In a crude demonstration of antisemitism, Iran has banned weightlifter Mostafa Rajaei “from sports for life and dissolved a sports committee after the athlete greeted an Israeli counterpart on a podium.” Iran stated that “the positions of the federation are aligned with the positions of the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The ban was enforced after “the two athletes shook hands and took a picture together, which led to the Iran Weightlifting Federation banning Rajaei from all sports for life due to what it called an “unforgivable” transgression.
To demonstrate how far Iran takes its religious and political hatred of Israel into sports: in 2017, an Iranian freestyle wrestler, Ali Reza Karimi, was suspended by United World Wrestling for deliberately losing a match against his Russian opponent during World Championships in Poland “to avoid confronting an Israeli wrestler.” Karimi’s coach, Hamidreza Jamshidi, had actually encouraged Karimi to lose the match. The response from the Iranian Wrestling Federation was to commend Ali Reza Karimi and “hail him as a ‘hero.’ The federation asserted that the wrestler had ‘stood against the oppression of the Palestinian people’ at an international sporting event.”
Iran routinely calls for violence against Israel. The Islamic regime heavily funds the Palestinian jihad against Israel, yet the human rights-abusing, murderous Shia regime receives less international pressure than the Jewish state. In May, “Iran was appointed to a leadership role within the U.N. Human Rights Council today, as one of the country’s diplomats was tapped to lead the body’s ‘Social Forum.’”
“Iran bans weightlifter for life after he shakes Israeli’s hand on podium,” Al Jazeera, August 30, 2023:
Tehran, Iran – Iran has banned a weightlifter from sports for life and dissolved a sports committee after the athlete greeted an Israeli counterpart on a podium.
Mostafa Rajaei, a veteran weightlifter, finished second in his category in the 2023 World Master Weightlifting Championships in Poland and stood on a podium with an Iranian flag wrapped around him on Saturday.
On anther step of the podium stood Maksim Svirsky from Israel, who finished third.
The two athletes shook hands and took a picture together, which led to the Iran Weightlifting Federation banning Rajaei from all sports for life due to what it called an “unforgivable” transgression.
“The positions of the federation are aligned with the positions of the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” it said, adding that Rajaei has been banned from entering “all sports facilities” for the rest of his life.
Hamid Salehinia, who headed the weightlifting team, was also removed from his post, and the federation said a committee formed to represent veteran weightlifters has been dissolved as well.
“In addition to apologising to the leader of the revolution, the families of martyrs and all the people of Iran, I promise we will certainly never witness incidents like this in the weightlifting family,” federation chief Sajad Anoushiravani said in a statement….