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The Maccabiad... Zionism and the exploitation of sports. Issam Sami Al-Khalidi
Since the end of the nineteenth century, Zionism has used sports as a means to achieve its ambitions, and Zionist clubs in Europe and Palestine played an important role in Zionizing the Jewish youth and preparing them to take up arms and strive to usurp Palestine.
Allen Taylor points out in his book (The Zionist Mind) that this movement, organized by Herzl in 1887, adopted various Zionist interpretations - cultural, religious, social, and political.
Sports, as a cultural element and a form of social awareness, had its interpretation in the Zionist mind. It is a means to rebuild the national sense by creating (Jewish sports) that transforms religious feelings and concepts into Zionist nationalism.
It also sought to highlight that Jewish superiority is not based only on the mental and academic, but also on the athletic.
The idea of sports and physical education emerged at the Second Zionist Congress in 1898 when Max Nordau - one of Herzl's collaborators - put forward the idea of Jewish muscle, which was an expression of the creation of a new generation similar in physical characteristics to that generation during the (Jewish state). Zionism wanted to raise Judaism to a higher level by (resurrecting ideals and raising the new generation physically, and this in turn will help restore the lost Zionist muscle).
Zionist thinkers viewed sport as a means to revive a new physical life, in addition to being a means to build a national homeland and restore language, literature, and history. In their view, the goal of establishing the State of Israel cannot be achieved unless it is preceded by physical, spiritual, and moral preparation for the generations who had to achieve this goal. They also realized that there is no single country without a single culture, which considered sports an integral part of this culture.
Sports...a powerful weapon
In 1883, Turkish Jews founded the Maccabi Sports Organization in Istanbul, and in 1912 it was established in Palestine. The idea of Maccabi dates back to about a century before AD. This is because the Roman state had seen that it would be good for the safety of the empire and the strength of its unity for the Jews to merge with the Romans and become Romans, but the Jews refused to do anything except maintain their Jewish character. The idea of the Jews, at its beginning, was religious and moral. Then the idea developed and the means developed with it, so it descended from the heights of religion and morals to the land of patriotism and weapons. The Maccabee idea was no longer a spiritual goal. In one of the articles in the newspaper (Filastin) on 1/18/1933, he explained the essence of Maccabee when it tried Zionism uses historical concepts and events and turns them into a national weapon. A member of the Maccabi Sports Organization in Palestine says, describing these sports gatherings in the colonies before World War I: In addition to teaching Hebrew, history, and literature, they were the vanguard of defense against hostile neighbors (by which he means the Arabs). In Palestine).
The cooperation between the sports movement and the Zionist movement in the first decade of the twentieth century was based on the slogan (Jewish national thought and the unwavering will of the Jewish nation).
The Zionist sports leadership has tried to present this slogan permanently at Zionist conferences.
This cooperation became clear when the sports movement held sports festivals that preceded the sixth, ninth and tenth Zionist conferences. Herzl was impressed by this festival - the sixth one in 1903. He said about it: (These festivals are worth more than a hundred speeches).
In 1921, the World Maccabi Organization was established, and it included all the Maccabi clubs in Europe and Palestine. The goals of this organization were announced at this conference, which was held a few days before the Twelfth Zionist Congress. These goals reflected the Zionist tendency of this movement, which was to educate its members in the Zionist spirit and prepare them through sports in order to defend the lives and property of the Jews wherever they are and the military orientation. she has.
Sports festival...a new trick
The Zionists were always seeking to find the best means to introduce more immigrants into Palestine, and Issa Al-Safari pointed out in his book (Arab Palestine between the Mandate and Zionism) in 1937 that (the Zionists had devised new tricks since 1924 to introduce more Jewish immigrants into the country, They resorted to smuggling and deception, and pretended to be subject to the restrictions stipulated in the Immigration Law, diverting many of those seeking entry to Palestine, and then hiding them in the colonies. One of these methods was (Maccabiad), a sports festival modeled after the Olympic Games, which the Zionist leaders called for in 1929. It was Zionist youth from all over the world participate in it, as a large portion of them remain never to return. Six thousand immigrants of this type entered Palestine in 1935 and handed over their passports to the government and paid the required insurance. They remained in the country and have not left it until now.
The leaders of the Zionist sports movement were crying that they were not able to represent Palestine in the Olympic Games. They dreamed of seeing the (blue and white) flag flying high among the rest of the flags of the countries participating in the Olympic Games. For them, achieving this dream is considered an indicator of the revival of their country. Their refusal to participate as representatives within different countries and their insistence on representing Palestine as a Zionist (as if it were devoid of people called Arabs) prompted them to adopt the idea of establishing an independent Zionist sports festival. In 1925, the World Maccabi Organization held a sports festival in honor of the Fourteenth Zionist Congress in Vienna, which was a preparation for a sports festival in the style of the Olympic Games to be held after that.
