It added: “We know from Heaton Park, Manchester and Bondi Beach that there are those who hear such words as a call to action. The government has celebrated Mr Abd El Fattah's arrival as a victory, British Jews will see it as yet another reminder of the danger we face.”
Both Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Justice Secretary David Lammy expressed delight at the return of the activist to the UK last week after the Egyptians lifted a travel ban.
His continuing detention after the completion of a five-year sentence in 2024 for allegedly spreading “fake news” of torture in the country had been criticised by successive UK governments. He had already been imprisoned from 2015 to 2019 for protesting against the Egyptian government.
But details of past social media posts from over a decade ago – now deleted – were published by the Telegraph in which he purportedly advocated the killing of Zionists.
Historic social media posts said to have been made by Alaa Abd El Fattah published by the Telegraph[Missing Credit]
In one he appeared to say that he considered “killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them”.
His nomination for a European human rights prize, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom, was withdrawn in 2014 over remarks on social media in which the Telegraph said he “appeared to call for the deaths ‘of a critical number of Israelis’”.
In a response at the time, Abd El Fattah, had written in an online Egyptian newspaper, Madr Masr, that his comments had been “taken out of context”.
While the tweet about Israelis could be “shocking” if read out of context, he explained, it had been “part of a private conversation” during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defence in Gaza in 2012.
The tweet stated “what seems to be the basic strategy of most national liberation movements, especially those that opt for armed resistance: to make the price of occupation/colonisation/apartheid too expensive for the society that supports it,” The Telegraph quoted him as saying.
In a time of war, he had “armed resistance in mind,” he explained. “Think of Vietnam or Algeria; many would say this is exactly what happened: after a critical number of casualties in asymmetric wars, the civilian population supporting the occupier refused to continue its support – despite the fact that the casualties suffered by the society resisting colonisation were massively higher.”
He had also said he was “completely reconciled to a Middle East with Israel”, the Telegraph reported, but opposed the “apartheid” system in the country.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has called on the prime minister to condemn Abd El Fattah’s comments on Israel and asked Sir Keir whether he had been aware of them before welcoming the activist.
“You chose to welcome him publicly just days after the terrorist attack at a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach and weeks after the horrific attack at Heaton Park synagogue, when Lewish communities here and abroad are understandably deeply worried and looking to you for leadership on,” Jenrick wrote.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “Mr El Fattah is a British citizen. It has been a long-standing priority under successive governments to work for his release from detention, and to see him reunited with his family in the UK. The government condemns Mr El Fattah’s historic tweets and considers them to be abhorrent.”
The JC has asked Abd El Fattah’s Egyptian lawyer Khaled Ali whether the activist has issued any response to the allegations in the Telegraph.
