Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi falsely claimed on Sunday that Egypt has by no means persecuted Jews residing within the nation.
“I spoke concerning the disaster and I spoke as a Jewish particular person,” Sisi advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken via an interpreter. “I’m an Egyptian citizen. I used to be born and raised in a neighborhood the place we had Jewish neighbors. The Jews who lived right here in Egypt by no means suffered oppression and persecution.”
Sisi’s feedback straight contradict Egypt’s historical past, together with the enslavement of the traditional Israelites as depicted within the biblical story of Moses and violence in opposition to Jews in the course of the first centuries of Christianity. Within the fashionable period, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt He led a campaign to expel the Jews of the nation within the late fifties and sixties. Egypt’s Jewish inhabitants was as soon as about 80,000, however right now nearly no Jews dwell there.
The statements got here after a gathering between Sisi and Blinken, who traveled to Egypt, Israel, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to satisfy with leaders throughout the Center East. He’s there to debate the battle between Israel and Hamas that erupted final week after the Palestinian militant group launched a lethal shock assault on Israel from Gaza.
Israel has since begun a blockade of Gaza, launching a barrage of retaliatory rockets and killing greater than 2,000 Palestinians, whereas limiting entry to meals and electrical energy within the space that Israel and Egypt have lengthy imposed a blockade on.
Whereas addressing reporters alongside Blinken, Sisi criticized Israel’s response to the assault.
Al-Sisi mentioned: “Right here we face a serious disaster, and I’m very involved concerning the response. They’re exaggerating the precise to self-defense, and the matter is popping into (collective) punishment for two.3 million Palestinians.” Copy supplied by the Ministry of Overseas Affairs.
Blinken responded by condemning the “atrocities” dedicated by Hamas, and promised to face in opposition to the militant group.
“I’m before everything a human being, a human being like many others, who’s horrified by the atrocities dedicated by Hamas,” Blinken mentioned. He added: “We’re decided to face in opposition to Hamas and what it did, and to make sure that this doesn’t occur once more.”
