Egypt today criticised a comment by a State Department spokeswoman that Egypt used US aid “against their own people“.
State Department spokeswomen Marie Harf was asked during a press briefing on Thursday in Washington why military aid to Israel had not been suspended like it had been for Egypt in October 2013, given the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
She replied saying that “they’re not comparable situations. In Egypt, you had a government cracking down on its own people. In Israel, you have a government fighting an external threat that’s coming from Gaza that is from a terrorist organisation. Those are in no way equivalent situations.”
Spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry Badr Abdelatty said in a Saturday statement that Harf’s comments “are not even credible and completely ignorant of realities of matters in Egypt“.
“The comparison between Egypt’s situation and the Israeli offensive in Gaza is not justified nor accepted,” Abdelatty said.
Abdelatty further challenged Harf, asking for specific examples of the suppression of protesters using US military aid that she described, adding it was “not mentioned because it is sheer fantasy”.