(singing) Karim Zidan, thank you so much for appearing with us here on Edge of Sports. Oh, thank you so much, Dave. I feel like it’s a long time coming, given that you and I cover so many similar topics. Absolutely. I want you to help make me smarter about what’s happening right now
At the intersection of the calls for a ceasefire and sports. So what are you seeing outside the United States in terms of athletes speaking out about Israel’s war on Gaza? So we’re seeing it die down significantly now that we’re nearly 40 days into the war unfortunately.
But early on we did see a lot of Arab athletes in particular speak out almost immediately. We had an Egyptian swimmer called Abdelrahman Sameh. He immediately spoke up after actually winning a swimming championship. But what he did was he revealed that he’s been getting death threats
And intimidation basically due to the fact that he’s been speaking out in favor of Gaza and the Palestinian cause. Again, this is somebody who flat out said, “I’m not being anti-Semitic, I’m not targeting anybody. I’m simply trying to raise awareness and show solidarity for
Palestine.” He claims that because of that, he ended up receiving death threats. Another probably far more notable name that you probably know here is Karim Benzema. Karim Benzema, one of the successful soccer players in the world right now and he was immediately
One of the people who came out in solidarity with Palestine, said a very, very reasonable statement talking about how to reach a ceasefire, stop the killings, etc. And he was accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood by actual French politicians, leading officials in the government,
Immediately accused him of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is horrific Islamophobia to say the least. You know what I mean? So there have been some really complicated and difficult scenarios that really raises what I believe, Dave, to be extreme tribalism on both
Sides now because you’re really seeing it in the United States. You’re seeing immediately after the awful attacks, the horrific attacks that took place on October 7th. You saw Lebron James, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and all these other US leagues immediately released statements saying they stand with Israel. But in the month thereafter,
Those same organizations have not released statements calling for a ceasefire or showing any form of solidarity with Palestine. Instead, what we’ve actually seen is a lot of these leagues institute flag bans. And even they’re trying to be so sneaky, even with
The flag ban, saying that it’s just generally a flag ban banning all identifying flags. So that would count for other flags like LGBTQ plus flags, etc. But really it’s very clear to me, and it’s no instance that this took place shortly after the attacks. So it’s clear that even modes
Of free expression are being limited in US sports when it comes to this topic. I can take this to one further extreme and tell you that in contrast to this sort of wishy-washyness taking place in mainstream US organization, what I’m really noticing is
In the world of combat sports in the UFC, which is, I mean no… It’s well known, its controversy over the most part. You’ve had a lot of Muslim athletes there, actually, showed lots of solidarity with Palestine. One of the organization’s champions during event in Abu
Dhabi last month in UFC 294, his name is socIslam Machachev. After he won in his headlining fight, he actually draped himself in a Palestine flag and simply said, “Let’s work towards peace here. I stand with Palestine, Palestinian solidarity.” The UFC which has been a proponent of free speech
Supposedly and relationships with Donald Trump, etc, actually censored that from the YouTube broadcast. And the co-main event- Wow. I know, I know which is really the extreme example of hypocrisy. Really very stark there for the UFC.
