After being canceled last year due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics took place this year with five Palestinian athletes competing in different sports categories. However, that is not the only reason Palestine has been coming up in Olympic headlines.
Representing Palestine are Dania Nour and Yazan Al- Bawwab in swimming, Hanna Barakat in Track, Wesam Abu Rmilah in Judo, and Mohammed K H Hamada in weightlifting. Dedicated to their craft, the five athletes were clad in traditional Palestinian clothing while raising the flag and walking through to the Palestinian national anthem during the opening ceremony.
“They and many other athletes left their homes, which were in great upheaval,” said one social media user under a post about Palestine at the opening ceremony. “They are already gold medal winners in my mind.”
The issue that has caused great discourse regarding Olympians’ history of shedding light on issues greater than sports revolves around two judokas refusing to fight athletes representing Israel. Fethi Nourine was set to compete in a judo event as a representative of Algeria. However, faced with the possibility of being matched against Israel, Nourine withdrew and was expelled from the Olympics as a result and suspended from the International Judo Federation (IJF). Citing a non-discrimination policy, the IJF’s decision did not take the occupied Palestinian reality into consideration.
“We worked a lot to reach the Olympics. But the Palestinian cause is bigger than all of this,” Nourine said.
Following that, judoka Mohamed Abdalrasool in the same way dropped out of this year’s games when he was watched against an Israeli opponent. While no statement was given explaining the rationale behind Abdalrasool’s decision, social media users discussed both in tandem and created a very angled discussion.
Some users chose to interpret the athlete’s withdrawal as defeat. Others argued that letting the Israeli opponent advance to the next round is counterproductive. However, the response was overwhelmingly supportive of the Palestinian community as they quoted Nourine’s decision as a principled one and an act of heroism. Users expressed under posts of the event that if Nourine had accepted the match, he would have been accepting the existence and legitimacy of Israel.
One user commented: “It’s his right to boycott an apartheid state! Sport has always been political, and it’s always helped bring awareness to injustices!”