How The Olympics and World Cup Help Fuel Israeli War Crimes in Palestine
Olympic security and surveillance are big business and that business is also enabling the genocide in Palestine. But the World Cup, Olympics, and other mega-events are more than just business opportunities. They are advertisements for the Israeli military and government’s public-private consortium of surveillance, spying, and military contractors. Increasingly militarized and securitized mega-events are secured by firms run by former Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers and Mossad agents, expanding the reach of these groups, enabling them to monitor and surveil populations throughout the world. These firms train local police, security, and soldiers on techniques they experimented with and perfected while serving the IOF’s genocidal colonization scheme in Occupied Palestine.
Israeli firms like International Security & Defense Systems (ISDS) and Elbit Systems earned $40 million training Greek police and securing the 2004 Athens Games. 10,000 Brazilian soldiers and police were trained by ISDS, which was awarded a $2B security contract for the 2016 Rio Olympics. ISDS is one of the big dogs in a military-tech industry built on converting the collective learning of the Israeli military into commercial products to be sold on the world market.
ISDS has supported security for a long list of mega-events, including:
- Mexico 1986 World Cup
- Italy 1990 World Cup,
- Barcelona 1992 Olympics
- Sydney 2000 Olympics
- Athens 2004 Olympics
- Rio 2007 Pan American Games
- Beijing 2008 Olympics
- South Africa 2010 World Cup
- Sochi 2014 Olympics
- Rio 2016 Olympics
- Russia 2018 World Cup
- Tokyo 2020 Olympics
The ISDS Clients page on their website has the section for Mega Events listed first.
If you’re wondering whether we’re talking about the same ISDS that helped train contras in Nicaragua to overthrow the Sandinista government — yes. We are. We’re talking about Argentina-born former Mossad agent Leo Gleser’s Tel Aviv headquartered ISDS, which operated in Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Ecuador, offering “selective terror,” “urban counterterrorism,” and “intelligence and counterintelligence” courses to death squads.
And this is the company responsible for training security forces at the Olympics…
Protestors in Japan oppose the Israeli Defense Weapons and Surveillance Expo in Kawasaki. 2018.
Mega-events are such big business that the Israeli Defense Weapons and Surveillance Expo (ISDEF) was moved from its normal location in Tel Aviv to Kawasaki, Japan, for a special 2018 edition, two years before the region was set to host the Olympics. The event was opposed by local Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement activists and locals upset about the idea of having a sale for military grade guns and weapons in a kids’ sports facility.
According to its website, the ISDEF gathering brings “together Israeli and International companies specializing in the latest equipment and technologies for HLS (homeland security), mega-event protection, cyber security, and counter-terrorism, providing a unique platform of advanced technologies and knowledge transfer to ensure public safety.”
NOlympics Anywhere movement leaders and comrades Hangorin No Kai opposed both the Olympic Games and the Israeli weapons expo. 2018.
This “knowledge transfer” refers to a research and development round trip from Palestine, to mega-events, and back again. The Olympics and World Cup have provided opportunities for these firms to practice their tech on massive crowds in large population centers around the world. Technology developed over decades of testing and implementation in Occupied Palestine are used on mega-event host populations to continue refining these deadly products for use once again in Palestine, where AI technology is launching drone strikes faster than any human ever could, and the process repeats itself ad nauseam.
Mega-events are a sales floor for Israeli firms to advertise and sell their wares. US tech firms like IBM and Cisco have scrambled to buy in and fund this research and development, boosting the profiles of the weapons-tech firms, enabling even more testing and research both in Palestine and at more mega-events. Functionally and aesthetically, the security perimeters of mega-event and stadiums are reminiscent of militarized national borders.
Catalog from the ISDEF Kawasaki event in 2018 advertises Border Control Vehicles, Drones, Guns, and Bullets.
According to a Haaretz article from 2006, the Defense Ministry, Mossad, and the Foreign Ministry receive requests to train an army or provide security services for a political leader and pass these requests along to preferred private companies to execute the contracts.
Private Israeli security companies like ISDS, Nice Systems, Grove Ventures, and Verint Systems (of NSA spying infamy) provide security plans for governments and non-governmental organizations at national and international events. The programs they offer include “cyber security, human force training, and global sports competition security”.
The Olympics are functionally a global PR campaign during which countries gather and feign camaraderie, while turning a blind eye to the horrors nations are inflicting on the world.
State leaders, celebrities, behemoth football clubs, local politicians, and multinational corporations all over the world are pouring more money into the Israeli private security sector. Companies like Coca-Cola, Nestle, FC Barcelona, Pemex, and Smith & Wesson have hired ISDS to implement these blood-soaked methods in support of their commercial ventures. Israeli firms, at the direction of Israeli authorities, have taken the violence that they commit against Palestinians and exported it internationally for profit.
The ISDS client webpage includes state owned oil companies, gun manufacturers, and Coca-Cola, who are accused of murdering union leaders in Colombia in the 90s.
One place Israeli firms export violence to is Los Angeles. Between 2002 and 2009, the Los Angeles Police Department’s chief and deputy chief traveled multiple times for training in Israel, where they were introduced to facial recognition and drone technology developed by Israeli companies. In 2020, after George Floyd was mercilessly murdered by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, advocates stated that the knee-to-neck chokehold was “used and perfected to torture Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces through 72 years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession.”
The massive amounts of wealth generated from these ventures aids the Zionist entity’s genocide while giving companies run by Mossad and IOF soldiers access to massive amounts of data collected in some of the largest gatherings and celebrations throughout the world. That money and data is used to fortify these companies’ infrastructure and the cycle of terror and Palestinian death continues. Israel oppresses and kills Palestinians, packages up their methods, sells them to the world, and uses the money it makes to further develop oppressive practices and techniques to strengthen its chokehold on Palestine. The Olympics and FIFA have been helping Israel to build its genocidal war machine for four decades.
The Olympics are functionally a global PR campaign during which countries gather and feign camaraderie, while turning a blind eye to the horrors nations are inflicting on the world. They allow apartheid states to pretend they are “civilized” while keeping their barbarous acts behind the curtains. They actively fund genocidal states, while claiming to be an apolitical unifying event for the globe. The Olympics’ hypocrisy has always been clear – but it is exceptionally apparent when we look at Israel’s deep ties to the Games.
This phase of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians has been ongoing for almost two years. It is imperative that we reject colonialism in all its forms and reject the Olympics for their participation in the oppression of Palestinians. True global unity will not be accomplished by the Olympic Games, but rather, by the recognition that all oppressed communities are engaged in similar struggles. These are struggles that the Olympics can only make worse, but which can be overcome when communities come together.
IOC spokesperson Mark Adams has said, “We’re unable to bring peace. We can call for peace, but we probably won’t achieve it… Our job is to let the politicians, unfortunately, get on with what they want to get on with.”
Our job is not to let them.
End the Genocide.
Abolish the Olympics.
Donate:
The Gaza Sunbirds, a Palestinian para-cycling team that is now doing aid distribution.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/savegaza
The Sameer Project is a donations based aid initiative, led by four Palestinians in the diaspora, working to supply an emergency response and funding to the displaced families in Gaza.
https://chuffed.org/project/113222-tent-campaign-the-sameer-project