“Moderate” Jordan Refuses to Play Israel’s Under-19 Basketball Team in World Cup

A ‘King honored’ former Jordanian minister, and potential US Visa holder, supports Jew hatred.

By: Adam, July 3, 2025;

Antisemitism and Islamic terrorism don’t spread in the world without a formal sponsorship from supposedly “Moderate US Allies Regimes.” Jordan is no exception to that.

Today, a former media minister in Jordan, Samih Al-Maaytah، the current chair of board of directors of Al-Rai News , the biggest and most famous paper news in Jordan, took his time on X to indicate that he doesn’t recognize Israel as a state and it’s right to exist, by expressing his respect and support for the Jordanian basketball federation that made a decision to withdraw the Jordanian youth basketball team from playing against Israel in a match that was supposed to happen as part of World youth basketball tournament .

Al-Maaytah X post today reads as follows:

“A respectable and estimated decision for the Basketball Federation is consistent with the Jordanian position on the policies of the Israeli occupation not to play a match in the Youth World Cup for Youth against the Israeli team.”

Here is the link to his tweet:

قرار محترم ومقدر لاتحاد كرة السلة وينسجم مع الموقف الاردني من سياسات الاحتلال الاسرائيلي بعدم خوض مباراة في كأس العالم لكرة السله للشباب امام الفريق الاسرائيلي.. pic.twitter.com/WIeE47Gbw8

— سميح المعايطه (@AlmaitahSamih) June 29, 2025

A month ago, on May 25th during the Jordan Independence Day Celebration, the king of Jordan, referred to as moderate king, honored Al-Maaytah with “The Excellence, first class Medal”

Here is the link of that honoring:

الملك ينعم على سميح المعايطة بوسام التميز من الدرجة الأولى#صحيفة_الرأي #الأردن https://t.co/xVHSxHmxKQ pic.twitter.com/aD23mDY7tO

— الرأي (@alrai) May 25, 2025

Al-Maaytah has precedences of actions that articulate his denial of Israel right to exist, such as withdrawing from a live interview at Al Arabiya TV in 2019 due to ‘the presence of an Israeli guest’.

Here is the link:

بالفيديو…وزير الإعلام الأردني الأسبق “سميح المعايطة”ينسحب من لقاء مباشر على الهواء في قناة العربية يناقش العلاقات الأردنية الإسرائيلية لوجود ضيف إسرائيلي في المقابلة pic.twitter.com/7lfy4NGaB4

— الأردنية نت alurdunyya net (@alurdunyya) December 2, 2019

Al-Maaytah was reported at some media in the US, such as MEMRI, as moderate figure who is anti Iran and Hamas , however, the full picture is also missing from the US media analysis in assessing that if someone is anti Hamas would mean he’s actually Not Antisemitic, they always get it wrong even in the Israeli Media.

Secretary Marco Rubio said that people indulging or expressing anti Israel or US positions are not welcome in the US and directed the US embassies to decline their Visa applications and revoke any existing ones they hold, so how will the US Embassy react to Mr Al-Maaytah and his likes?

Source: https://gellerreport.com/2025/07/moderate-jordan-refuses-to-play-israels-under-19-basketball-team-in-world-cup.html/