The Jewish journalist Mahdi Majeed with spokesperson of the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee in Tel Aviv in February 2018
CAIRO - 25 August 2018: Converting to Islam, the Jewish journalist Mahdi Majeed stirred a wave of controversy, not only in Israel, but in the Middle East in general, given the long history of friendship between him and Israeli high-ranking officials.
Majeed, Iraqi-origin Jew, visited Israel in past February as part of media delegation, where he met with top Israeli military officials. He used to call Israel the “lighthouse of democracy in the Middle East.” Now he is attacking 'Zionism' and the Israeli aggression against Palestinians, which attracted the attention of both sides to him.
“I was not a Muslim, but now I believe in Islam and thank God for guiding me to the right path,” by those words Majeed announced his conversion to Islam through his private Twitter account, requesting from the Saudi authorities to allow him to pay a visit to the holy lands of Mecca to perform Umrah ritual.
Majeed used his Twitter account to attack both sides, Arab and Israelis, calling Israel “the Zionist State,” admitting Israelis’ right to live in peace, but against their aggression against the peaceful Palestinians, as well as criticizing the Arab clerics, who, according to Majeed, are misleading millions of Muslims and spread the wrong understanding of Islam among their followers.
In February, Majeed was a guest of the spokesperson of the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, who went live from Tel Aviv on Facebook through his official page to greet him, where the two seemed so friendly.
Majeed’s attitude was not clear after he defended the late controversial Egyptian cleric Sayyid Qutb, sentenced to death by the Egyptian judiciary in 1966, in an article titled “Was Sayyid Qutb an extremist terrorist?” published at the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated website Huffington Post Arabic, especially he was one of the fierce defenders of the Israeli State, calling for appointing a Kurdish Jew who lived in Israel as a president of Iraq, “In this way he would be a democratic president” he alleged.
Though, he tweeted on August 20: “I urge you all not to Trust Israel or any Israeli official, no matter how sweet his words, they care about nothing but their interests and benefits. stick to Islam and stay away from the sheikhs of evil and misguidance.”
Through Huffington Post Arabic, he used to attack both Egyptian and Syrian regimes, and defending the Muslim Brotherhood and their ideology in series of articles.
He claimed that the Salafist cleric Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, former Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi and MB leaders Khairat al-Shater and Mohamed al-Beltagy were tortured and interrogated by an officer from the Israeli intelligence agency ‘Mossad’ at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, before handing them to the Egyptian authorities.
He called on his Israeli friend, the writer Edy Cohen, to convert to Islam, mentioning him in a tweet saying: “My advice to you my dear Edy, is to know the right path of Islam,” while Cohen replied saying: “You have your own religion and I have mine.”
Worthy to mention, Majeed started his controversial tweets in June 2018, when he established his account.
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