At the same time, during the visit of the Zionist team (Vina HaKawah) to Palestine, the date of this festival was set in the spring of 1927, but the Zionist organization refused to hold it. The reason was that holding it - as Weizman claims - could arouse the anger of the British administration in Palestine. Protests by the Palestinian National Movement during that period against Zionist immigration and related matters played a role in obstructing this festival.
But the Zionists’ efforts did not stop. The annual conference of the World Maccabi Federation held a sports festival in Czechoslovakia, and it “inflamed” the enthusiasm of the participants, prompting its president to submit a proposal to hold a Jewish Olympic festival in Palestine in Tel Aviv. It was later called the Maccabiad.
Jewish Olympics
In 1929, the Buraq Revolution broke out (and the spark that ignited it was the fall of a football match between two Jewish teams in Jerusalem on an Arab farm). The Mandate authorities were forced to issue the second White Paper, according to which they limited the flow of Jewish immigration to Palestine.
This, therefore, led to an increase in the Zionist movement's saliva, and it found in the Maccabiad an effective means to increase illegal immigration by bringing visitors and participants into Palestine and keeping them there after the end of the festival.
English support was a contributing factor in the success of this festival. A delegation was sent to London, and this delegation received advice and lessons from Zionist leaders such as Weizmann and Sokolow on how to find special outlets through which it could reach the colonial offices and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The delegation's interest focused on the issue of entry visas for athletes and visitors to this festival, and the Levant Fair, a trade fair that was held annually in Tel Aviv. The Zionists aimed to secure group passports and group entry visas in order to reduce trip costs for participants and visitors, and most importantly, to bring the largest possible number of Jews to Palestine by manipulating the immigration restrictions set by the British administration.
For its part, the British Foreign Office promised to facilitate procedures and give more entry visas to participants and visitors to this festival.
At the end of 1931, the High Commissioner for Palestine, Arthur Wauchob, who did not hide his sympathy for the Zionist movement, was appointed. A close friendship developed between him and Arslo Sorov, a leading member of the Zionist Agency. During their meeting, the idea of sponsoring the festival was presented by the High Commissioner, and with skill and skill he was able Send Surov to convince the High Commissioner that this festival has no political direction or goal. Maccabi is also seeking to invite Arab clubs and English teams to participate in this festival. The approval of the High Commissioner to sponsor the festival led to the Immigration Department in Palestine facilitating transactions for Jewish participants and visitors.
As one of the Zionist sports leaders says about inviting Arab clubs to participate in this festival (it was a deliberate maneuver to allay doubts on the English side about this festival, at a time when the Zionist movement needed British support).
As for the idea that this festival has no political direction, Zionism, as it used to use the concept (sport has nothing to do with politics), was exploiting sport in order to achieve its goals through manipulation and deception on the one hand, and on the other hand it was suggesting to the world that its practices on the sporting level were carried out in isolation from politics. .
Festival and Zionist propaganda
Zionism tried to attract non-Jewish groups from Europe and some of the sister Arab countries to Palestine, in addition to its attempt to urge European governments to allow the Maccabee groups and visitors to go to Palestine. It tempted the Polish government by convincing it that a Maccabee victory for Poland in the festival would benefit it. . Through secret talks, the Zionists were able to urge the Polish government to allow the largest number of “visitors” to immigrate to Palestine.
The festival opened on March 29, 1932, with a scout march in which Zionist flags were raised, heading to the sports stadium decorated with Zionist and British flags, with chants in Hebrew and words intended to energize the audience with the Zionist spirit.
The number of participants in this festival reached between 3,500 and 4,000 athletes from seventeen countries. As the organizers of this festival claimed, its success was a victory and propaganda for Zionist ideas in general and for Jewish sports in particular.
Zionist sources claim that about 1,591 tourists were able to stay in Palestine in the first three months of 1932. However, the sources of the Royal Commission report say that during the years 1932 and 1933, 17,900 travelers remained in Palestine. In an assessment by the Jewish Agency, it was acknowledged that after years of restricting immigration, a turning point began in the spring of 1932, when thousands of Jews immigrated to Palestine as tourists under the pretext of the Maccabiad. The British government did not condemn this illegal immigration, nor did it take upon itself any concrete action to To stop this influx of immigrants, they paid a lower level of attention.
Arab social institutions and sports clubs condemned this festival, as they were fully aware of its dangers. In its issue of March 18, 1932, the newspaper Palestine asked whether the British authorities had taken measures to stop this influx of tourists or whether they were aware of their stay in the country as permanent residents. Other newspapers also warned Arab athletes against participating in this festival, especially members of the Young Men's Christian Association in Jerusalem, warning them not to think about participating in this (Zionist conspiracy).
