PETITION TO THE OLYMPIC COUNCIL OF MALAYSIA

To the President and Executive Board of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM)

Dear members of the OCM Executive Board,
BAN ISRAEL FROM THE OLYMPIC GAMES
We draw your attention to the demand by 300 Palestinian sports clubs and civil society organisations to ban Israel from the Olympic Games.
We fully support that demand.
The following are the irrefutable facts that form the basis of our support:
1.           Israel’s Mass Killings of Palestinians
Since October 2023, Israel has been conducting a war of genocidal proportions against 2.3 million defenceless Palestinian civilians in Gaza. By January this year, Israel had hit Gaza with over 650,000 tons of explosives, which is three times more firepower than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Israel has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians and wounded almost 65,000. Two-thirds of deaths consist of children and women. Hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, housing and all civilian infrastructure have been attacked and destroyed by Israel. These are all war crimes, according to reports by Human Rights Watch and the Institute for Palestine Studies.  
2.           The International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on January 26 this year
The ICJ ruled that Israel’s military attack on the Gazan population was plausible genocide and ordered Israel to take measures to avoid being guilty of genocide, the crime of all crimes. To date, Israel has not complied. Since the ICJ ruling till the time of writing, more than 2,000 Palestinian civilians, including children, have been killed by the Israeli military.   
3.           Israel is an apartheid state
Reports issued by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, have all confirmed that Israel practises an apartheid system over Palestinians, irrespective of whether they are citizens of Israel or living in the occupied territories of the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. In international law, apartheid is classified as a crime against humanity. Malaysia, as a signatory to the International Convention against Apartheid in Sports should "take all appropriate action to secure the expulsion of a country practising apartheid from international and regional sports bodies."

4.           The Palestinian Sports Sector Deliberately Targeted and Victimised by Israel
Israel blatantly violates the human rights and the right to practise sports of Palestinians. Israeli settlement-based sports clubs and stadiums are built on stolen Palestinian lands. Palestinian stadiums have been bombed and destroyed; sports clubs raided and matches obstructed; sports equipment confiscated; the freedom of movement of Palestinian athletes denied. Israeli atrocities against Palestinian sports are aimed at dehumanising Palestinians. The guiding philosophy of Israel towards Palestinian sports is that sub-humans should be denied the opportunity to enjoy sports as sports will make them more human. That philosophy has reached the point where the deliberate wounding or killing of Palestinian athletes is its logical outcome. Palestinian athletes have been shot at to cause permanent injuries or, worse, kill them. Israel killed the Palestinian Olympic football team coach, Captain Hani Al-Masdar, and destroyed the office of the Palestinian Olympic committee in Gaza in its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Among those killed or still besieged in Gaza are athletes, fans and followers of the Olympic games. All these are more than sufficient to prove the point that Israel cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered to be adhering to the spirit and values espoused by the Olympic movement.
5.           IOC’s Treatment of Apartheid South Africa and Russia
In 1964, the IOC banned South Africa from the Tokyo Olympic Games and all Olympics after that (until 1992) because of the country’s apartheid system. On July 13, 2023, the IOC announced that Russia would not receive a formal invitation to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris because of the country’s aggression against Ukraine. Referring to points 1, 2 and 3 above, Israel is guilty of aggression, plausible genocide and apartheid. Justice, equity and consistency demand that the very same sanctions meted out to apartheid-era South Africa and, recently, Russia also be issued against Israel.
In consideration of all the above points, and in support of the demand by Palestinian sports clubs and civil society organisations, we strongly urge that the OCM, to defend the Olympic spirit and values from being further defiled and dishonoured by Israel, take immediate action to urge the IOC to ban Israel from the Olympics, starting with the 2024 Games in Paris. .