A young Muslim woman whose picture went viral after she posed defiantly in front of anti-Islam protesters has come under fire after her own antisemitic social media posts came to light.

Zakia Belkhiri’s photo showed her posing for a selfie against the backdrop of the far-right demonstration in Belgium and was heralded as a symbol for peace and anti-racism.

However, it has emerged that a series of antisemitic statements have been made by Ms Belkhiri on social media.

In one tweet from November 2012, she wrote: "Hitler didn't kill all the Jews, he left some. So we know why he was killing them."

In a Facebook post from March 2014, she used a swear word to describe Jews before adding: "I hate them so much."
As news of her antisemitic rants spread online Ms Belkhiri deleted all her social media accounts.

But she then returned to Twitter to justify her remarks.

She wrote "My opinion many years ago was meant on the Zionist back then, that spread hate instead of love so to all the other Jews peace be upon you!"

Ms Belkhiri told BBC Trending she wanted to stage the photo not as “a protest at all” but to “share joy and peace."

The 22-year-old added she wanted "to show that things can be different. And that we can live together, not next to each other but with each other".