In the co-main event though, let me give you an odd sort of absurd counterpart to that is in the co-main event of that same event, there was another fighter, a Chechen Muslim fighter called Hamza Chimaev. Hamza Chimaev, after his fight also successful also won. He gave a post-fight speech
In the octagon with Joe Rogan next to him where he basically said, “Let’s all work towards peace.” This is what he said in English is like, “I don’t want to see children dying. I want us to reach peace.” And then he gave a second statement in Chechen. Now, once I was able to
Find the translation of that, I was really shocked here because what the Chechen translation said, he directed it straight at Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov who runs the semi-autonomous Republic of Chechnya and is a really close ally of Vladimir Putin. He directs his words of Kadyrov and says,
“Chief, I represent you. I want you to send me to Palestine so I can die with my brothers.” Wow. So talk about two contrasting statements right there from the same person in English calling for peace, in Chechen saying that
He wants to go die with his brothers in Palestine. So honestly, there’s been a lots of examples of stuff going on. I’ll give you one more before I give this back to you, Dave, which is you’ve had these Muslim MMA fighters responding this way. Let’s talk about the tribalism of what the Israeli
UFC fighters and MMA fighters are saying. One of them, his name is Haim Gozali. Haim Gozali is about 50-something years old now. So he’s a retired fighter, but he’s in the scene. He’s referred to as the Israeli Batman because of this tattoo he has on him. He actually posted a photo
Of an artillery shell that he inscribed with the names of Muslim MMA fighters, the same ones that I’ve been listing. Khabib Nurmagomedov, Hamza Chimaev, Belal Muhammad who is a Palestinian fighter. On top of that, he inscribes it with their names and a message beneath it saying,
“This is for the rats.” So there’s some really horrific stuff taking place right now. Wow. It’s so interesting that one side is calling for peace and the other side is calling people rats, I think is its own story unto itself. I have some questions about MMA for you,
But before we get there, there’s also Anwar El Ghazi, the Dutch soccer player for Bundesliga who lost his job. We just named maybe half a dozen people. Is that it? Is that what we’re talking about? I can add Michael Bennett here in the States, maybe an Instagram post or two. I mean,
Because it does feel very shallow in terms of how people in the sports world are responding to this. So my double question for you is it in fact that shallow and given the wellspring of athlete activism that we’ve seen in recent years. How do you explain that shallowness?
So I think in comparison to what’s recognizable to US fans, sports fans, yes, it would be very shallow. I’d say that pool expands a little bit and gets a little deeper when you incorporate Arab teams and Arab athletes around the world. Especially in the first few weeks of the war,
I regularly saw Egyptian football teams and its players showing extreme solidarity on the pitch. As a matter of fact, there were certain players who were flashing this double-piece sign that refers to this Palestinian cartoon called Handala. And this
Is a Palestinian cartoon of resistance actually. So it was a very creative and non-threatening sort of protest really. And you were seeing some of that across the Arab world, but it doesn’t get the same kind of attention unfortunately. When we talk about the media that
We are consuming for the most part, it primarily comes from a Western perspective. And if you’re following that type of media landscape, well absolutely, it’s extremely shallow. Now, you tie that back to the extreme sort of athlete activism we’ve seen with regards to a
Variety of human rights concerns. And it’s not just the athletes themselves who’ve been active. We’ve had organizations and sports leagues and corporations throw their weight behind these causes of human rights and the values that we’re supposed to share in this sort of morality that
We’re looking towards. But it’s very disappointing to see a lot of those same organizations actually either stand with the oppressor here and ask for more warfare and more bloodshed, which is extraordinarily disappointing, right? I’ll say this as an Egyptian, Dave. It’s very
Difficult for me right now to look at what’s happening in the world as someone who believes in human rights and believes in us fighting for this together to see certain values and certain ideals are held at a higher standard than others, and that not all people are actually equal is
Extraordinarily disappointing. And that’s how it appears right now. I understand on an individual level, humans are better than that, but what we’re seeing around us is quite disappointing. Can you name some of those sports organizations that you feel like
Haven’t stepped up that you wish had stepped up? Well, at this point, I feel like any of the ones I’d named, we could immediately call hypocrites because what have they ever really proven? For instance, the ones who always… I actually wrote an article about this shortly after the war broke
