October 7 & today · Egypt · 2023–present
Nationalist suspicion, religious demonization and communist celebration of Hamas brought older accusations into Egypt’s October 7 aftermath.
Explore EgyptPublished by WTJPublication updated
2023–present
October 7 & today · October 7 & today
Nationalist suspicion, religious demonization and communist celebration of Hamas brought older accusations into Egypt’s October 7 aftermath.
A sightseeing visit ends in violence
On October 8, 2023, a police officer attacked Israeli tourists in Alexandria. Tourists and their Egyptian guide were killed. The attack happened one day after Hamas’s assault on Israel.
A visit to Egypt had become deadly for people identified with the country in the news. Observers described the attack in antisemitic terms, while the available reporting does not establish a final judicial finding about motive. What is clear is the immediate human consequence: travellers and their guide were killed far from the battlefield.
A conspiracy and a resistance story meet
Egyptian Jewish families had already experienced belonging made conditional during regional conflicts. In 2023, a military commentator invoked the fabricated Protocols, and a religious official described Jews as war-making plotters. An imported European conspiracy had acquired local institutional voices.
The Egyptian Communist Party praised the October 7 operation as resistance and a blow to normalization. Al-Azhar later portrayed the Zionist enemy through images of feeding on civilians’ flesh and blood. These are different actors, not proof that they directed the Alexandria shooter. But their narratives can reinforce one another: anti-imperialist celebration legitimates the cause, religious imagery demonizes the enemy, and the Zionist label carries older accusations of Jewish conspiracy and bloodthirstiness. That is the cultural connection between political mobilization and inherited antisemitism.
The local Jewish life behind the label
Egyptian Jewish oral histories remember established communal life followed by insecurity and displacement. Families whose home was Egypt found that regional conflict and state decisions could call their belonging into question.
That history gives weight to the difference between criticizing Israel and treating Jewish or Israeli identity as proof of guilt. After October 7, the Alexandria killings and demonizing public rhetoric made that distinction urgent again. They reveal serious harm and hostility, even though the available sources do not measure a countrywide rise in incidents.