Did YouTube star Mr.Beast recognize Palestine as a sovereign state?

YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, known by his persona Mr.Beast, recently sparked controversy when he allegedly recognized Palestine as a nation in a recent video experiment that went viral.

On August 20th, he released a video called “Every Country in the World Competes for $250,000” which included competitors from nearly every nation across the globe. However, internet sleuths claimed on a Reddit feed that the influencer allegedly left Taiwan out of the competition.

Though the influencer did not directly portray Palestine as a competitor, if you pay attention closely, his world map conveys both the Israeli and Palestinian flags side by side. 

What kind of event did Mr.Beast host?

The video shows a series of competitions that more than 200 participants would engage in, eliminating several throughout each round. The first round cleared hurdles, the second round included balance beams that moved, the third had an archery match, and the fourth had was a soccer pitch with restricted goals. 

On the third round, Mr.Beast and his referees gave representatives the opportunity to vote for which country they wanted to put at a disadvantage; for each vote a nation received, the archery target would be pushed back 10 feet. Here, he selected clips of representatives specifically talking about disliking Israel.

This clip could have been omitted but could have likely been included in order to generate clicks and controversy. “My country doesn’t really like Israel, low-key…” the representative from Indonesia stated. “A lot of people don’t like [them] so, yeah,” the representative for Iraq said.

Israel’s representative was not shown with how many votes the nation received, though Mr.Beast did ask the representative which nation he thought was going to receive the most negative votes. No Palestinian representative appeared clearly.

Something also noteworthy was that each representative was reportedly flown from the country they were representing, though the large majority of participants, whether from Saudi Arabia or Eritrea, spoke with relatively western, North American accents. This begs the question of the authenticity of the project.