Democrats lobby Egyptian Government to release cleric who advocated for murder of “any Zionist”
Democratic members of the United States Senate are pressuring the Egyptian Government for the release of Salah Soltan, a Muslim cleric who has a history of making inflammatory statements about Jews.
An amendment to the 2024 State Department appropriations bill, which proposes that Mr Soltan’s release must be considered as a condition for providing foreign aid to Egypt, has been approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The amendment was proposed by Democratic Sen. Chris Coons.
Mr Soltan’s children, who have publicly campaigned for his release for years, are understood to have contributed ten of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party. According to campaign finance records, his daughter, Hanaa Soltan, gave $47,000 to President Joe Biden’s campaign and his son, Mohamed Soltan, gave at least $10,000 to the campaign.
The Committee’s chairman, Sen. Robert Menendez, also reportedly received $5,800 last year from Mr Soltan’s son.
In an interview that was broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV in 2010, Mr Soltan reportedly said: “I want our brothers, and the whole world, to know what’s going on these days, during Passover. Read Dr. Naghuib Al-Kilani’s book, ‘Blood for the Matzos of Zion[sic]’. Every year, at this time, the Zionists kidnap several non-Muslims – Christians and others…They do this every year.”
The blood libel dates back to 1290 and was the pretext for the confiscation of all Jewish property and the complete expulsion of Jews from England.
Mr Soltan is also understood to have made controversial statements in an interview with Al Jazeera in 2011. In one, he said: “As someone who has studied Islamic law, specialising in Islamic jurisprudence, I am calling to kill the [Israeli] ambassador, not just expel him. Our sons were killed in our country, on our land, and our sons are being killed in Gaza by an occupying enemy. Brothers and sisters, the genuine rulings of Islamic law can no longer be silenced.”
He added: “Once I said: Any Zionist – tourist or other – who enters Egypt must be killed. We will not kill tourists from any [other] country. We stress that this fatwa is directed only toward those Zionists, who destroyed our country, killed our people, and shed our blood on our land.”
In a sermon that was broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV in 2012, Mr Soltan is seen saying: “I travel all over the world, and I met supporters of Al-Aqsa, of the prisoners, of Jerusalem, and of Palestine – people who thirst for the blood of the Jews, and who are eager for the promised war against the sons of Zion, until Palestine is liberated in its entirety.”
Mr Soltan was arrested by the Egyptian authorities in 2013 during President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2015, the British Government published a report which found that the Muslim Brotherhood is linked to Hamas and conducted terrorist attacks against “both British and Jewish interests”, and “selectively used violence and sometimes terror in pursuit of their institutional goals.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism throughout the United States.
Image credit: MEMRI
