KUWAIT (Dispatches) -- A
Kuwaiti fencer has withdrawn from the World Fencing Championships held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to avoid facing an Israeli opponent, following similar measures taken by a host of Muslim players from across the Islamic world.
Kuwait’s fencer Mohamed al-Fadli pulled out of the annual competition in Dubai after he refused to play with an Israeli opponent, the Palestinian Information Center reported on Monday.
Pro-Palestine activists hailed Fadli’s decision, describing the move as “part of Kuwait’s supportive positions towards the Palestinian cause” and its opposition to normalizing ties with the occupying regime of Israel.
Fadli also withdrew from an international tournament in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, in September 2019, after the draw placed him in a group competing with an Israeli player.
Back in late May last year, Kuwait’s National Assembly unanimously approved bills that outlaw any deals or normalization of ties with the Tel Aviv regime.
On August 18, 2020, 37 Kuwaiti lawmakers called on their government to reject a normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Anti-Israeli sentiments run high in Kuwait. A poll conducted in 2019 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an American think tank, showed that 85 percent of Kuwaitis oppose normalizing ties with the Zionist regime.
This is not the first time that Muslim sportspeople from across the Islamic world have refused to face Israeli opponents in a variety of sports events in protest at the occupying entity’s crimes against Palestinians and in opposition to normalization of relations with Israel by some Arab countries.
Back in January, Kuwait’s tennis player Muhammad al-Awadi also withdrew from an international tennis tournament in the UAE after he was told that he was going to face a representative from the Israeli regime.
In July 2021, Algerian judoka