Out, Dave called On War’s Peace and Sports, basically looking at FIFA and the International Olympic Committee and questioning their claims of being peacemakers. For years, you’ve heard Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA claim that FIFA can bring about peace. As a matter of fact, Infantino
Stated at one point just a couple of years ago during a visit to Israel that his dream is to see Israel and its Arab neighbors host the World Cup. Oh, no, no joke. This is exactly what he thinks. You’ve had the same thing. Thomas Bach has to interact with both the Palestinian Olympic
Committee and the Israeli Olympic committee. And he’s attempted to say that through sports we can bring about peace. I understand that this is sort of the Olympic motto, that this is romanticized notion that sports can bring about change. I think sports can magnify changes taking place
In the world. I do not believe that sports themselves can bring about change primarily because we see the leaders in charge of these organizations are in the pursuit of profit, happy to work with whatever authoritarians or autocrats they see in their path, and they work
For their own stakeholders and shareholders. These are not working for the interests of the people or for absolute peace. That’s not true at all. The only reason they would ever seek out peace if it’s an opportunity to host another event and to make more money. With that
Selfishness as your primary goal, and this would apply to any other organization that claims to be representing human rights, and speech, and NBA or whatever organization you can think of. As long as your primary goals are profit and meeting the goals of your stakeholders, you’re
Never going to be representing the interests of the people. It’s never going to happen. Right. Absolutely. Even when in the United States, 68% of the country is now for a ceasefire. 80% of Democrats. I mean, you can’t find 68% of the people in the United States to agree on the color
Of the sky, and yet they agree on a ceasefire, and yet you don’t see that reflected or represented in the sports world either in the response of leagues or the response of the overwhelming majority of athletes who I do feel like are treating this entire issue like it’s an electrified rod.
As the saying goes, they don’t want to French kiss the light socket because that takes some courage to do that and to step out on this issue because there are going to be repercussions. But I certainly think that there’s an element of willful ignorance involved here as well. I
Find that a lot of athletes, and this is not the first sort of a cause that I find that athletes have ignored in the past. I’ve mentioned Ramzan Kadyrov earlier and Ramzan Kadyrov in the world of mixed martial arts, he’s been extremely influential. You’re talking about a warlord with
A penchant for fighting, and he started his own MMA fight clubs and all these various entities. And through that, at the same time, while he was building up his reputation as this patron of the fight game, he was also purging the LGBTQ plus community in Chechnya. And every time I tried
To raise this issue with the UFC or with fighters who were happily associating and taking money from this man, this is before him and his entities got sanctioned by the United States Treasury department, they would regularly say, “Oh, I don’t talk about politics. Oh, I don’t know
What’s happening over there. Oh, I don’t think about that. It’s so far away. I’m just talking to the person. He seems like such a nice person.” That is willful ignorance. That’s the idea that, oh, this is such a foreign and exotic concept that I don’t need to really understand it. You
Still hear, Dave, people say that about Israel-Palestine. “Oh, I don’t really know what’s going on.” Are you telling me that seventy-five years after the initial Arab-Israel conflict and you still have no idea what’s going on? You have no frame of reference. How many wars?
If you are a 30-something year old person, how many wars between Israel and Gaza have you seen? And how do you still not know what’s going on? How have you still not formed an opinion? And if you have stood by the oppressed and all these other examples, then why aren’t
You loudly and clear standing with them now? That’s right. It’s the right question. Some MMA questions for you, because you’ve written about this so extensively. Here’s the two-parter, the MMA, UFC, how do you explain why fascists and authoritarians have found fertile ground in
This particular sport? Why is that the case? And then do you think the issue of Palestine and the fact that fighters are speaking out about this, does that change the political balance of forces at all in this world? That’s a really great two-parter. So let
Me answer this succinctly as I possibly can here. I believe it depends, first of all on the context. If you’re talking about the rise of neo-Nazi fight clubs that we’re seeing across the United States right now, that is a select group of neo-Nazis who have realized that they can lure
In and attract disenfranchised youth across the United States and around the world to this sort of fraternity and this brotherhood where they could train in combat, train for a future conflict, train to punch a liberal or do whatever it may be for these street fights and this
Ongoing conflict that they see that’s coming. That type of radicalization has been extremely effective with combat sports as a tool. So that’s why we’re seeing, for instance, neo-Nazis utilize it. On the other hand, when we’re talking about autocrats and authoritarians, when we’re talking
