BDS launches campaign against Puma over Israeli team sponsorship

“When companies like Puma sponsor and profit from illegal Israeli settlements, they give a nod to Israel’s far-right regime that its criminal land grabs and attacks on Palestinian sports can continue unabated,” BDS said in a statement.

The movement called for joining the #BoycottPuma International Day of Action on June 15.

BDS then mentioned Palestinian footballers Mohamed Khalil and Mahmoud Sarsak who had to retire after Israeli military forces fired directly at their legs and the latter lost his limbs subsequently.

The campaign also pointed to Israel’s bombardment of playgrounds in the besieged Gaza Strip, its stringent restrictions on the activities of Palestinian clubs, particularly near the separation wall that snakes across the occupied West Bank and isolates large swathes of Palestinian territories, as well as the construction of Israeli sports clubs on land grabbed from Palestinians.

The BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”

Thousands of volunteers worldwide have joined the BDS movement, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural and academic ties to Tel Aviv, to help promote the Palestinian cause.

Last year, Israel published a list of 20 organizations whose activists would be barred from entering the occupied territories due to their support for boycott campaigns.

Israel’s strategic affairs ministry has also been allocated $36mn to combat the BDS movement.

KD