{"id":256523,"date":"2026-08-19T18:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T18:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/256523\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T18:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T18:18:08","slug":"this-anti-israel-influencer-challenged-zionists-to-fight-he-got-his-wish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/256523\/","title":{"rendered":"This anti-Israel influencer challenged Zionists to fight. He got his wish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten days after publishing a video to his Instagram account with the challenge \u201ccome fight me Zios\u201d in \u201cTel Aviv, occupied Palestine,\u201d pro-Palestinian influencer Ido Amiaz, also known as \u201cthe Salukie,\u201d found himself knocked down three times in a boxing match that ended in a technical knockout after around 40 seconds.<\/p>\n

Amiaz, an Israeli-born anti-Zionist<\/a> influencer who has built a following through videos documenting his activism in the West Bank and now describes himself as a journalist in Palestine, was fighting Israeli mixed martial artist Shimon Smotritsky.<\/p>\n

Smotritsky previously posted a video accepting the fight on his Instagram<\/a> account on August 9, one day after the anti-Zionist influencer issued the challenge.<\/p>\n

In later comments to The Jerusalem Post, Smotritsky said that the minute he saw Amiaz’s challenge, he knew “that’s my opportunity to shut him up.”<\/p>\n

“This guy is always spreading lies about Israel, about IDF soldiers, about all the heroes that are protecting us. And he’s saying things that are against my values, against the truth. So, I knew I needed to make him quiet and teach him a lesson.”<\/p>\n

In Amiaz’s initial video in which he issued the challenge, he said that he had had the idea to fight for some time because he was getting daily threats to fight him in Israel.<\/p>\n

Amiaz’s challenge to Zionists: ‘Meet here in Tel Aviv. I\u2019m waiting’<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, this is an open invitation. Write me a DM, and we meet here in Tel Aviv. I\u2019m waiting. B***h,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In his response video, Smotritsky accepted the challenge, adding, \u201cnow let\u2019s see if you will actually stand up behind your words and fight an Israeli, or you will act like a typical Palestinian troll: you’ll talk s**t about Israelis and then when we respond, you will cry on social media and say that we are the bullies and the aggressors like you always do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amiaz\u2019s response followed the same day, mocking Smotritsky and speaking Hebrew in a Russian accent, saying, \u201cI hear your accent, my dear. Definitely very indigenous to the region!\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to complain that he had been planning on fighting \u201cnormal Zios,\u201d rather than a professional fighter, but that \u201cas per usual, you people don\u2019t like to play fair,\u201d noting that he had received direct messages from a number of Israeli MMA fighters accepting the challenge.<\/p>\n

He added, though, that he would keep his word, despite a prediction that the fighters would \u201ctear me a new a*****e.\u201d<\/p>\n

Videos published to his account over the following days addressed the fight in various ways. One showed him as he trained to box, another dismissed accusations that he would back out of the fight, and another jokingly asked his audience if they would donate for facial reconstruction surgery.<\/p>\n

In another, after an Israeli man asked him on a train ride if he\u2019s been training and if he had a message he was trying to send, Amiaz complained \u201cI can\u2019t even take the choo-choo these days without the Chosen Crew convening an impromptu extemporaneous pre-fight conference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amiaz brought Amir Hetsroni<\/a>, an Israeli anti-Zionist academic, with him to the fight.<\/p>\n

Hetsroni is widely known in Israel as a provocateur, a description he has denied despite a public record of inflammatory statements and high-profile controversies.<\/p>\n

After the third and final time Smotritsky knocked Amiaz down in the boxing match between the two, the referee stopped the fight, declaring it a technical knockout.<\/p>\n

Speaking shortly thereafter, Smotritsky expressed his surprise that Amiaz showed up to the fight, adding that doing so had earned his respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone curses me and threatens me, saying they\u2019re going to kill me. Saluki challenged a Zionist fighter, and he showed up. For that alone, I respect you. I don\u2019t agree with your views at all, and I think you\u2019re a troll, but at the end of the day, you wanted this, and you got it,\u201d Smotritsky said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext time someone wants to represent Palestinians and fight against a Zionist, I want a bigger challenge. So, Belal Muhammad, Adam Salah, any one of you p*****s that talks s**t about my country, come get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his later comments to the Post, Smotritsky said that his fight with Amiaz wasn’t a challenge for him.<\/p>\n

“It was easy work for me,” he said. “I don’t even consider it as a fight. And I hope I beat some Zionism into this guy.”<\/p>\n

Lital Davidov contributed to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten days after publishing a video to his Instagram account with the challenge \u201ccome fight me Zios\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[10725,13463,1188,37,22932,549,588,5418],"class_list":["post-256523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-anti-zionism","tag-boxing","tag-instagram","tag-israel","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-tel-aviv","tag-zionist"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117123553965786840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}