Al-Wehdat club announced, on Monday July 4th , its refusal to participate in the Al-Ain International Volleyball Championship, held in the UAE, due to the participation of an Israeli team.
the team shared its decision in a post on its official Facebook page, which the club said originally in Arabic and roughly translates to: “Officially, Al-Wehdat Club announces its apology as it declines to participate in the Al Ain International Volleyball Championship. No to normalization.”
In another post, the team expressed his absolute rejection of having its fan base exploitation of his masses in promoting normalization with the Israeli occupation.
the team initially unknowingly welcomed the club’s invite to participate in the tournament, which will be held from August 18 to 28, provided this approval by the Jordan Volleyball Association was before discovering that the of an Israeli team was invited to participate too.
Why are boycotts in sports even important?
the importance of such an act comes due to the fact that sports are an extremely important normalizing activity for Israel. from that importance, Israel has worked hard to host international sports tournaments such as that of football among others.
Sports have a large following making teams’ public boycott a great tool to spreading awareness of Israeli racism and abuse of the human rights of Palestinian people across the sports community worldwide. That team sports community understands racism. When it fully understands Israeli racism against Palestinians both on and off the field, it will be a strong supporter of the boycott against the Israeli occupation in all possible forms as a strong but peaceful tool against the oppression of Palestinians. This will take time, so it is important that we work hard to strengthen and support current activities.
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