First Rami Wins a Zionism Contest, Now Mohammad Babulfath Wins at the Maccabiah Games

Before we start, you should know that Jewlicious is probably not awarding this guy a laptop.

A tough, young man went the distance and won the Greco-Roman wrestling event at the Maccabiah games. The only problem? There are actually two. (1) Maccabiah is only open to Jews and Israelis. (2) The tough guy’s name is Mohammad Babulfath and he is an Iranian born Muslim (check out his Web site – it’s in swedish!).

How could this happen, you ask? Well, it appears to be a long story and you should look here for full details. Muffti will provide a snarky, Jewlicious recap for the lazy readers.

Babulfath was part of the swedish team, who tore their way through the competition. They apparently had seen a document entitled ‘Invitation’ on FILAs site claiming that:

We have the pleasure of inviting your team to the Israeli 17th Maccabiah Games In Greco-Roman & free style for seniors.

Details about weigh in times and the like were included. Apparenly the Swedes foolishly took this as an invitation. However, the poster of the document (IWF President Dr. Solomon Stolar) claimed that it was never intended as an invitation, misleading title aside:

Everyone can interpret it as they want. I’m not responsible for that.

Ummmn…yeah. Clearly Stolar has mastered the lessons of Continental philosophers. As Derrida put it:

…assumes language refers only to itself rather than to an extratextual reality, that asserts multiple conflicting interpretations of a text, and that bases such interpretations on the philosophical, political, or social implications of the use of language in the text rather than on the author’s intention.

Confused? So was the Swedish team who (naively) interpreted what looked like an invitation as an invitation. Anyhow, they made plans to come and immediately, the Maccabiah organizers and the Israeli Wrestling Fedeation started pointing fingers at one another:

“They were invited as a mistake by the [wrestling] committee,” said sports department director Asaf Stolarz. “They don’t belong to the Maccabiah. The Swedish team said they they’re not part of the delegation. The Israeli Wrestling Federation invited them.”[sic]

Anyhow, in the confusion, no one arranged to pick up the Swedes. They got to the airport and were told they weren’t going to participate. As teammate Samuelsson said:

“They didn’t pick us up,…We called [Maccabiah] information. We said we’re in the Maccabiah Games. They said, ‘You’re not on our list; you can’t come.’…”I said, ‘Why did we fly so long to come here if we’re not in the games?’ We waited for three-and-a-half hours and then the Maccabiah said, ‘You can come.'”

Long story short, the Swedes tore threw the chosen people and got to the awards ceremony only to see wrestler, Denis Nikolae, take the Gold. Babulfath beat Nikolae in the final round. Nikolae was surprised to find out that he was getting the gold:

A loss is a loss. I thought that I was in second place, then [the IWF officials] told me at the end that I’m first place.

Babulfath ended up with a totally crappy particpation medal. He stayed in good humour, and said smiling:

I’m going to tell this to my kids…Because I think it’s my first and last time here.

On second thought, maybe we should get him a laptop…