Israeli chess players say they were barred from world championship in Malaysia

Israelis who registered for next month’s World Amateur Chess Championships in Malaysia, which bars the entry of Israeli citizens, are not on the final list of competitors despite a pledge from the sport’s governing body to facilitate their participation, one of the two players said Saturday.

The player, Lior Aizenberg, said he was omitted from the November 4-13 competition in Klang, Malaysia, even though he signed up with a foreign passport.

“The Malaysian authorities are simply unwilling to allow Israelis to represent Israel at a World Championship. As far as they are concerned, Israel does not exist,” said Aizenberg, a pro-Israel activist who also runs the Chess4All club in Savyon. “After 78 years of statehood, and especially following October 7, we as Israelis cannot allow such a situation to stand.”

Nationality-based exclusion of competitors is opposed to the guidelines of the tournament’s organizer, world chess governing body FIDE, Aizenberg said on Facebook, calling it a “disgrace” that the organization had let Malaysia host the competition.

A separate statement from Aizenberg said that given the omission of the Israeli players, the “world” should be removed from the tournament’s name.

The statement called on organizers to move the competition to another country, noting that the International Paralympic Committee in 2019 barred Malaysia from hosting a Paralympic swimming championship because of the Muslim country’s ban on Israeli athletes.

Last week, Aizenberg told the Walla news site that he had asked an organizer of the chess competition “an innocent question” about participation, and “immediately received a message that he’s sorry, but Israelis can’t play because of Malaysia’s immigration policy.”

The organizer immediately deleted the message and sent another one that said “they would get back to me,” said Aizenberg.

According to the Israel Chess Federation, FIDE had “announced it would make the maximum effort to help get visas for Israeli players interested in participating in the championship.”

And FIDE’s own official invitation to the event said registration, which began in August and ended earlier this month, was open “to all national chess federations.”

There was no immediate comment Saturday from FIDE.

In 2019, under then-FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, the governing body also issued a statement rejecting nationality-based and other “discriminatory treatment.” The statement said FIDE events “may be hosted only by Federations where free access is generally assured to representatives of all Federations.”

Dvorkovich, a Russian politician, stepped down last month and was replaced by Kazakhstan’s Timur Turlov.

Malaysia, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, has also begun in recent months deporting dual citizens who also hold Israeli passports.

Global calls to boycott Israel in sports and the arts have surged amid the war sparked in Gaza by the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.

Last month, organizers barred Israeli triathletes from a competition in Northern Ireland over concerns about “the attempt to present normality on the international sporting stage while Palestinians continue to suffer.”