Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi claimed during his meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday that Jews in Egypt and other Arab states were “never subject to any repression – in ancient or modern times.” “Mr. Secretary, you spoke and you said that you are Jewish. And if I may, I would like to tell you that I’m an Egyptian citizen and I grew up in a neighborhood alongside Jews. They were never subject to any form of repression or targeting. Jews in Egypt were never repressed.” “In our Arab and and Islamic region, it has never been the case that Jews were targeted, in their ancient or modern history. Targeting may have happened in Europe, in Spain, or other countries, but it did not happen in our Arab and Muslim countries.” Sissi’s comments were quite intriguing considering that Egyptian Jews fled the country after the state of Israel was established in 1948 due to Arab violence, along with the residents of most Arab countries. Additionally, then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser carried out a series of expulsions of Jews from Egypt in the late 1950s and ’60s. Today, there is less than a minyan of Jews in Egypt, down from 80,000 in 1947. Sissi also condemned Israel for its strikes on Gaza, telling Blinken that “Israel’s reaction went beyond the right to self-defense, turning into collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza.” Although Sissi admitted that “what happened over the past nine days was very difficult and too much, and we unequivocally condemn it,” he added an excuse – “but we need to understand that this is the result of accumulated fury and hatred over four decades, where the Palestinians had no hope to find a solution.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)