Muslim ‘selfie protester‘ Zakia Belkhiri returned to Twitter on Saturday afternoon after Breitbart London showed the world how the media-styled “inspiration” had a history of anti-Semitism.
Ms. Belkhiri, who media outlets worldwide styled as “defiant” and “inspiring”, was revealed to harbour anti-Semitic views after Dutch blog Geenstijl trawled through her old social media comments.
Far from the tolerant, moderate Muslim she was portrayed as Ms. Belkhiri tweeted “Hitler didnt kill all the jews, he left some. So we [would] know why he was killing them”.
At first, she argued that the screengrabbed tweets, Ask.fm comments, and Facebook posts had been “photoshopped”. But when she returned to Twitter this afternoon she announced: “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!”
But her explanation scarcely accounts for her attack on Hebrew as a language, of which she said “fuck that Jewish language” and her comments about the extermination of Jewish people by German leader Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust and Second World War.
“Fuck that Jewish language!”
Her posed selfie next to a Vlaams Belang, anti-Islam protest in Belgium brought her global news coverage, with sycophantic coverage emanating from the BBC, Teen Vogue, Vox, the Huffington Post, Mashable, the Telegraph, Mic, and dozens more.
Ms. Belkhiri’s disappearance from social media led to social media users photoshopping her at terrorist atrocities and even the Holocaust to lampoon her.
https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/734052652443566080
And her unceremonious return to Twitter saw her posting a video about how Jews and Muslims can get along, as well as apologies for her previous statements in Dutch and English.
In Dutch, she said: “My pronunciation so many years ago was on Zionists… to all other Jews my sincere apologies! Peace and love x x”.
In English, she said: “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 is now following a Twitter account called “Tweet_Delete”.
She has not yet responded to Breitbart London’s questions about her claims to have been photoshopped, her claims about Zionism, or whether she holds all Jews accountable for Israeli government actions.
Journalists who flattered Ms. Belkhiri have also not yet returned comment.
UPDATE – 16:41 EST: TeenVogue writer says she has “informed her editors”:
I actually notified my editors and am awaiting on the response. This was not brought to my knowledge until after published.
— sarah amy harvard (@amyharvard_) May 21, 2016
Follow Raheem Kassam on Twitter
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