About Donald Trump associating with the UFC, when we’re talking about a Ramzan Kadyrov doing the exact same thing, they view this more, and I wouldn’t even call this sports-washing. It’s not even about distracting from human rights abuses. What this really is about presenting this alter
Ego of machismo, this toxic and ultra-masculinity that is appealing to a certain segment of the population now, both in the United States and abroad. It has done wonders for people like Kadyrov. He is known as a strong man and to his people, he’s viewed as a thriving and
Successful leader because he’s been able to take out the so-called terrorists that were a problem in Chechnya. He’s been able to do all sorts of different things, and at the same time, he is the leader who has been able to bring characters like Floyd Mayweather,
Mike Tyson, all these significant figures in the world of combat sports along him by his side walking shoulder to shoulder. That sort of effect rubs off on the people as well. So for Ramzan Kadyrov, he’s definitely appealing. He’s trying to create this strongman
Impression of himself, even if it doesn’t necessarily exist as a real person. Donald Trump has been doing the same thing. He recently had an interview with the UFC. It’s a UFC podcast, and it was a sit-down video interview, and he was with one of the fighters in a different…
Another presenter called Jim Norton. I sat down to watch this thinking, “Okay, this is going to be Trump doing his usual narcissistic thing of being extremely selfish and turning the conversation around into whatever interests him or his political ideology.” What was fascinating,
Dave, was that actually he focused on just having a conversation about boxing. He talked about the time he spent with Mike Tyson, how he got into the boxing game and promoting that, how he got started with the UFC, and just talked about his favorite fighters, the favorite
Fights he’s watched over the years. When you look through the comment section, what I was seeing on Twitter thereafter is that even people who didn’t like Trump were immediately like, “Oh my God, have you ever seen another US president who has been able to sit down and have this type of normal
Conversation, feel like he’s one of us?” Trump has now also able to use this mystique of these sports, these sports that are counterculture, that are attractive to a lot of the apolitical communities in the United States and the apathetic youth of the United States and
Be like, “Hey, look, I’m just a regular guy. I can sit here, have a conversation with you about any sports you like and all these athletes that you love. I love them too.” So there’s a great amount of reputation laundering and marketing that can take place through something like this.
To answer the second part of your question, when it comes to the issue of Palestine, I think the UFC as much as it is catering itself to this counterculture far right element of its fan base, this GOP, Trump style, MAGA contingent of its fan base, as much as the UFC still has
To walk the tightrope of understanding it is a diverse international sport that has had LGBTQ plus champions. They’ve had multiple queer champions. They’ve had Brazilian champions. They’ve had Black champions. The list goes on. It’s one of the most diverse sports there is, and
That includes having Dagestani and Chechen, and Palestinian representatives in the organization, meaning they’re Muslim contingent, which are also champions and effectively stars in the organization will also get a say. So that’s something the UFC has to figure out. That’s interesting, and I wonder if UFC fighters actually speaking about Palestine and speaking
About peace, which runs counter to the toxic masculinity that you talk about. I wonder if that feeds into, as you put it, the editing process to keep some of these statements from reaching that apolitical audience. It could work counter to the image they’re trying to
Project. If you have Donald Trump seeming like Mr. Ordinary Guy, and then you hear him talking about basically turning Gaza into a supermarket and people hear that, but they see their fighters speaking for a free Palestine, that could also cause some very welcome cognitive dissonance.
Oh, it absolutely can. I wonder if the UFC leave some of that stuff in to make sure it can lure in its fan bases elsewhere. I bet you the UFC understanding that at the end of the day, this is
An American corporation that’s trying to make as much money as possible. And for right now, the UFC has never been more successful or more profitable. Let’s say. They make well over a billion dollars in revenue. And for the UFC, that’s extraordinary. For Endeavor, the company that owns the UFC,
It is their cash cow at the moment. So for an organization like that, they’re not going to risk their fan bases where they can. They’ll cater to them in a certain way with Donald Trump. From one pay-per-view event to the other, Dave, you had a pay-per-view event in Abu Dhabi,
Which catered to sort of this more diverse Arab audience, bigger Muslim contingency. There’s more Indians and Pakistanis in the stands. So the UFC event feels slightly different. The fighters that are on this card are different. There’s a lot more Muslim fighters on a card like that.
But then you move to the next event, which was in Madison Square Garden and Dana White, the UFC president merges with who alongside him, but Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock, and Donald Trump JR., right? It’s as if you’re watching two entirely different
Sports or two different things. It’s bipolar. It’s very strange watching the UFC do this. Yeah. Wow. That’s like a group of villains who the thing they have in common is abusing women. And you add Tyson and Mayweather to that. It’s amazing the common thread that runs
Through about violent hostility towards women. And they’re all bonding over mixed martial arts. When I got started doing this, Dave, I never would’ve thought that that mixed martial arts would play such a crucial or such an interesting and absurd role in so many presidential elections
In the United States so far that it would be a weapon for anti-Semites and neo-Nazis. This is not something I anticipated getting into the sport, but it’s very clear to me that there are these themes. There are these common denominators across this violent sport that makes it very appealing to
People like this. And that’s really disappointing. And the more I see sports fans ignore this or sports fans tell me things like, “Oh, you don’t really love this sport. You’re just talking about this because you want us to hate it.” Well, no, actually. I feel the same way.
But anybody who’s ultra-nationalistic and refuses to insult their government do not understand what actually loving your country or loving a sport actually is. It means being able to critique it and criticize it when you think it’s doing wrong and expecting
Better from it. That’s what we should all be doing is expecting better from ourselves, from organizations, from our countries, from our politicians. This all applies across the board. You mentioned that you and I do similar beats and write about a similar intersection between
Sports and politics. However, a difference is that I don’t have Roger Goodell or Adam Silver threatening to break my legs or anything like that, nor do I live in fear of them breaking my legs. But you through doing this work, I mean, have you
Ever felt unsafe in doing the work that you do? Yes, I most certainly have. I used to do a lot of work in Russia itself actually. I was an English commentator for a Russian mixed martial arts promotion at the time, but it was through having access to this organization and
To Russia in general because I was able to do a lot of trips across the board and across the whole country really that I ended up discovering Ramzan Kadyrov. It was around the exact same year that I started working in Russia that he was forming his fight club.
So talk about a coincidence. For me, it was an opportunity to report on something that was so absurd, so strange that nobody knew about it all. And it did help make my career, but at the same time, it was a curse because I did get significant death threats that forced me
To leave the country. I was told never to come back again. I haven’t been able to go back to a country that I really enjoyed being in. There was a lot of work to be done still that I thought. So I have faced death threats from Kadyrov and honestly, and unfortunately from others
As well. I face them from neo-Nazis who contact me on Telegram and elsewhere, and some threats I take more seriously than others, but I’ve learned to at this point, after nearly a decade of doing
Stuff like this, to just let it be like a water of a duck’s back at this point. I don’t know how else to explain it other than to say that to an extent, and it’s very strange to say so, but it feels normalized, really. I’m used to now not, for instance, geolocating myself.