The establishment of Arab clubs in Palestine began in the early twenties, during that period in which an acceleration in the emergence of many charitable, scouting, and women’s associations was observed. Its activity took on a national and social character, and its emergence as social institutions reflected the efforts of the educated groups to express their nationalist sense that was hostile to the Mandate and Zionism. Later, the sporting character began to emerge in addition to the social and cultural character, and that is when it began to form part of the general culture. At the end of the twenties, several clubs emerged, and sports activities constituted the largest part of their activities. The number of sports clubs in Palestine at the beginning of the 1930s reached about twenty Arab clubs. These clubs formed a sports federation, which tried with every effort to include these clubs and give them a national character, as they extended bridges of cooperation with national organizations and forces. Despite Zionism's attempt to dominate the sports movement, the Arab sports leaders were fully aware of its goals, and until the year of the Nakba, the Arab sports movement struggled to highlight the Palestinian national identity, by restructuring the Palestinian Sports Federation, which was re-established in 1944 and which had been suspended due to the 1936 revolution.
The Eleventh Olympic Games were to be held in Berlin, Germany, in 1936. The German Olympic Committee sent an invitation to Palestine to participate in this Olympics. Despite Hitler's rise to power and the fascist stance towards the Jews, the Zionist sports leadership saw it in its interest to participate in these Olympic Games representing Palestine. It could send athletes to raise the (white and blue) flags and make their presence evidence of the presence of representatives (of the Land of Israel). However, after the Nuremberg Laws were issued (stripping any non-Aryan citizen of German citizenship), the Zionists decided not to participate in these Olympics. Hence, they saw that this Maccabiad, which they had planned in the spring of 1935, had greater importance for achieving their goals. Through talks between the High Commissioner and Lord Melchabet (a British convert to Judaism), one of the Maccabi leaders, it was agreed that each participating team would be allowed to include only 250 players. The number of participants turned out to be about five thousand in all, with the condition that each participant leaves the country as soon as the festival ends. The Maccabee leadership did not like this condition, and at the same time it was not in its interest to enter into a continuous discussion with the mandate authorities, so it decided to look for malicious means to attract the largest number of participants. For example, she found that one hundred entry visas for her team in Hungary were not in use, which prompted her to ask one hundred (visitors) Polish Jews to join the Hungarian team as sports participants. The government authorities in Hungary learned of this purpose, which led to them stopping this plan.
Arabs, as usual... are protesting
The Arab press launched a media campaign against this festival, as it focused on two things. The first was the opening of the festival, that is, the performances that were similar to military parades, and the second was illegal immigration.
The Mandate authorities banned the scouts’ parade that was to precede the festival. The reason was due to the Arab protests and to the fact that before the festival, an agreement had been made between Maccabi and the Hapophile Foundation (a Zionist organization that was affiliated with the Jewish Trade Union) and Al-Pinar (an extremist sports organization) that these two organizations would participate. In the scouting procession, this led the authorities to fear the occurrence of unrest and confrontations between Arabs and Jews, and between these two organizations themselves due to disagreements between them.
In an article in the Egyptian newspaper (Ismailia), the author of the article explained to the readers the meaning, reality, and goals of this festival (theoretically, this festival is sporting, and practically, it is military... The Maccabees serve as a base for the Jewish army in the future, as it contains the strongest Jewish youth).
The Maccabiad organizers sent an invitation to the Arab teams in the sisterly Arab countries, and it was not their intention to invite the Arab teams in Palestine. The reason for this was to give the athletes from the Arab countries the impression that those representing Palestine were the Jews. Secondly, they were not seeking to cooperate with the Arabs in Palestine in In any field, and that any cooperation with them means to them that sport can become a bridge between the two peoples, and this is what the Brit Shalom group was proposing and calling for Palestine to be a state for Arabs and Jews with both peoples exercising their civil, political and social rights equally.
The Jewish Encyclopedia indicates that more than 1,700 athletes from 27 countries, including their coaches and staff, remained in Palestine because of the anti-Semitism that had swept Europe after the Nazis rose to power in Germany, while a report from the American Consulate in Tel Aviv in June 1935 indicates that about 16,900 visitors entered Palestine during March of that year. In another report, it was indicated that the main factor for illegal immigration was the visit of the Maccabees to Palestine. This report also gave justification for this immigration, which was caused by the “suffering” of Jews in other countries. (This is not strange, dear reader, as American support was and still is for Israel even before the establishment of this state.)
Regarding the propaganda importance of this festival, the Zionist newspaper Haaretz said in March 1935 (We are not exaggerating if we say that several circles in different countries began to look with interest at the Jewish national homeland, thanks to the popularity that surrounded this festival). In another article that reflects the extent of the boasting and arrogance of the Zionist press at that time, it says: “A single record set by a Jewish athlete gains a thousand times more non-Jewish friends than propaganda and the press.” Zionist sports leaders explain the importance of this festival by saying that it had a psychological impact on European Jews because it brought together and consolidated the bonds of moral connection between the Jews of the diaspora and Palestine.
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