Teenage Kuwaiti tennis player who shunned Israeli opponent garners praise

Teenage Kuwaiti tennis player Muhammad al-Awadi, who withdrew last week from an international tennis tournament held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to avoid facing an Israeli opponent, has earned widespread praise over his support for the Palestinian cause.

Pro-Palestine activists have set up large billboards across Kuwait, saluting the 14-year-old athlete as a great hero.

According to Kuwaiti media outlets, Awadi emerged triumphant in his first matches at the Dubai Tennis Championships U-14 and advanced to the semifinal round.

However, he decided to pull out of the tournament as soon as he was told that he was going to face a representative from the Israeli regime.

Yusuf al-Sanad, a member of the Persian Gulf Scholars Union, wrote on Twitter that the Kuwaiti tennis player’s decision was taken in solidarity with the people of Palestine and in rejection of Israeli apartheid regime.

Osama al-Shaheen, a member of Kuwait’s parliament also tweeted, “Greetings and thanks to the Kuwaiti hero Muhammad al-Awadi for his refusal to normalize sports competition with the Zionists.”

Back in late May last year, Kuwait’s National Assembly unanimously approved bills that outlaw any deals or normalization of ties with the Tel Aviv regime.

On August 18, 2020, thirty-seven Kuwaiti lawmakers called on their government to reject a normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a statement, the members of parliament affirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people, “recalling the parliament's stable and continuous position against normalization [with Israel] in all its forms.”

Anti-Israeli sentiments run high in Kuwait. A poll conducted in 2019 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an American think tank, showed that 85 percent of Kuwaitis oppose normalizing ties with Israel.

MG