September, 2016
Sacramento Kings
Sleep Train Arena
One Sports Parkway
Sacramento, CA 95834
Dear Sacramento Kings:
As a major league basketball team, you have an opportunity to contribute to ending one of the most serious human rights travesties of our day – the killing, maiming, torture and brutal occupation of the Palestinian people, including children, by the current Israeli regime. Palestinian athletes have also been targeted; several have suffered career-ending injuries from attacks by soldiers in Israel’s occupying army. Our current political climate of systemic racism more than ever warrants people in the public eye to take a stand for justice and equality as we have seen recently with Colin Kaepernick.
On October 10, 2016, the Kings are scheduled to play an exhibition game against the Israeli basketball team, Maccabi Haifa. These games are not just sport. They are intended to grant legitimacy to and distract from growing public protest against Israel’s well-documented violations of human rights and international law, including its ongoing brutal military occupation, extrajudicial killing of Palestinians, demolition of Palestinian homes, illegal settlements, targeting of Palestinian youth, torturing Palestinian political prisoners, apartheid laws, and war crimes.
There are a number of actions you could take to stand against these abuses and racism, as many athletes, team officials, and others did to oppose the apartheid regime in South Africa. You could boycott the game and/or the promotional event that the Federation will be holding after the game. If you do attend the game, you could wear the Palestinian colors. You could issue a public statement that you support Palestinian human rights and oppose Israel’s human rights violations.
The victims of the Israeli regime’s well-documented human rights abuses are not limited to Palestinians. Israel discriminates against black Ethiopian Jews and has deported and/or jailed thousands of Africans who entered the country seeking refugee status due to threats against their lives in Eritrea or Sudan – inciting a rash of ugly racism against them in Israeli towns and cities. Even Israeli Jews who protest against these racist policies face mob violence and suppression of their rights to free speech.
It has now become well known that Israel exports its racism and brutality to U.S. communities, including Ferguson, Missouri. At least two of the law enforcement agencies that were deployed in Ferguson, the St. Louis County Police Department and the St. Louis Police Department, received training from Israeli security forces in recent years. In response to the murder of Michael Brown and the subsequent police brutality directed against the community in general, Palestinians sent messages of solidarity to the people of Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, and other cities suffering from the injustices of racism.
Israel’s violations of international law and human rights have caught world attention. The Union of European Football Associations’ decided not to host its 2020 semifinals in London, not Jerusalem as requested by Israel. Artists such as Lauren Hill and Pharrell Williams have taken a stand against injustices by canceling their concerts in Tel-Aviv in solidarity with the Palestinians who were not allowed to attend.
As members of the Sacramento community, as Jews, Christians, Muslims, people of other faiths and those who are secular, we ask that you not allow yourself to be used to promote a branding operation that covers up Israel’s war crimes and human rights abuses while promoting racism.
Please respond with what actions you will be taking.
Sincerely,
Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights