Young Muslim Chess Player Withdraws From Tournament to Avoid Competing Against Israeli

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In August of this year, Abdel Rahim al-Talib Muhammad, a 14-year-old chess player from Mauritania — officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania — withdrew from the chess Junior World Cup in order to avoid competing against an Israeli player. This is just one of many examples of Islamic countries boycotting Israel in athletic and other competitions. Critics of the anti-Israel boycotts say sports should be separate from politics.

Quote: “I decided to retire because I refuse to play with a representative of a fictional country that in reality does not exist,” the player, Abdel Rahim al-Talib Muhammad, explained, according to the Middle East Monitor. Muhammad, who is ranked 47th out of 215 players, was met with praise by the Mauritanian National League for his decision.”

Sources: Wikipedia (introduction), The Jerusalem Post (introduction and quotation)

Learn more about sports boycotts against Israel from Wikipedia. ►

Read “Mauritanian chess player quits Junior World Cup to avoid facing Israeli” ►

Watch “Israel’s fight on the sports stage” [1:55] from 2018″ ►

Photo: NBC News

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“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.