The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign have announced that they will protest against the inclusion of Israeli teams at the World Ultimate Frisbee Championship at the University of Limerick this Sunday.
This comes as teams, including Irish delegations, have decided to boycott matches involving Israeli teams amid calls from other participating clubs for Israeli teams to be banned.
New Age, a club from central Israel, are due to compete in the championships and is a member of the Israeli Flying Disc Association, which has expressed support for the Israel-Gaza war, and includes members based in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
On The Hard Shoulder, Rebecca O’Keefe, from Irish Sport for Palestine, said they are asking the world frisbee federation, the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), to “apply their own precedent.”
“The frisbee federation [WFDF] have previously removed Russia and Belarus, but they will not remove Israel.”
She called on the federation to “act with consistency” and “take accountability,” and stated that athletes should not have to make statements opposing the inclusion of Israeli teams.
Israeli teams are “normalising and legitimising” states violating human rights
Ms. O’Keefe said that the frisbee community “have been incredibly active in mobilising” around the issue of Israeli teams’ inclusion in frisbee events.
She noted that many teams have called on the WFDF to require Israeli clubs to “compete under a neutral banner,” rather than represent Israel.
She also said that “the presence of Israeli sporting teams in competition is normalising and legitimising the presence of these states that are committing human rights violations, now committing genocide.”
Irish team “not officially due to play” an Israeli team
Also on the show was Stephen Jones, a frisbee player for Ranelagh Ultimate, who are boycotting fixtures with Israeli teams. He said the decision to boycott Israeli teams began at a tournament last year.
While representing Ireland at the World Beach Championships in Portugal, Mr. Jones said the Irish team released a statement boycotting any potential game against Israeli opponents, and called for the suspension of Israeli teams for future events.
He said that there was a “large degree of overlap” between the Ireland and Ranelagh teams, and they decided to boycott fixtures again.
Despite this, he said that the Ranelagh Ultimate team are “not officially due to play” an Israeli team, and that he does not believe the draw would result in a clash.
