Halifax: a no tennis for genocide victory, but the struggle continues

Halifax Committee Against Imperialist War and Genocide, September 9, 2025

We have won an important victory. Tennis Canada and Scotiabank Arena have been forced to retreat from their shameful Tennis for Genocide spectacle, deciding to hold the Canada-Israel Davis Cup match behind closed doors. While some may dismiss Tennis Canada’s professed concern for the safety of ball boys as ludicrous or malign, others might find it grimly fitting—an obscene echo—given the countless children slaughtered by the Israeli armed forces.

In the end, Tennis Canada has followed Mayor Andy Fillmore in a cowardly flight from the people. Denied the public platform they craved, they now skulk behind closed doors, attempting to celebrate and endorse genocide in secret—shielded from the fury of the community and the judgment of the world.

This craven move is a direct response to reality: Canada’s top tennis stars had already withdrawn, ticket sales collapsed under the weight of local, national, and international disgust, and public condemnation grew louder each day.

Fleeing from the public eye and community protest, they hope to evade accountability. But their retreat only exposes their complicity.
Let us be clear: while Tennis Canada may try to escape scrutiny, the genocide of the Palestinian people continues unabated — and Canadian institutions, corporations, and governments remain deeply complicit, colluding and collaborating at every level with the machinery of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.

Even behind closed doors, this match for genocide cannot escape the truth. Halifax will not stand on the wrong side of history.

We call on all Haligonians, and all people of conscience, to reject this event, to raise their voices, and to show that genocide cannot be normalized, not in sport, not in culture, not anywhere.

Join us for the March for Palestine!

*Friday, September 12 — 2:30 p.m. — Garrison Grounds
*Saturday, September 13 — 12:00 noon — Halifax Commons Oval

The March for Palestine is about justice. Together, let us rise to declare: There can be no normal sporting relations with a genocidal regime.

GENOCIDE IS NOT A GAME! NO TENNIS FOR GENOCIDE! NO SPORTSWASHING WAR CRIMES! NOT IN HALIFAX!