Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s attitude toward Israel is under scrutiny after two videos exposing his anti-Semitic past have resurfaced.
The New York Times reports that, since his campaign for president following the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, Morsi has worked hard to gain the approval of President Obama by affirming the 1978 Egypt-Israel peace agreement.
However, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi also made comments in early 2010 that include anti-Semitic slurs and a call to "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred" for Jews. According to the Times:
As the chief of the Brotherhood’s political arm before becoming president, Mr. Morsi was one of the group’s most outspoken critics of Zionists and Israel. He sometimes referred to Zionists as "Draculas" or "vampires," using demonizing language historically associated with anti-Semitism. Although he explicitly denigrates Jews in the recently exposed videos, Mr. Morsi and other political and Brotherhood leaders typically restrict their inflammatory comments to the more ambiguous category of "Zionists."
The anti-Semitic statements that have come to light this month both date back to 2010, when anti-Israeli sentiment was running high after a three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza the previous year.
In the video footage ... Mr. Morsi addressed a rally in his hometown in the Nile Delta to denounce the Israeli blockade of Gaza. "We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews," Mr. Morsi declared. Egyptian children "must feed on hatred; hatred must continue," he said. "The hatred must go on for God and as a form of worshiping him."