Following his victory, Sasson extended his hand to El Shehaby.
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“He isn’t a friend whose hand I would shake”, said El Shehaby, whose refrain was met by the crowd’s loud booing.
But he was then loudly jeered out of the arena by angry supporters.
El Shehaby refused to comment, as did Sasson, who moved to the semifinals later Friday to face top-ranked Teddy Riner of France. According to him, Egyptians looked at his upcoming fight with Sasson as “a fight of life or death”.
Egypt and Israel had what most observers call a “cold peace” since the landmark Camp David Accords normalized relations between the two countries in 1979. “I knew there was a chance he would not shake my hand”, said Sasson, who was fighting El Shehaby for the first time. He said her performance had helped him believe he too could succeed.
“Not shaking hands was his personal decision”.
International Judo Federation spokesman Nicolas Messner isn’t too concerned about the lack of a handshake on this occasion.
We always shake hands at the end of the fight.
However he did add that El Shehaby’s attitude “will be reviewed after the games to see if any further action should be taken”.
He refused to speak to journalists after his fight.
“My son watch out, don’t be fooled, or fool yourself thinking you will play with the Israeli athlete to defeat him and make Egypt happy”, Matar said.
Sasson has faced another Egyptian, Ahmed Wahid, twice in the previous year, each fighter winning once.
Known for his anti-Israel views, Egypt’s Islam El Shehaby allegedly considered withdrawing from the 100-kilogram match in the Rio Olympics.
Such behavior by Arab athletes against Israeli athletes are “the norm and there are few if no exceptions to boycotting Israel and Israelis”, Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, told JNS.org last week.
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