Lebanese 8-year-old chess player Loren Abdel Samad withdrew from two scheduled matches against ‘Israeli’ opponents during the World Youth Chess Championship for the under-eight age category, held in Batumi, Georgia, from June 14-27, 2026 – according to a report on Lebanese media
The withdrawals resulted in automatic losses and cost her points that could have influenced her final standing in the tournament, the reports said. Family cites personal stance
According to her family speaking to Lebanese media, Abdel Samad chose not to face the ‘Israeli’ players despite knowing the decision would affect her tournament score.
Kids just sense evil
As much as this kid took a principled stand, remember the opponents were children too.
The “kids” ate Israeli propaganda since born, they see the Lebanese as inferior animals, culprit of that or not. Education in Israel produces monsters, their textbooks are fucked up.
Thant may be the case. But seeing children as evil is exactly how genocide happeneded in Palestine.
Certainly Palestine and Lebanon can show the other face. Is that what are you suggesting? Can you give me something to work with instead of indifferent neutrality? Liberals…
No. I think the child did the right thing to stand up for their principles and not compete. My issue is with calling the other child evil. They are still a child. They did not commit genocide. Israel did.
Every settler Israeli is a soldier. The other kid is a soldier in development, waiting for the right age for Military. Wouldn’t you react to a child soldier pointing a gun at you? It you think this is too much, it’s Isreal that’s actually too much. And your indifference is what enables genocides, not the reaction in defense. Liberalism/Social Democracy is the precursor of fascism.
I’m sure they were devastated to automatically advance to the next round.
They will also remain blissfully unaware of the comment above. That doesn’t make it acceptable.
Did you interpret the comment as aimed at the children, rather than the state of Israel?
Maybe the original commenter does consider a couple of 8 year olds to be evil, I can’t speak on their behalf; but it seems far more likely they’re referring to the genocidal state currently killing 8 year olds that they represent, rather than specific individuals playing chess.
Look at the other responses and tell me I’m wrong that that’s how it’s being interpreted. I donagree they are conflating the two. That has been Israels plan, conflate israels across with the identity of Jewishness, and then claim antisemitism when there is any criticism.
Unfortunately, that means people are now conflating the two. In this case, to call children in a chess tournament evil. That’s where Israels actions serve to increase antisemitism. Globally.
Did you think they were referring to a Palestinian child from occupied territory? Of course not. The fact they are called israeli serves to suggest their religion and political views, before they even have a formed view.
Those are responses to your comment though. Your comment frames the narrative as ‘this is about the children’, and as such, the resulting discourse is based around that, my responses included, despite my differing interpretation of the original statement.
When I mention the state they represent, I mean it in the same way an athlete represents their nation. I don’t believe said athlete is directly responsible for their countries actions, but I also agree with their expulsion from international events when they represent a state that is actively committing atrocities (like Russia with the Olympics for example). The alternative is sane washing the atrocities commited (IE: Israel participating in Eurovision).
I completely agree re athletes. Not children.
A child cannot differentiate. So the child cannot recognise anything but their opponent and what they have been taught. On both sides.
Which is why their comment only makes sense in terms of calling their opponent evil. And that’s not what a child said. That was a, presumably, adult poster.
This is exactly the kind of commentary that leads to genocide. Calling Israeli children soldiers in waiting is no different to the IDF calling Palestinian children terrorists in waiting. It’s all a way to other them and justify imhumane actions.
children currently being abused by their parents, yes. not playing a game where your opponents come from or are raise by genocide supporters is an important stand to take, at any age.
a nine year old can know israel is blowing up his friends, and obviously we can’t expect to treat an israel child like an adult; this is why we recognize the child is being abused by those adults.
Given there’s a 90-99% chance that said opponents support killing your family, this does seem reasonable.
I wouldn’t blame Ukrainian players for not wanting to play against Russian players, but there’s lots of Ukraine supporters who are zionists who absolutely would blame this kid for not wanting to play against Israeli players (basically Western politicians and Western zionists)
Family cites personal stance
There’s something very funny about this line; like, keeping up to date with the news from the last year would’ve told us why, lol
I have this lil’ personal stance where I think that killing me is bad
Good for her
Imo she should’ve crushed her opponent instead of withdrawing.
Short term this might get some PR, but its not a good strategy.
At this age it is ideal to show those Israeli kids that people of other ethnicities and religions are very much like then.
That way, when an adult tells them to be racist, they have a lived experience that contradicts that.
Hard disagree, 80% of Israelis support expelling all Palestinians and over 60% support the genocide. Pariah state needs to be treated as such and the world needs Israelis to personally suffer consequences for it’s genocide. It’s not racist it’s drawing a line in the sand.
I ask you the question then. Why, after 1500 years of wars between French and Germans, are they no longer fighting after WW2? Why is there little to no animosity left after less than 3 generstions?
I ask you the question then. Why, after 1500 years of wars between French and Germans, are they no longer fighting after WW2?
Because they both became client states of the US post WW2 and fighting between client states isn’t allowed.
You are missing the question, why is their almost no animosity between them after so many centuaries in conflict?
Because again they have both been demoted to client state and given a nice stream of outside “enemies” to unite against.
You seem stuck on thinking of them as governments and not nations, it is not the same. Why would the people give up 1500 years of conflict like that?
Many reasons like much of the conflict being nonsense spun up by the governments so they could have conflict (I really doubt the people of Brest and Rostok genuinely hated each other for legitimate reasons), and new “better” enemies being bestowed upon them by their new owner mainly Muslims, Russians and Chinese people. Also I wouldn’t say the conflict is gone so much as it has been relegated to second place and thus is not pushed and therefore heard much, I’m sure of you asked either group they’d gladly regale you with tides of pejoratives and racism about each other.
Israelis need to learn they are evil should get off Palestinian land. No normalization with colonizers. No need to befriend a third you’re going to kick out of your stolen home.
