect to the winter Olympics upcoming in China in February. A number of western democracies are sending their athletes but not their diplomats in a so-called “diplomatic boycott”.

In the past, dozens of countries, led by the U.S., withheld their athletes from the 1980 Moscow Olympics. to protest the Russian invasion of Afghanistan: then 13 other governments led by Russian declined to send their athletes to the following Summer Olympics in Los Angeles—claiming that they would not be safe.

But we recall the West’s shameful failure to boycott or use other sanctions against the Nazis at the Berlin Summer Olympics of 1936. By the time of those Olympics, Hitler had made clear his plans for a genocide of the Jews and others, even if the athletes themselves did not understand that.

Big Tech and big media are ramping up censorship against Israel at the very time that the Abraham Accord shows the way to behave for mutual benefits. Iran and some other Muslim nations use sports as a propaganda “club” against the Israelis whom they will never respect,

However, while the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanction) movement has made gains among university faculty and students, it has been increasingly failing in the realm of sports. This gives some hope that President Trump’s Abraham Accord will find fertile ground for increasing cultural and sporting exchange between Isael and the Sunni Muslim nations that have accepted the accords. We can hope that the Palestinian Arabs will understand that most Arabs, including those living in Israel now accept sportsmanship and that their Jew-hatred, in the field of sports, as in the field of politics, mostly hurts their own.

The main sports which have historically been involved in anti-Israel shunning are judo, chess and football (soccer). A look at Wikipedia on historical shunning shows that the sports authorities in Arab countries are moving in the opposite direction from the leftists and Islamists who are the main movers of BDS.:

In 1974, Israel was expelled from the Asian Football Confederation of FIFA (the international football association) by a resolution initiated by Kuwait, which was adopted by AFC by a vote of 17 to 13 with 6 abstentions. To get around the ban, Israel was admitted as an associated member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) in 1992, and was admitted as a full member of the UEFA group in 1994.

Supporters of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement advocated and failed for Israel to be expelled or suspended from FIFA. On 24 August 2018, the President of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) Jibril Rajoub was fined CHF 20,000 (US$20,333) and banned from FIFA matches for a year for inciting hatred and violence against an Argentinian team proposing to play a friendly match in Israel.

The 1976 Chess Olympiad was held in the Israeli city of Haifa, which resulted in boycotting by several countries, such as the Soviet Union and the Arab nations, who at the time did not recognize the state of Israel.

In 2007, Mushir Salem Jawher, a Kenyan-born marathoner, lost his Bahraini citizenship after competing in the Tiberias Marathon in Israel, but later that year reacquired Bahraini citizenship and competed again in the Tiberias Marathon in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

In 2009, there was an increased number of boycotts and boycott campaigns against Israeli athletes over Operation Cast Lead. Israeli tennis star Shahar Peer was denied a visa to participate in a tournament in Dubai, leading to comments from stars like Serena Williams and Andy Roddick that were critical of the Dubai authorities' decision, with Roddick later pulling out of a tournament in Dubai.

After a response that included a cable network canceling its coverage of the event and a large fine for the Dubai Tennis Authorities, the United Arab Emirates did issue a visa for Israeli tennis player Andy Ram to compete that year.

Tennis authorities in Malmö, Sweden, with its large and radicalized Muslim population, wanted to cancel a Davis Cup match between Israel and Sweden; there were anti-Israel riots and the city council did not want the Israeli team competing in the city. The tennis authorities were unwilling to accept a Swedish forfeit, which would have eliminated Sweden from the competition, and decided to bar spectators from the match instead (Israel ended up knocking Sweden out of the 2009 tournament with a 3–2 series victory). As a punishment, the city was banned from hosting Davis Cup matches for five years and fined thousands of dollars.

Supporters of the BDS movement also tried and failed to have Israeli teams barred from the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Egypt's Islam El Shehaby provoked outrage after refusing to shake hands with Israeli judoka, Or Sasson...

A growing number of Arab athletes are joining domestic Israeli sports teams and the international teams, including the Israel national football team. These include Rifaat Turk, Najwan Ghrayib, Walid Badir, Salim Toama, Abbas Suan, amongst others. Another Arab-Israeli, Johar Abu Lashin, born in Nazareth, was an IBO Welterweight champion. It often seems that Arabs living outside the Middle East are more radica than Arab citizens living or working in Israel.

