The Israeli Sports Minister Is Using the NBA to Further an Anti-Palestine PR Campaign

Dave Zirin quotes USCPR Executive Director, Yousef Munayyer, and Director of Grassroots Organizing and Advocacy, Ramah Kudaimi, in an article debunking claims made by Israeli Sports Minister Miri Regev about pressuring the National Basketball Association to remove references to Palestine from their website.

Ramah Kudaimi, director of grassroots organizing for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, made the following point to me that helps explain it: “Miri Regev’s job is to spread propaganda to whitewash Israel’s continued denial of Palestinian rights.” “As more and more people of conscience take action in support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality, including artists like Lorde and athletes like Michael Bennett, Israel feels the pressure to combat its growing isolation due to boycott, divestment, and sanction campaigns,” she said.

In other words, we cannot separate this push by Regev from Israel’s isolation, which has only increased dramatically since Trump’s call to move the embassy to Jerusalem, the international rebuke in the United Nations, and the Palestinian National Authority saying that the United States has renounced its position as a peace broker.

Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the US Campaign, told me: “This is the latest in a series of efforts aimed at using sports and culture as a rubber stamp for Israeli policies and as part of an effort to whitewash Israeli violations before the massive audiences these sports leagues reach.”

Read the article here.