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Mohamed Morsi Can’t Catch a Break

This week: The Egyptian president counters claims of anti-Semitism…with more anti-Semitism

by
Adam Chandler
January 24, 2013
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi(AFP)
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi(AFP)

Here at The Scroll, we’ve grown so accustomed to posting about the misadventures of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi that we’ve decided to turn it into a regular feature! (For an audio accompaniment, I recommend listening to the theme song from Sanford and Son while you read.)

Last week, an Egyptian man who had the misfortune of simply looking like Mohamed Morsi was accosted and nearly beaten up near the presidential palace in Cairo until it was revealed that he was just an ordinary citizen lodging a complaint. It seemed a sad story until the man then started charging people to take pictures with him.

This week, Morsi is taking heat in the wake of a high-profile visit from an assemblage of United States senators–seven in fact!–during which Morsi was asked to clarify anti-Semitic statements he made about Jewish people being “bloodsuckers” and “the descendants of apes and pigs.”

How did Morsi respond? Well…as Josh Rogin relays from Delaware Senator Chris Coons’ account:

“He [Morsi] was attempting to explain himself … then he said, ‘Well, I think we all know that the media in the United States has made a big deal of this and we know the media of the United States is controlled by certain forces and they don’t view me favorably,’” Coons said.



The Cable asked Coons if Morsy specifically named the Jews as the forces that control the American media. Coons said all the senators believed the implication was obvious.



“He did not say [the Jews], but I watched as the other senators physically recoiled, as did I,” he said. “I thought it was impossible to draw any other conclusion.”

Sometimes you can’t help but explain that you’re not an anti-Semite by being even more anti-Semitic. Mohamed Morsi can’t catch a break!

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.