Good news: Egyptian woman known for pro-9/11, anti-semitic tweets to be honored by State Department

Via Ace. No need to get excited: She claims the offending tweets — which were posted sporadically over many weeks — were the result of hacking. And our State Department, naturally, believes her. So there’s one thing we have in common with Egypt: We each have our own Anthony Weiners who enjoy the benefit of the doubt, at least initially, from credulous American Democrats.

Actually, you’ll never find a better metaphor than this for America’s twisted “alliance” with post-Arab-Spring Egypt. They hate the U.S. and Israel openly but will half-heartedly deny it when pressed in order to protect certain interests. And we’ll half-heartedly pretend to believe them in order to protect our own. It’s a giant charade they put up with for money and weapons and we put up with it in order to maintain a smidgen of leverage and “goodwill.” And if that means sometimes you need to hand an award to a Jew-hater, hey:

Samira Ibrahim, as the State Department’s profile describes her, “was among seven women subjected by the Egyptian military to forced virginity tests in March 2011.” The press release further notes that Samira “was arrested while in high school for writing a paper that criticized Arab leaders’ insincere support to the Palestinian cause.” Apparently, the State Department is unaware of her other convictions.

On Twitter, Ibrahim is quite blunt regarding her views. On July 18 of last year, after five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed a suicide bombing attack, Ibrahim jubilantly tweeted: “An explosion on a bus carrying Israelis in Burgas airport in Bulgaria on the Black Sea. Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news.”…

Ibrahim frequently uses Twitter to air her anti-Semitic views. Last August 4, commenting on demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, she described the ruling Al Saud family as “dirtier than the Jews.” Seventeen days later she tweeted in reference to Adolf Hitler: “I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it. Hitler.”

On 9/11, she tweeted her wish that every anniversary will bring with it news of American burning. (That tweet ended up deleted.) Per Ace, what are the odds that hackers would tweet stuff like this every few weeks or so but otherwise not mess with her account? Pretty good, says the State Department:

Veteran State Department reporter Nicole Gaouette just tweeted, “State officials tell me they’ve looked at 1000s of her tweets & believe her account was hacked.”

That’s from Jeffrey Goldberg, who says of her blog posts that they’re less inflammatory than the tweets but also have a “general anti-American tenor.” Maybe the hackers thought she didn’t hate America enough and felt obliged to break into her account and add a little “pep”? You think?

Oh, by the way: She first claimed that she’d been hacked … yesterday. Six months after the supposed hacking occurred. And coincidentally, per Goldberg, on the very day that the U.S. Holocaust Museum gave the State Department a heads up about the offensive tweets. Presumably State e-mailed her to ask what on earth those tweets were about, whereupon she went Full Weiner. And they, being used to maintaining charades in the name of good relations with Egypt, dutifully claimed to believe her. But then this story got picked up in the Weekly Standard and Goldberg and elsewhere, and now the reality’s gotten a bit too real:

State Dept:We’re going to defer presenting women of courage award to Egyptian Samira Ibrahim, will review her alleged anti-Semitic remarks

— Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) March 7, 2013

Go read this Times of Israel report for further evidence that she sent the offensive tweets, not hackers. Exit question via Goldberg: Why didn’t State review her tweets before choosing the award? Did they think anti-semitism was low risk? Why?

• Obama’s Morehouse address: The good, the bad, and the pot
• U.S. embassy in Cairo restores their Twitter feed after Jon Stewart snafu with Egypt
• Er, is Anthony Weiner planning a political comeback?

Blowback