On Wednesday, an Egyptian blogger who was recently nominated for the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize had his name withdrawn by the group that initially nominated him on account of his call for the murder of Israelis.

In a press release, European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) leader Gabi Zimmer explained the reason for withdrawing the nomination of Alaa Abdel Fattah:

It emerges that one of the bloggers we proposed, Alaa Abdel Fatah who was a victim of repression in Egypt and jailed several times, called for the murder “of a critical number of Israelis” in a tweet in 2012. We did not avail of this information when we put forward his candidacy.

Needless to say, we cannot and will not tolerate such behaviour. This call goes against all our principles as well as the criteria for nomination for the Sakharov Prize. Our group has always favoured debate and political confrontation between peoples, including the Israeli people.

In an editorial yesterday, The Wall Street Journal documented (via Google)  further examples of Fattah’s anti-Israel agitation:

Mr. Abdel Fattah may have been brave in confronting authoritarianism in his own country. But his rhetoric on Israel and moderate Arabs is another story. “One should only debate human beings,” he tweeted in 2009. “Zionists and other imperialists are not human beings.” In late 2010 he tweeted: “Dear zionists please don’t ever talk to me, I’m a violent person who advocated the killing of all zionists including civilians.”

“My heroes have always killed colonialists,” Mr. Abdel Fattah tweeted in 2010, linking to a news article marking the death of Abu Daoud, the Palestinian terrorist who masterminded the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes. In 2012 he wrote: “Assassinating [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat isn’t something that should shame a man, but instead honor him.”

[Photo: Chaîne de tabadoul / YouTube ]