The NGO Moviment Graffitti has called on the governing body for rugby in Europe to ban the Israeli national team from competition, as Malta’s own national team prepares to face the country next month.

Malta is set to face Israel on Saturday 5 April at the Tony Bezzina Stadium in a match as part of Rugby Europe’s Conference 1 Division.

Moviment Graffitti described Rugby Europe as being “a complicit partner in Israel's sportswashing campaign and ultimately, genocide” and said that national rugby teams are “threatened with a debilitating fine if they refuse to play games with the Israeli national team.”

In a statement, the NGO said highlighted that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement alongside the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) have long called for a complete boycott of Israeli cultural institutions “as they are complicit in the upholding of Israeli apartheid and current genocide.”

“As Moviment Graffitti, Ġustizzja għall-Palestina, Watermelon Warriors, Lebanese Advocates and Youth for Palestine we stand by and support the work being done by BDS and PACBI and have identified this game as an opportunity to push back against any form of complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide,” the statement read.

The NGO continued that in the same way that in the nineties, the apartheid regime in South Africa came to an end following international boycotts and sanctions, we now need to put pressure on the apartheid and genocidal state of Israel by means of boycotts and sanctions against all those that in one way or another are accomplices in its actions.

“Rugby and other team sports gather people from all walks of life to celebrate and support the joy of the game. However, we must remain steadfast in our condemnation of Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it said.

“The Israeli Rugby team represents the country of Israel and is a tool for Israel's attempts to spread its cultural capital and hide its atrocities, in this case, through sportswashing. These institutions actively work to hinder and impede Palestinians basic human rights, including freedom of expression and free movement. Let us not forget that the Israeli Occupation Force has deliberately targeted young, Palestinian sportspeople falsely imprisoning them, disabling them or even executing them extrajudicially,” Graffitti continued.

It said that ties “with the axis of genocide of our age, spearheaded by Israel and completely supported by the United States of America and several European countries” must be severed completely.

“We are calling upon the European Rugby Union to sever its ties with the Israeli national rugby team, just as it did with the Russian team when Russia began its imperialist operations inside Ukraine. By keeping Israel within its ranks, Rugby Europe is contravening its own code of ethics and principles that are based on respect for human rights and dignity,” the NGO said.

“Moreover, national rugby teams are threatened with a debilitating fine if they refuse to play games with the Israeli national team. This makes the European Rugby Union a complicit partner in Israel's sportswashing campaign and ultimately, genocide; a conduct that violates the 2024 ICJ ruling and various UN resolutions that have passed since the beginning of the genocide in 2023,” it added.

The NGO said that this call is coming up in front of the backdrop of Israel's resumption of its full-scale genocidal operations in Gaza, where over 400 people were murdered in just a few hours, with many more grievously injured or trapped under rubble, still to be found. Israel is now bombing the last standing hospitals in the Gaza strip and has completely cut off any electrical supply, which means that more and more Gazans will succumb to their injuries than ever before, it said.

Since October 2023, 50,000 Palestinians have been massacred, it added.

“This matter is no longer just one about sports but a matter of life and death for those living in Gaza and the West Bank. Malta should not be threatened into complicity and Israel must be held accountable on all fronts.”