I never post photos of myself while I’m still at a location. You’ll only see me post photos of something after I’ve already left the place safely. I rarely report on, “Oh, I’m going to be here at this time. Come see me,” for instance. It is just something I’ve learned to accept is
Not something I can do safely at all. But the strange thing about all that at the same time, Dave, is I don’t really regret anything I’ve done. People will be like, “Oh, you’re so brave.” I’d
Say, “Well, actually, I was young and stupid.” I was in my 20s at the time. I’m happy to admit that. You don’t really think of consequences the same way. But I look back on it now with
The benefit of hindsight and I regret nothing. So I wanted you on the show to speak about the international sporting dimension of resistance to the bombardment of Gaza. Before you go, and thank you so much for being generous with your time, is there anything we’re missing or
Any part of this that you’d like to expound upon? You know what, I will expand on one thing because not only did we not mention, but it’s been a big focus for me right now is sort of the
Rise of Saudi Arabia and the world of sports. But with regards to Gaza, Palestine, I think here’s where Saudi Arabia, which has gotten so many compliments for all its successes recently in its unprecedented sports drive, I think it’s actually working against it during this conflict. And I’ll
Tell you why. Just a couple of weeks ago, Saudi Arabia hosted this really big super fight between former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and current WBO boxing champion Tyson Fury. Now talk about the glitz and glamour here. You had a ring being brought up from under
The ground. There was an opening ceremony for the fight. It was a huge showcase, and it was supposed to be the event that inaugurates Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh season, which is this winter festival that’s taking place every year in Saudi Arabia. And this was supposed to be the big one.
They’ve been promoting it for months. They want the tourism. They want the attention. But just a few weeks before the event is when the war broke out in Gaza and in Egypt, where I’m from and in other Arab countries to take on a state of sort of semi-mourning. People have canceled all the
Major events. Anything that would’ve appeared to be a celebration was canceled. The only place that didn’t do so was Saudi Arabia. The only place. Wow. You had stars from across the world. You had Kanye West, you had Eminem, you had all these celebrities. You had the Undertaker, Vince McMahon, all these people
Were attending this boxing fight while 900 miles away, Gaza was being utterly bombarded. Now, for Saudi Arabia, which is trying to use sports to magnify this impression that it is emerging as a regional hegemon, right? It is jousting right now for regional supremacy from
Countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. But when it is the country that at the same time chooses to still go ahead with its event, this display of ostentatiousness instead of actually taking the lead on Gaza, I think was a major mistake from Hamad bin Salman,
The Crown Prince. I’m very curious to see going forward, if they will redeem themselves somehow, or if this is really a sign that Saudi is far more interested in itself its economy and Saudi nationalism than it is in sort of Arab solidarity or Arab identity overall. Because
That’s very different to the impression we’ve been given by Mohammed bin Salman. And to me, I find it interesting that Gaza has emerged as a nuisance to Saudi Arabia rather than a priority. Interesting. Could that also be related to Saudi Arabia wanting to keep the door open
To an alliance with Israel for the purposes of keeping Iran in check? Certainly. And beyond just keeping Iran in check, Saudi Arabia has integrated itself into the global economy in a way that I don’t think it can back out of instantly without completely collapsing
MBS’s vision 2030 master plan. He’s trying to build these alternative economic sectors and to divest from oil, which has always been Saudi Arabia’s leverage. For them to do that, they simply can’t withdraw from the global stage right now. They need to cooperate
With all sorts of entities, including Israel. So this is a very complicated situation from Hamad bin Salman. People always like to compare this to King Faisal from the 1970s who cut off oil supply to the Western world because of its treatment of the Palestinian people. And its support for Israel
At the time, it was Saudi Arabia’s own form of sanctions. The United States at the time threaten to bomb the oil fields. And King Faisal smiled and responded. This is what he allegedly said was,
Saudi Arabia was once a country of goats and milk and we’re happy to go back to goats and milk. Now, Dave, I don’t think neither Hamad bin Salman nor the people of Saudi Arabia are willing to
Go back to goats and milk at all at this point. No, not at all. Unless it was a solid gold statue of a goat drinking milk, I don’t think MBS has any interest in that whatsoever. Exactly. Well,
We’re going to have to have you on in the future if you’re willing to speak about Saudi Arabia at greater length. Absolutely. How can people keep up with your writing, Karim? Well, Dave, I still do work for The Guardian and
The New York Times. You’ll find my stories regularly there. And other than that, I would really appreciate if people would subscribe to my newsletter slash media outlet, Sports Politica. You can find it at sportspolitica.news. Tremendous. Karim Zidan thank you so
Much for joining us here on Edge of Sports. It was a pleasure, Dave. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work, so
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