This past week, Israel and Egypt competed against each other in a judo match at the Rio Summer Olympics. Or Sasson of Israel defeated Islam El Shehaby of Egypt. After a judo event ends, the opponents pray and then are supposed to shake hands. Instead, El Shehaby refused to perform the tradition. The referee of the match made El Shehaby return to the mat and urged him to shake Sasson's hand, but he again refused. Or Sasson gave up on good sportsmanship and accepted his win.

So you think this was the only occurrence of contestants refusing to have good sportsmanship against Israeli athletes -- wrong. On the day of opening ceremonies, Israeli athletes and Lebanese athletes were placed on the same bus that was supposed to transport the athletes to the opening ceremonies. Instead of using the Olympics as a way to promote peace between people, the Lebanese athletes decided to do the opposite. The Lebanese decided to block the aisle and entrance of the vehicle so the Israeli athletes couldn't get on the bus or get to the opening ceremonies. Israeli minister, Miri Regev, described this incident as "anti-Semitism, pure and simple. and the worst kind of racism."

These are just two examples of anti-Semitism occurring during the Olympics. Personally, I believe that both Lebanese athletes and Egyptian athletes need to learn to put their differences aside and just compete against other athletes. The truth is, these amazing athletes can all learn something from each other and can improve in their sport by competing.

The Olympics are meant to promote peace between countries and allow amazing athletes to compete against each other; it is not meant to promote anger, fear, or racism, however, that is exactly what the Lebanese and Egyptian athletes are doing.

People look up to Olympic athletes, so these athletes should be demonstrating good sportsmanship and instead are doing the opposite. Kids watch the Olympics. If they heard about the Lebanese not letting the Israeli's on the bus because of previous conflicts they would think it would be OK to not play their rival little league team because they just don't like them. These Olympic athletes need to be setting a good example for everyone and the athletes showing poor sportsmanship is not the way of doing that.