Malaysia doubles down on Israel athletes ban

Malaysians stage a protest in support of Palestine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 8 December 2017 [Alexandra Radu/Anadolu Agency]

Malaysian Foreign Minister, Saifuddin Bin Abdullah, stressed yesterday that his country will not backtrack on its decision to deny entry to Israeli athletes seeking to participate in an upcoming international swimming tournament.

Bin Abdullah doubled down on Malaysia’s position, stressing that his country would never host Israelis in this or any other event, Quds Net reported.

This decision, he said, was taken in order to “underscore our reinforced position towards the Palestinian cause”.

Last week, the Malaysian government announced that it would not allow Israeli athletes to enter the country in order to participate in the upcoming World Paralympic Swimming Championship.

READ: Malaysia’s Mahathir says no rights to recognise Jerusalem as Israeli capital

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.