Arab athletes who refuse to compete against Israelis are gold medalists, says PA daily column
Excerpt of a column by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “A gold medal in Arabness – Tokyo 2020”
“Two events that have taken place until now at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are enough to say ‘checkmate’ to the normalization agreements, the Abraham Accords (see note below -Ed.), which were organized by [former US President] Donald Trump, Balfour the Second (refers to former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour -Ed.), the mind behind the newest colonialist plan to subjugate our Arab world, starting with Palestine.Trump wanted to pair the colonialist and racist occupying Zionist system, which is called ‘Israel,’ with the system of Arab regimes whose knowledge of Arabness only amounts to speaking Arabic. This is in order to create generations of hybrids in whose dictionary the terms rootedness, principles, values, and noble positions do not appear.
‘Checkmate’ – this is what two Arabs said in the greatest global meeting of popular diplomacy: Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine and his comrade in the [judo] department Sudanese Mohamed Abdel Latif [Abdalrasool], who decided with the support of the Algerian and Sudanese [judo] associations that they prefer to withdraw from the Olympics rather than compete with an Israeli judoka.[The Israeli] drew a match with Algerian Arab Fethi Nourine, and afterwards drew a match with Sudanese Arab Abdel Latif, who received the gold medal of the pan-Arab and human national conscience, which adopts the just Palestinian cause. In the eyes of the Arabs, [this medal] is worth all the gold medals at the Olympics, despite their significance, because in competing against an athlete affiliated with the system of occupation, colonialism, and racist laws, there is a historical loss after which there is no value to any kind of victory in any sports department…
Every noble Arab citizen from the [Atlantic] Ocean to the [Persian] Gulf feels positive envy for the two Arab champions, Algerian Fethi Nourine and Sudanese Mohamed Abdel Latif, just like he envies the shine of the gold medal of Tunisian swimmer Ahmed Hafnaoui (i.e., Hafnaoui won the 400m freestyle gold medal), even though each of the champions won their gold medal in their own way.”
Israeli peace agreements with the UAE and Bahrain (the Abraham Accords), Sudan, and Morocco – an agreement normalizing diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was announced on Aug. 13, 2020, under the mediation of US President Donald Trump. Following the UAE, Bahrain reached a similar peace agreement with Israel, as was announced on Sept. 11, 2020. The agreements were signed at the White House on Sept. 15, 2020, by Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Bahraini Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani. Pursuant to the Abraham Accords, Israel and the UAE will discuss bilateral cooperation on a number of topics. In exchange for the agreement, Israel agreed to suspend its previously announced plans to apply Israel's civilian law to parts of Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley as per the Trump peace plan. The US announced that “Muslims throughout the world who wish to come in peace to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, will now be able to fly to Tel Aviv through Abu Dhabi to do so and will be welcomed.” On Oct. 23, 2020, Sudan also formally agreed to normalize relations with Israel. Israel reached a similar normalization agreement with Morocco on Dec. 10, 2020.