Rio Olympics 2016: Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby sent home for handshake snub

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Rio Olympics 2016: Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby sent home for handshake snub

15 August 2016 Olympics

Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby has been sent home from the Olympics after he refused to shake the hand of Israeli opponent Or Sasson after their bout.

The 34-year-old was "strongly reprimanded" by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after his first-round loss on Friday.

The IOC say his conduct was "against the spirit of friendship embodied in the Olympic values.'"

The Egyptian Olympic Committee condemned El Shehaby and sent him home.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/37090339

[shira]

1. JPost Editorial: A handshake’s importance

One of the goals of the Olympic Games is to bring together the nations of the world to compete in an atmosphere of good sportsmanship and mutual respect....

...Peace between Israel and Egypt must not be only between governments. It must also be fostered between peoples. Shehaby had a chance to make a public display of the potential for such peace. Unfortunately, he squandered it.

In contrast, during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Luz Long used a handshake to reject Nazism’s racist ideology. After losing to Jesse Owens in the long jump competition, the German athlete approached Owens before hundreds of thousands of spectators and shook Owens’s hand.

Owen later said of that experience: “You can melt down all the medals and cups I have, they wouldn’t be a plating on the 24 karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment.”

The power of a handshake should not be underestimated.

http://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=464103

[6chars]

2. eat it, loser

(El Shababy, not the original poster)

[True Dough]

3. This decision by the IOC

Is not too Shehaby!

[Warpy]

4. He might be going home to an area that's heavily Muslim Brotherhood

with a lot of his extended family part of it.

We don't know the whole story.

However, he looks like a bigot and a poor sport who has completely misunderstood the Olympics. He will never be back, no matter how good he is at his sport.

The whole thing is sad and a little nauseating whenever anyone brings a political or religious grudge to this event.

[Uponthegears]

5. Once again

I ask

Would you all say the same thing about John Carlos and Tommie Smith?

[hack89]

6. Yes- if they were bigots and anti-Semites. But they were not. Nt

[Uponthegears]

7. Okay

So this actually has absolutely nothing to do with whether this young man demonstrated poor sportsmanship, or whether he improperly used the Olympics to make a political statement. All of the talk that we have heard about those subjects was just hogwash.

What it actually has to do with is that his critics do not approve of his views toward Israel yet lack the honesty to say "Expel him from the Olympics because he does not support Israel"

THANK GOD he didn't have a BDS bumper sticker.

Thanks for clarifying.

[hack89]

10. He comes from a culture that hates jews

A culture that accepts and promotes blood libel. Where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are believed as the truth. A culture that would punish him for any perceived friendliness to a Jewish athlete.

His was not a principaled position. At best it is moral cowardice, at worse he is a bigot.

[Uponthegears]

11. No need to go further

We know where your coming from.

Nuff said

Got it

You are upset that Muslims won't just "get over" the Occupation. You are free to your opinion.

[hack89]

12. Jew hate precedes the occupation.

The history of the region does not start in 1967. It includes an attempted Arab war of annihilation the moment Israel came into existence. It includes four humiliating defeats for Eygpt by Israel. This guy doesn't give a shit about the Palestinians. His country certainly doesn't considering their horrible treatment of the Palestinians and their visceral hate of Hamas.

[aranthus]

8. Neither Smith nor Carlos

refused to shake the hand of a fellow athlete. What they did was disrespectful of the US, but it wasn't poor sportsmanship to another athlete. So a false analogy.

[Uponthegears]

9. That is a fair distinction

(although Carlos and Smith brought no disrespect to the US, the US brought disrespect to itself).

Many people have said that he should have refused to fight at all if he wanted to make a political statement. In fact he was under incredible pressure from some more extreme elements to do just that. Having chose to fight, however he should have followed what he knew would be the custom.

An interesting side story is that the Israeli fighter knew ahead of time that he was not going to shake hands.

[geek tragedy]

13. Not even remotely similar. Repulsive comparison nt

[Uponthegears]

14. You don't know much about

What happened in 1968 or about at least one of the men involved.

But you go right ahead and express your opiniion.

While there is nothing that compares with the greatest human rights violation in the history of the world, American slavery, those of us who lived through and near the events immediately preceeding John's and Tommie's act of utter defiance, understood that they were standing for far more than just themselves, or even us.

I tend to accept the idea that, having competed, he should have shook hands, but this faux outrage has nothing to do with sportsmanship.

[geek tragedy]

16. He insulted an opponent. It was hate based on national origin, not

protesting human rights abuses.

[Uponthegears]

17. You have no more basis

For believing that his actions were based on a personal animosity toward his competitor than that it was based in a desire to draw attention to Israel's human rights violations in the Occupied Territories.

Indeed, the fact that such gestures have taken place at other events suggests the latter.

At least be honest and admit that it is your opinion regarding the relative equities vis a vis Israel and Palestinian Muslims that.drives your outrage, not a love of sportsmanship.

[geek tragedy]

18. You have obviously not read much in this site's Israel/Palestine Group.

And give me a break about how insulting an Israeli athlete based on his nationality is about human rights. It's not, it's about hatred of the state of Israel for its very existence.

You don't see this kind of 'protest' applied to Russia, or China, or Iran, or Egypt for that matter.

Only the Jewish state.

Lots of anti-Semites hide behind the occupation as a pretext for their Jew-bashing. This guy didn't even do that.

[Uponthegears]

19. And a lot of people who wish to excuse

Israel's human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories, abuses recognized by the UN, hide behind misuse of the term anti-Semitism.

Btw, you see MORE than symbolic gestures like a declined handshake in Russia; you used to see far MORE than symbolic gestures in Egypt; and, if it wouldn't get you summarily executed in China and Iran, you would see far more than symbolism there as well.

[FBaggins]

20. So if his action was due to "Israel's human rights violations"

Than the crowd's overwhelming rejection of his action is evidence of strong support for Israel, and not disgust at his racial motivations? Right?

[Uponthegears]

22. Or

the desire to separate sport from politics?

You forget, Smith and Carlos we also "rejected."

THAT, however, as is evident from mountain of "Israel v. Muslim" responses, is NOT what motivates the faux outrage present in this string.

[ericson00]

15. GOOD. There's only so much people can hide for fear

of extreme elements, if they're gonna try to use the Muslim Brotherhood as some sort of excuse for what El Shehaby did.

If some Israeli athlete, say, refused to shake hands with an Arab (or any Muslim in general), the anti-I left would be up in arms.

[Little Tich]

21. I think this picture of another handshake clinched it for me:

Shooting gold medalist Jin Jong-oh, left, of South Korea and bronze medalist Kim Song Guk, right, of North Korea, shake hands during their medal ceremony. Photo / AP
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11692822

El Shehaby did the wrong thing, and the reprimand was justified.

[shira]

23. No surprise Mondoweiss approved of this "BDS at the Olympics"

http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/milestone-the-olympics/

Note in the comments section that Annie Robbins (Editor at Large Mondoweiss) gushed at this form of "BDS".

[Little Tich]

24. It may come as a surprise to you, but I don't agree with everything that's posted on Mondoweiss.

Snubbing other competitors due to their nationality is not what the Olympic Games are about.