Egyptian Constitution Draft Committee Member Leads Protest Against Inclusion of Word “Jew”

Three fingers dyed pink after voting in an Egyptian constitutional referendum. Photo: Wikipedia.

A member of the Egyptian committee that drafted the country’s draft constitution held a rally late last week to protest the inclusion of the word “Jew” in the draft’s third article. The article says:

“The canon principles of Egyptian Christians and Jews are the main source of legislation for their personal status laws, religious affairs, and the selection of their spiritual leaders.”

According to Elder of Ziyon, Dr. Ahmed Darraj said that this mention would give Jews the right to visit the tomb of Rabbi Abuhatzira in the village of Damanhur and exercise their “orgies” of dancing.

Elder of Ziyon continues:

“Moreover, Darraj says, the paragraph was a “calamity,” pointing out that there are only 87 Jews left in Egypt while the U.S. Constitution does not have any specific mention of Jews, although America has more than 6 million Jews. If the constitution would be approved, Darraj charged, it means recognizing the legitimacy of their presence within the country to practice their rituals and allowing them to claim that the Jews built the pyramids, possibly to claim ownership down the line.”

Darraj urged Egyptians to reject the constitution, likening it to the Balfour Declaration, a letter from the United Kingdom’s Arthur James Balfour written in 1917 that declared the future legitimacy of a Jewish State in Palestine, which had just fallen into the hands of the British.

Darraj is unlikely to get his wish, however, as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood claimed that this weekend’s final vote on the passage of the constitution draft was successful.