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.
Yeah usually I find it absurd when anti Israel (Israel, for the lobs reading this, is a murderous fascistic apartheid state actively doing a genocide) stuff is painted as antisemitism, but this is sure seems to be
What makes this antisemitic? As far as I can tell, the issue is that the other competitor was an official representative of Israel, not that they were Jewish