A Short History of (Eretz) Israel’s Way into the International Olympic Movement

As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has always followed its own sporting geography differing from political geography, it thereby takes a twofold approach to the states of the world. On the one hand, it recognizes National Olympic Committees (NOCs) which are the only eligible entities to nominate athletes to the Olympic Games. The NOCs are in most cases representatives of internationally recognized states even though they have to be independent from the government according to IOC regulations. On the other hand, the personal members of the IOC represent the IOC in their respective countries. With the example of Mandatory Palestine and, later on, Israel, this paper illustrates in the first part the difficulties organized sport faced in a contested political state in order to get a National Olympic Committee formed and recognized by the IOC. The British Mandate and the (sport) political power struggles within Mandatory Palestine call for a close look at the sources in order to get a clear picture of how the regional NOC came into force. Some books and articles have at least dealt with this topic but some historical works seem to overlook each other due to language barriers. The second part of this paper gives an insight into the quest of Israelis for personal IOC membership. In the cases shown it becomes clear that dealing with IOC membership is also dealing with politics.