Egyptian writer Dalia Ziada, the director for the Center for Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean studies, Saturday on Newsmax outlined the backlash she got in her own country for standing up for the Israeli victims of the Hamas attacks and to "tell the truth about what happened that day."
"The claims that have been promoted in the Egyptian media and the Arab media about the issue as they tried to portray it just as a clash between the Israeli military and Hamas militants, no one mentioned the raping of the women," the Middle East peace advocate told Newsmax's "America Right Now." "No one mentioned the burning of the houses and all the brutal scenes that we've seen that day."
But, Ziada, who is now in the United States, said she received a "horrible backlash" not only from radical Islamists, which she expected, but from "ordinary Egyptians and the Egyptian state."
"Everyone came against me simply because I said Israel is doing the right thing by launching this war against a terrorist organization like Hamas and all its fellow terrorist organizations in the region," she said.
Ziada added that people who support peace in the Middle East, including Muslims like herself, "feel very isolated right now."
"The roaring and the voices of the bad guys who are promoting hatred, promoting antisemitism, and working against peace is much louder these days," she said but added that it's important to keep speaking out.
"At the end of the day, this war has come to an end. The end of Hamas and similar terror organizations in the region is not only serving Israel, it will be serving everyone else in the region, including my home country, Egypt, and all the Arab countries in the region," Ziada said. "Sooner or later, people will realize that what's happening is for the good of all of us."
She added that she has had to leave Egypt for good because there are threats against her in her home country all the time, as well as "legal claims accusing me of spying for the Israeli Mossad and me being a threat to Egypt's national security."
That is "ironic," Ziada said, as others who support Hamas are not seen as a threat to national security.
In the United States, she continued, "My situation is relatively much better," but "the bad people still exist here."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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