In October 2017, when an Israeli Tal Flicker won gold in an international judo championship in the United Arab Emirates, officials refused to fly the Israeli flag and play the Israeli national anthem, instead playing the official music of the International Judo Federation (IJF) and flying the IJF's logo. The UAE also banned Israeli athletes from wearing their country's symbols on uniforms, having to wear IJF uniforms. I have written about the importance of symbolism on these pages,

I believe that when we identify an Islamist symbol, we must attack that symbol, to show that our symbols of liberal democracy are more hardy than their symbols of Jihad. Accordingly we must be prepared to act against cultural symbols that eventually distort our culture and empower Islamists around the world. Attacking Israel in sporting events must be met by a refusal of sports people everywhere to go along.

In December 2017, seven Israelis were denied visas by Saudi Arabia to compete in an international chess tournament] In October 2018, the UAE reversed its position allowing the Israeli flag be displayed and anthem played when an Israeli judoka Sagi Muki won a gold medal.

On 24 May 2018, a team of international jurists, including Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, took action against the exclusion of Israel's flag and anthem at sporting events in Arab countries. Said Professor Dershowitz;

“It starts with sports, but it won’t end there. We won’t allow the Jewish state to be treated like it’s a second-class country.”

In July 2018, the International Judo Federation canceled two grand slam judo events, in Tunis and Abu Dhabi, because Israeli flags were not allowed to be raised. Also in July 2018, the World Chess Federation said it would ban Tunisia from hosting the international chess competition in 2019 if it did not grant a visa to Israeli contestants, including a seven-year-old Israeli girl champion.

In June 2018, Argentina canceled a planned football friendly against Israel. The game was originally due to be played in Haifa, but was moved to Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs saw this as politicizing the match, claiming the stadium it was due to be played in sits on the site of a former Palestinian village. Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev denied that the game was being politicized by the move, but was being moved to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Israel. International pressure grew on Argentina to call off the game, led by the BDS campaign and the Palestinian Football Association.

On 18 January 2019, Israel called upon the International Paralympic Committee to move the World Para Swimming Championships scheduled for Malaysia in July 2019 because it has refused to let Israelis participate.] 10 days later, the IPC confirmed that due to Malaysia's actions regarding Israeli visas, the championships would be stripped from Malaysia and moved to another location. The IPC board said Malaysia “failed to provide the necessary guarantees that Israeli Para swimmers could participate, free from discrimination, and safely in the Championships”, including full compliance with the IPC protocols related to anthems and flags.[20]

In March 2019, the Israeli national anthem was played in Qatar after Israeli gymnast Alexander Shatilov won the gold medal for the floor exercise during the 2019 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series. The anthem had previously been played in Abu Dhabi in October 2018, after Israeli judoka Sagi Muki won the gold medal in the Judo Grand Competition.[22]

In August 2019, Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei refused to withdraw from a match at the 2019 World Judo Championships in Tokyo which would have required, had he won, to compete against an Israeli judoka Sagi Muki in the final. Though he lost, and so did not need to compete against the Israeli, Mollaei feared returning to his country and sought political asylum in Germany. Following the episode, the International Judo Federation (IJF) suspended Iran from competing in any future judo competition.

Later on, Egyptian judoka Mohamed Abdelaal refused to shake hands with Israeli Sagi Moki in the same championship. In October 2019, two Iranian teenagers also refused to play Israelis in a chess tournament. On 17 November 2019, the Israeli national anthem was played and Israeli flag flown in Abu Dhabi when 17-year-old Alon Leviev took gold in the junior category at the Ju-jitsu World Championship In December 2019, Alireza Firouzja, the world's second-highest rated junior chess player, applied to renounce his Iranian citizenship over pressures on Iranian athletes to forego matches with Israeli competitor, the second Iranian sports figure in recent months to do so.

In early November 2019, the BDS movement sought the cancellation of a soccer match between the national teams of Argentina and Uruguay scheduled to be held in Tel Aviv, Israel] The match took place on the 19th of November.

In November 2020, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) warned the Iranian Chess Federation (ICF) that it could be facing an imminent international ban for its continued refusal to allow Iranian chess players to compete against their Israeli equivalents.[28]

In July 2021, Algerian judo athlete Fethi Nourine withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics rather than face an Israeli competitor. The International Judo Federation (IJF) temporarily suspended Nourine and his coach

We must call out the boycotters and have enough self-confidence to argue based on the facts of Israel’s history. Most important is our knowledge that with the Abraham Accord and the establishment of relations with Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan, and the UAE we have an evolving level of support from Islamic modernists and enemies of Iran’s mischief in the Middle East. Accordingly, the best way to corrode support for BDS is to have the better Islamic authorities refuse to support it.