How Sport Shaped A Nation
‘’Sport and politics don’t mix’’ is an age old adage. Yet it is no truer now then it has ever been. Even ancient era sport was embroiled in politics and diplomacy. Roman emperors would often stage bloodsports at times of discontent to ease the masses and please the hoards. In modern sport even Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s Olympic dream had political motivation, trying to reassemble French pride that was lost after the Franco-Prussian war. Hitler staged a propaganda strewn Olympics, the US and USSR led ideological Olympic battles for decades and international apartheid policy led to mass sporting boycotts. Sport is an important factor in politics and sport itself is already shaped by the wider political environment.
Israel
Israel is the perfect example of how sport and politics mix and intertwine. The search for a suitable ‘homeland’ for the Jewish people originally began in the 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitic views in Europe and the continued assimilation of the Jewish race across the globe. After World War II, and the mass persecution of Jews by the Nazi’s the call from the Zionist movement for an independent Jewish state grew. In 1948, aided by the United Nations, Israel was founded via the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. How did sport play a role in this controversial piece of history?
Theodor Herzl is considered the founder of the modern day state of Israel; his writings on the ideals of Zionism formed the theory and ideology behind the formation of a state provisioned for the Jewish people to call home. Zionism as an ideology is not uniform, rather it has developed into many strands of Zionistic thought that in politics various organisations, groups, and individuals have attached themselves to. However the common denominators and motivations of Zionistic thought are threefold. Firstly and most importantly is the claim to the Land of Israel in the Southern Levant between Turkey and Egypt as their religious, cultural and spiritual homeland. Secondly a common cultural identity had to be established between the settlers of Israel who had derived from such diverse cultural backgrounds through the application of the Hebrew language and in the form of the third aim of Zionism, the ‘New Jew’. The ‘New Jew’ aim involved changing the stereotype of the Diaspora Jew into a new physical, strong and productive person. This was in contrast to the frail, weak and slim Jew stereotype that grew in the European Diaspora influenced by an accurate portrayal of large-scale physical inactivity in Eastern European Jews that was considered by Anti-Semite’s across Central and Western Europe as a true depiction of the Jewish people.
Sporting clubs in Israel run along a common theme. Much with the prevalence of Sparta/Spartak, Dynamo, and Lokomotiv sporting organisations across the former Soviet and Yugoslav states the sport teams in Israel have common ‘club names’. In Israel the common sporting organisations were predominantly formed from the unions Maccabi and Hapoel. This is still prevalent today, using a footballing example twelve of the sixteen teams of the Israeli premier league have ‘club names’ from these two political movements and of the remaining four three were established recently as mergers of original Maccabi and Hapoel sides. The remaining team were formed from the Beitar Zionist Revolutionist Party (Beitar Jerusalem) and followed a similar naming pattern.
The thinkers
The Maccabi World Union was developed in 1921 as an umbrella organisation for the many Jewish sporting organisations, clubs and teams across Europe that formed at the time and it was this union that invented the Maccabiah Games; a quadrennial event that has been held since 1932 in Israel, an Olympic style multi-sport event solely for inhabitants of Israel, or, more specifically, Jews. From the outset the Maccabiah carried a political motivation. The motivation for the Maccabiah, and the Maccabi World Union carried many of the ideologies of Zionism.
Sport was used as a tool toward a new Jewish culture; the games would act as a way of uniting the Diaspora Jews across Europe and the Jewish population of Israel. The establishment of common ground for the emigrating Jew’s was also prominent. and not only this it acted as a form of emigration, many Jew’s never returned to their competing countries especially Bulgaria and Lithuania in the earliest events. It also went as far as too emulate the ‘New Jew’ prophecy of a productive and physical Jew capable of orchestrating and competing in such an event that the Anti-Semitism across Europe at the time thought impossible. The Maccabiah therefore were a very important wagon toward the goal of an independent Jewish state.
After the independence of Israel in 1948, 1950-1970, the games changed somewhat. For the first time the games were opened to all Jews, not only members of the Maccabi union This helped to breakdown the political barriers amongst the Jewish sport clubs themselves, especially with the left wing Hapoel workers group. This was again in line with the Zionistic view of a universal Jewish culture based on the Hebrew language and in this case, sport. The games began to become more competitive and to a higher standard. Mark Spitz, the multiple Olympic swimming champion was the zenith of competitor talent on show during what was the Maccabiah’s glory years. The Maccabiah World Union, much too Arab objection, was rewarded with recognition of an organisation of Olympic standing by the International Olympic Committee in 1960. This international recognition was massive for a state only twelve years young, and acted as a huge form of cultural capital. In the international market for prestige; sport is often the common means toward an end and finally Israel was considered part of this elite, the part the Maccabiah and the Maccabi World Union played in this cannot be overstated. By utilising political dimensions other then what is considered high politics Israel had managed to create a sustainable cultural capital.
