Amsterdam Chess Open says it hasn’t banned Israeli settler players from tournament

Despite reports in the Israeli media that a Dutch chess tournament has banned Israeli players from West Bank settlements, the Amsterdam Chess Open (ACO) says that no such ban exists.

A recent report from a Dutch chess news website stated that the ACO had changed its regulations in a way that would bar chess players from playing in clubs located in West Bank settlements.

The head of the Shaar Shomron Regional Council in the West Bank, Yochai Damri, issued a statement yesterday denouncing the purported ban as antisemitic, since the story erupted around the expected participation in the tournament of Israeli grandmaster Alexander Bagrationi, who has represented a chess club in one of the settlements in the Shaar Shomron region.

A spokesperson for the ACO tells The Times of Israel, however, that it has not changed its regulations at all and that Bagrationi told the ACO that he withdrew his registration from the tournament after the initial report due to “family matters.”

The spokesperson says “there has not been a confrontation between the ACO foundation and Alexander Bagrationi, nor has there been a controversy within our organization or with anyone else on how to deal with the information about him in the [Dutch] article.”

He adds: “We would like to emphasize that we do not intend to ban anyone from participating in our tournaments, although we reserve the right to do so if we think future registrations should call for such drastic measures.”