Why LeBron James Ignores Genocide and Stands With Israel
The basketball great once said he wanted to be like Muhammad Ali. He can’t do that and shrug off Israeli war crimes.
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James speaks at a press conference before the NBA All-Star Game in Inglewood, California, on February 15, 2026.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)Twenty-two years ago, I wrote this about a preternaturally mature 19-year-old hoops phenom named LeBron James and his aspirations off the court:
James has said he has two goals in his life. One is to be “a global icon like Muhammad Ali,” and the other is to be the richest athlete in the history of the world. And while these may be two great goals, they don’t exactly go great together. That’s because people like Muhammad Ali didn’t become global icons because they were rich, but because they were willing to sacrifice everything—including sponsorship deals—to stand up for what they believed in.
In the last two decades, we have seen how James’s desires have conflicted. During the early days of Black Lives Matter movement, he was outspoken in his support for racial justice. In 2012, he posed with his Miami Heat teammates in hoodies to protest the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, and after the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014, he wore a T-shirt that said “I can’t breathe” during warm-ups alongside Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Kyrie Irving.
Yet over the last several years, as his fortune has exploded into the 10-figure category, James’s silence has been noticeable. Neither ICE’s killings nor the Trump regime’s relentless racism has moved him to speak forcefully. One perfect encapsulation of this untenable balancing act was in 2022 when he filed a trademark for the phrase “shut up and dribble.” When Fox News’s Laura Ingraham first bleated this at James in 2018, his supporters were enraged, and it became a rallying cry against the racism that Black athletes have long faced. Now one of James’s corporations says it will put it on items such as “downloadable virtual goods, namely, computer programs featuring footwear, clothing, headwear, eyewear, bags, sports bags, backpacks, sports equipment, art, toys and accessories for use online and in online virtual worlds.” The phrase will go from protest cry to branding exercise.
This week, the effort to balance the spirit of Muhammad Ali with his life as a 41-year-old billionaire tipped away from Ali. Actually, it didn’t just tip. It crashed to the ground. During NBA All-Star weekend, James was asked for his thoughts on Israeli All-Star Deni Avdija of the Portland Trailblazers. He took the opportunity to speak about Israel more broadly, saying, “If I have fans over there, then I hope you’ve been following my career. I hope I inspire people over there to be better in life. Hopefully someday I can make it over there. I’ve heard nothing but great things.”
James always speaks with great intentionality, and no one should think this was an off-the-cuff comment. It was a statement of support during the second year of a genocide in Gaza alongside the accelerating annexation of the West Bank. Israel has launched a project of ethnic cleansing, and James wanted the world to know that he was unbothered by it. Not only that—he seemed to want to follow in the footsteps of his good friend Draymond Green and take a propaganda trip to do public relations for the Israeli state.
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If James’s defenders say that he doesn’t know what’s been happening and we shouldn’t expect more from “just an athlete,” they are being as ignorant as Ingraham. James knows what’s been going on in Gaza, and it’s ludicrous to think that he’s heard “nothing but great things” about Israel. He certainly hasn’t heard great things from his old Cavaliers running buddy Kyrie Irving, who has not been shy about showing his solidarity with the Palestinian people. He hasn’t heard great things from current and former NBA players like former teammate Dwight Howard or Tariq Abdul-Wahad or Etan Thomas and more who have spoken out against genocide and for a free Palestine. Hell, during this past weekend’s All-Star Game, Irving wore a PRESS shirt in solidarity with the journalists in Gaza killed by the Israeli army and Spike Lee wore the colors of the Palestinian flag courtside.
James knows what’s going on. Instead of fulfilling his teenage goal of being a hero to the downtrodden, he has chosen to turn his back on war crimes, permitting his fans to do the same. Perhaps he fears what a backlash will do to that other youthful dream of unfathomable wealth. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
In contrast to James, Ali visited Palestinian refugee camps and went to Free Palestine demonstrations in the 1970s and ’80s until he was physically unable to do so. When asked why he would visit a refugee camp in Southern Lebanon, he said he had a responsibility to be there since “the United States is the stronghold of Zionism and imperialism.” Ali knew this would entail sacrifice, and he did it anyway because he both consciously and instinctively sided with the oppressed. And that’s why you can go to any outdoor market on earth today and find a knockoff Ali T-shirt for sale. That’s why he remains adored.
James came to a fork in the road and spit on the path laid by Ali before taking the path most traveled. One wonders what 19-year-old LeBron would think about his current self’s making this choice: the choice to reject Ali’s legacy and become just another billionaire stepping over Palestinian bodies to praise the Israeli state.
