Will the Olympics ban Israel in Paris 2024?

In May 1970, South Africa was expelled from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), barring the country from competing in the Olympic Games from the 1972 games in Munich, Germany, until the 1996 Atlanta Games.

It was the first time any nation had been expelled from the Olympic movement since Parisian Baron Pierre de Courbertin, the founder of the modern games and IOC, revived it in 1896.

South Africa was banned from the Olympics because of its apartheid system that ran counter against the Olympic Charter, which prohibits discrimination against any country or individual based on race, religion, gender, or political affiliation. More recently, the IOC suspended Russia after it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As Israel's brutal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 34,904 people, seventy percent of them children and babies, enters its seventh month, and the summer games in Paris just months away, human rights advocates, including hundreds of Palestinian sports clubs and civil society organisations, have called on the IOC to take similar action.

'Gravest of war crimes'

"Israel has been waging a genocidal war against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza, including tens of thousands of athletes, fans and followers of the Olympic Games," according to more than 300 Palestinian signatories who are calling to ban Tel Aviv from the games in January.

"To allow Israel, in the midst of a genocide, to participate in the upcoming Olympic games would signal to the international community that the IOC approves of the gravest of war crimes."

One of the most impactful examples of how sports sanctions can be effective, it added, was when South Africa was prevented from competing in global games by international sports organisations, such as the IOC, International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), and more, playing a role in dismantling the country's racist apartheid regime.

A group of legislators from France in February have also urged the International Olympic Committee to exclude Israel from participating in the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris.

The IOC had announced athletes from Russia, as well as Belarus, where it was used as a staging ground for the 2022 Moscow invasion, will be allowed to compete in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as independent and neutral athletes. Athletes who have openly supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine will not be allowed to participate.

Based on this, 26 lawmakers, in a letter to the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, insisted that Israeli athletes should participate neutrally like the Russian and Belarusian athletes in the games this summer after condemning "the unprecedented war crimes committed by Israel" against Palestinians in Gaza.

IOC response

In March, Bach said Israel would not need to worry about its Olympic status despite its ongoing military offensive in Gaza.

At the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) hearing in January, where the Russian Olympic Committee challenged its suspension, IOC lawyers dismissed comparisons between Israel and Russia, arguing "there is no evidence that the Israel (Olympic body) has been recognising Palestinian sporting organisations as its members."

He criticised Russia's leaders, saying their "blatant violation" of the Olympic charter is what prompted the country's suspension.

"What is remarkable is that this aggressivity is coming from the very same government that was behind the scandalous manipulation of the anti-doping system before, during and after the Olympic Winter Games, Sochi 2014.

"What is also significant is that the Russian government apparently is ignoring the fact that they forced us into action by their invasion and their annexation of parts of Ukraine," Bach said. "They even obliged the Russian Olympic Committee to also annex parts under the jurisdiction of the NOC of Ukraine. This is the origin of all this: the blatant violation of the Olympic Charter led us to our actions."

Meanwhile, the head of the IOC's Paris 2024 coordination committee, Pierre-Olivier Beckers-Vieujan, has echoed similar sentiments, saying Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine are "different situations," and that it is "out of the question to think about sanctions (against Israel) at this stage."

"The reasons that led the IOC to sanction first Russia and then the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) are very specific," Beckers-Vieujan said. "Russia and more recently the ROC have undermined essential parts of the Olympic Charter. That's not the case with the Palestinian Olympic Committee or the Israeli Olympic Committee. It's clear that these are different situations."

Russian and Belarusian athletes were excluded from competing following calls by the IOC, which also asked international sports federations to cancel future events in Russia, just days after Moscow's aggression.

According to Bach then, Russia violated the Olympic Charter and the Olympic truce signed shortly after the Beijing Olympics, which Israel also appears to be guilty of.

Parts of the Olympic Charter clearly states, "The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play."

Paris 2024

France, where the summer Olympic games are scheduled to begin this July, welcomed the Olympic torch in the southern city of Marseille earlier this week on May 8.

The torch relay began here the next day and will pass through some of the country's most renowned landmarks and locations, including Mont Saint-Michel, the Normandy D-Day landing beaches, and the Versailles Palace, before ultimately arriving in Paris.

The Olympic cauldron will be lit following the games' opening ceremony, which will be held on the River Seine on July 26.