Algerian athlete: I am glad that I angered the Zionists.
The Algerian judoka, who refused to compete with the Israeli athlete, said he was proud of his decision.
Algerian judoka Fathi Nourin, who refused to fight his Zionist opponent, returned home.
“I made this decision with my coach and I am proud of it,” Nourin told reporters at the Algerian airport. “This decision is my first honor and then the pride of the Algerian nation and government.”
Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper quoted the athlete as saying that the reason for this was that Algerian President Abdel Majid Taboun also said in front of the whole world that “we do not consider normalization a happy event and we support the Palestinian issue.”
“I am happy that I angered the Zionist regime and received [supportive] calls from the Arab and Islamic world,” he stressed.
“I was shocked to see that my opponent in the draw was an Israeli athlete,” the Algerian athlete said. I did not expect this. “But I did not hesitate to make that decision.”
The Algerian judoka was due to fight a Zionist athlete, who resigned four days before the day of the match, saying “the reason is that the Palestinian issue is bigger than that.”
Expressing anger at the move, the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth wrote that Arab athletes were making fun of the Zionist regime by repeating such actions.
According to the newspaper, the Algerian athlete “raised the level of sanctions against Israeli athletes by one degree and publicly announced that he would not compete in Tokyo. “I proudly said in a TV interview that I did not want to get my hands dirty by touching him”.
