UFC Star Calls Out Ariel Helwani For Israel Support After Comments On Khamzat Chimaev

By Max Everett
Ariel Helwani presents the Ronda Rousey-Gina Carano conference Megan Briggs/Getty Images

Former UFC Welterweight Champion Belal Muhammad called out Ariel Helwani for his support of Israel after he aired his concerns over Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland's back-and-forth ahead of UFC 329. 

Helwani had said he was concerned over how inflammatory things had gotten, with Strickland making racist and Islamophobic remarks about his opponent in recent weeks. But Muhammad took umbrage at a perceived double standard between Helwani's unconditional support for Israel and his concerns over the fight.

"The guy talking about inflammatory comments is the same guy sitting there supporting a genocide of innocent women and children," he wrote via X.

Following the October 7, 2023 attacks from Hamas on the Israeli-occupied Gaza envelope, Helwani made multiple posts to social media to condemn the attacks, citing his parents' emigration from Lebanon as a result of anti-semitism, as well as his grandparents' imprisonment by the PLO in 1980.

"And then when the sadness subsides another feeling keeps emerging," one post read. "Pride. Overwhelming pride. Pride in my faith. My people. My true homeland. I have never felt prouder of who I am and what I believe in. I have never been prouder to be Jewish. Prouder to support Israel. Unconditionally."

In a January 2025 episode of "MMA Hour" Helwani addressed Khabib Nurmagomedov's support for Palestine, saying he did not want innocent lives lost but "wants Hamas to lose," questioning why the UFC legend was outspoken on Palestine but silent on Russia's actions in Ukraine. 

Between October 2023 and 2025, almost 50 recognized human rights advocacy groups around the world – including Oxfam, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights, and Jewish Voice for Peace – have identified the conflict in Gaza as a genocide.

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