The workers
The formation of the Hapoel sporting organisation is also one of significant political interest. Hapoel literally translated from Hebrew means ‘worker’ and this was the basis of the group, members of the workers union Histadrut. Hapoel were founded by the Histadrut workers organisation in the 1920’s as a sporting club association for the left-wing Labour political movement. This formed in response to growing fears of the Nazi movement in Europe, continued anti-Semitism in Europe (in particular the Soviet Union) and growing links between the Nazi’s and the Arab Socialist Party in Palestine. Although sharing many similar ideals as Maccabi’s Zionist views, they differ on the ways unto which this was to be achieved. Maccabi as a union felt a need for worldwide acceptance of this ideal and used the Maccabiah games as a vehicle for this. Hapoel however felt that sport could be used as a means for self improvement toward a stronger Jewish identity, the ‘New Jew’. The consensus amongst the organisation was that to create this strong and powerful Jew, both in body and spirit would give credence to the ideal that the Land of Israel belonged to the Jewish People and sport could play a pivotal role in this process.
Hapoel took a more regimented view toward sport; the athletes of these clubs were trained in drill like fashion. The Hapoel organisation was not interested in dissimilation philosophy, that Jews could become habitual to new lands as a successful Diaspora, they leant more to the theory that the Jewish population should immigrate to the new state of Israel. The Hapoel organisation, more than any other sporting organisation, aided in the national security of the country; the regimented view to sport clubs across Europe sought to militarise the workers in Israel and the Jewish Diasporas in Europe. Hapoel was considered a quasi-military organisation. Politically the Hapoel organisation was a necessity toward supplying the military with candidates for the future. Coupling this with what was an identifiably similar culture, as all the men of the Histadrut were workers, created a mass of men willing to join the armed forces upon Jewish independence. After independence many Hapoel/Histadrut members were part of the Israeli army that fought the Arab-Israeli war and several members became top rank members of the military and parliament, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hapoel worked as a functional system of producing young, fit, regimented and passionate men willing to fight for Israel or more appropriately the Jewish faith. These methods helped Hapoel set up clubs across the area especially in the big cities Haifa, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. The continued growth of the club helped to instigate its political motivation on a wider scale. Hapoel as a sport organisation saw sport not as an aim itself but rather as a means toward a more significant and political outcome. After the independence of Israel Hapoel grew; becoming the leading sport organisation in Israel and is still today linked with the workers union’s of Israel.
The guerrillas
The only other sport club to make a dent on the dominance of the Labour motivated Hapoel faction and the cultural Zionist Maccabi union was that of the Revisionist Zionist movement, Beitar. The main objective of this movement, similarly to Maccabi and Hapoel, was to create a functional and independent State for the Jewish people in their spiritual homeland of Israel.
The main difference between the Beitar movement and the other groups was a less diplomatic view toward how best to achieve this. Beitar were often described as an insurgent group and held high animosity toward Arab Palestinians and the British rule at the time. They also differed on a diplomatic territory share in the area and wanted the entire area of what is now Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to be part of the new Jewish homeland as they felt an eternal right to own this land. They gathered a large Jewish following across Europe in countries such as Poland, Latvia and Czechoslovakia. They organised mass illegal immigration against the rise of Nazism in mainland Europe and joined the fight against the Nazi’s as guerrilla groups in countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and again Poland. After the Second World War when the calls for independence from the political Zionist’s (Maccabi) and the Labor Zionist’s (Hapoel) grew Beitar disagreed with the methods they were using to achieve this. Beitar, and the political groups they were now loyal to, did not want to co-operate with British politicians or military commanders and instead waged war against anyone they felt was intruding on Jewish land.
The organisation founded many football clubs in the 1930’s and the most prominent of them Beitar Jerusalem was established in 1936 and consisted entirely of Beitar movement members. Henceforth this club was and still is considered a right wing political group with their ‘ultras’ fan base notorious throughout Israel. The team has been banned on many occasions after attacks on British Military were linked to members of the organisation in Jerusalem. They boycotted the 1946 Israeli cup along with all over Beitar affiliated teams in protest at the co-operation of the Hapoel and Maccabi movements with British and Arab politicians. The Beitar movement didn’t use sport as such, as least not in the degree the Maccabi and Hapoel clubs did in order to highlight their political aspirations and beliefs but rather it was an unavoidable clash. When the Beitar movement were making a political statement or undergoing some form of military practice the teams that were affiliated with the movement would be intrinsically linked to these activities.
As time has moved on since the independence of Israel in 1948 the Beitar movement has dissipated and now Beitar Jerusalem is the only major sporting club still attached to this movement. Recently however there has been a thaw in this relationship, the club is now owned by a wealthy Russian and made headlines for donating money to Arab club Bnei Sakhnin in a diplomatic gesture in. However the clubs far-right political stance is still entrenched in the philosophy, especially of the fans.
The affect
Groups of different ideologies such as Maccabi, Hapoel and Beitar transcended the political board from left wing to the far-right but had one goal in mind, an independent Jewish state. The role sport had to play was seminal especially with the Hapoel and Maccabi factions. The militarisation through sport of the youth lead to the establishment of a true military power in Israel; the cohesive dichotomy of European ethnicities and cultures were pulled together by the joint interest of being Jewish and a member of the workers union, aided by the sports clubs influence. The Maccabiah games acted as means for immigration, prestige and changing of the Jewish stereotype in Europe. Beitar Jerusalem as a football club became, and still is a symbol of Jewish defiance in Israel. Sport was critically and essentially important in the formation of a new nation and integral to international relations. The phrase ‘’sport and politics don’t mix’’ is not appropriate in Israel; for sport was a major player in the politics and international relations that formed the Jewish State.
Historic Ramble
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