Israeli Hasbara and the NBA's Palestine Exception: The Impossibility of Capitalist “Social Justice”

Sport is a notable site for the Israeli state in its hasbara (public diplomacy, or “explaining”) effort that seeks to normalize the conditions of ethnic cleansing, illegal settlement, and apartheid practices in historic and occupied Palestine. Against the backdrop of the genocide in Gaza and the lack of international sport sanctions against Israeli teams, this paper maps several hasbara activities/attempts featuring the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the last decade. This is a worthwhile case, not least because of the NBA's self-branding as a socially “progressive” league composed of a primarily Black/African American athletic workforce. Two major observations are made: First, the apparent contradiction between the NBA's “social justice” façade and its collaboration with Israel dissolves if the NBA—not exceptional amongst other corporate sport entities—is properly understood as a node of the capitalist-imperialist world system; Second, the historical and contemporary formations of Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity remains a potent tool to contest sport hasbara.