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Egyptian president falsely claims Jews and Egyptians have always gotten along, raising a fraught and ancient history
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi mentioned Blinken’s Jewish identity, and made a false and curious claim.
“Mr. Secretary, you spoke about the crisis and you spoke as a Jewish person, and let me tell you that I am an Egyptian citizen, and I was born and brought up in a neighborhood where we had Jewish neighbors,” Sisi told Blinken, who was in Cairo Sunday to drum up support for Israel’s war against Hamas. “And Jews who used to live here in Egypt [had] not ever suffered from oppression and persecution… As a matter of fact, the Jews were never targeted … throughout the whole history. ”
Sisi, who is an ally of the United States and is friendly with Israel, has nurtured what’s left of the Jewish community in his country. But Egypt’s treatment of its Jewish population in modern times is replete with repression, discrimination and at times bloody violence — especially during and after Israel’s establishment. From a community of 80,000 in 1947, Egypt’s Jewish population now counts in the single digits.
Anyone familiar with the Bible and the Passover story, of course, can point to a far more ancient history of Jews being oppressed in Egypt — and that’s what Sisi may have been referencing in his comment. Modern Egyptians take umbrage at the tale of the Exodus, which recounts the tribulations of Jews as slaves in Egypt.
There is no archaeological or historical record of Israelites being in Egypt, as slaves or otherwise. Historians have said that the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers building an Israelite presence in Egypt may have origins in the reign of the Hyksos, a group of Canaanite tribes.
It’s a sensitive issue for Egyptians: In 1977, as the leaders of Israel and Egypt launched the history-changing talks that led to the Camp David Accords, which have endured decades later, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin joked that he looked forward to seeing the pyramids because “after all, we helped to build them.”
A top aide had pleaded with Begin not to make any reference to the pyramids, and his warning proved prescient: there was a flurry of aggrieved articles in the Egyptian press.
The pyramid myth has its modern origins in the hugely popular 1956 film “The Ten Commandments”, which depicts the Hebrew slaves laboring on the pyramids until they are redeemed by Moses, played by Charlton Heston.
Exodus describes the Hebrew slaves as working in construction, but does not mention the pyramids. As Rabbi Mordechai Becher pointed out last year on the website of the Orthodox organization Aish, the pyramids were built long before the children of Israel were purported to have been in Egypt. “Sorry to disappoint, but it was indeed aliens,” Becher joked in an account of his visit to Cairo.
Still, the myth continues to sting: As recently as 2010, Egyptian archaeologists were at pains to point out that discoveries showed that the people who built the pyramids were paid for their efforts.
More recently, the Jews of Egypt have had a painful, and documented, history: In its first stages of modernization, under the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the 19th century, Egyptian authorities introduced laws discriminating against Jews. A sequence of laws in the 20th century disenfranchised the vast majority of Jews in the country.
Those laws and a series of bloody and deadly pogroms drove the Egyptian Jewish community to flee, depleting it to its current tiny size.
Blinken, who has noted his Jewish roots and the persecutions of his extended family to explain his commitment to Israel and to human rights, did not take Sisi’s bait. Hamas’ savage murder of more than a thousand people is what was moving him in this instance, Blinken said.
“I come first and foremost as a human being,” he said. “A human being like so many others appalled at the atrocities committed by Hamas.”
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The post Egyptian president falsely claims Jews and Egyptians have always gotten along, raising a fraught and ancient history appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.