Like a handful of other American sports leagues and teams, the National Women’s Soccer League decided to commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day by releasing a statement on the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
“The NWSL mourns the tragic loss of life in Israel and condemns acts of terrorism,” the league wrote. “We remain hopeful for peace in the region and around the world.”
This CNN interview clip with Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian activist and politician and a supporter of nonviolent resistance against Israel, does a good job of summarizing what is currently at stake:
MUST-WATCH interview on CNN. Genuinely shocked they have aired it. pic.twitter.com/madjVCpBOb
— David Adler (@davidrkadler) October 8, 2023
We have no problem with the NWSL mourning “the tragic loss of life in Israel.” But to identify Israel as the only victim of civilian deaths is a blatant erasure of the fact that the Israeli military has been enacting that same violence on Palestinians in the decades leading up to last weekend. It is irresponsible for the league to take the events of last weekend and strip them of context. To call the civilian deaths in Israel “terrorism”—in of itself a loaded word, especially when it pertains to a country in the Middle East—without making the same claim about the Israeli military is to blatantly refuse to acknowledge that the Israeli government has condoned that same violence against Palestinians for decades.
(It’s also worth noting that even nonviolent resistance to the Israeli military, like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, has been likened to terrorism; the crime here seems to be more about resisting against a genocidal military power that the United States happens to back than about actual harm to civilians.)
The irony shouldn’t be lost that the NWSL, an American soccer league, did not make a post about Indigenous Peoples’ Day—and instead chose to call for support of a violent colonizing group.
This isn’t the first time the NWSL has refused to take a stance that might be seen as controversial to the American mainstream; we’re honestly not surprised with what they said here, even if we’re disappointed. But backing the movement for a free Palestine—and opposing the Israeli military’s human rights abuses and the settler-colonial logic that favors their occupation of Palestinian land—should not be a controversial take for any person, or league, who truly wants to dismantle oppressive structures worldwide.
— Leo and Jaiden
