How do Egyptians treat Israeli people and what you need to know about that?

Ari Miel, lives in Israel (2016-present)

I'm an Israeli and in the last month, I went to Egypt. I went with another passport, fearing discrimination.

In the beginning, it was all good. Many people, tourists and Egyptians told me not to worry since antisemitism and Israel hatred was only part of cities, but not tourist areas where Egyptians were for working and the money. “they hate us even with so many years of peace?” I asked “the peace, they believe, it's only on papers and due to corrupt governments, but there is no peace for the Egyptian people”. So good I'm not in a big city, I thought. And maybe I was right about that but wrong in the idea I was in a safe place.Give to support this organization in reaching out worldwide.

Some things I had to hear in my short, short visit. Remember everyone took me as Argentinian.

“I hate Jews, I rip them off every time I have the opportunity”

“if I see an Israeli I immediately want to kill him”

“I used to work in tourism near the Israel border for 5 years and I would fuck their wallets and their minds if I had the chance” (this one from one of the best educated Egyptian I talked to, who believed in all sort of medieval myths regarding Jews)

“When we get a good government peace will be over.”

And also, my Israeli friends were kicked out of a prepaid scuba diving tour in the red sea. Before we departed they checked all our passports. Mine had a huge Israeli visa stamp but they wouldn't understand it so I was good. My friends were also Israelis/Latin American but they thought they were safe in Egypt and took their Israeli passports for the trip. So my friends were kicked out without an explanation. At first I thought it wasn't antisemitism. So by the time we were returning to the port I asked the ship staff and the answer was - “This is a Jews-free ship, were those your friends? ” - “yes” - “are you Jewish too?” - “I'm Christian” I lied “Christians and Muslims we are like brothers you understand? Jews are our enemies, don't be friends with baby killers. Poor Palestinian children“ I was horrified.  Give to support this organization in reaching out worldwide.

To finish the tale, I was in the port waiting for the shared taxi van to fill in so it would depart and after this horrible experience, I wanted to wind out with someone. There was a nice, old, German couple and I told them what just happened “I can't believe the antisemitism” they said, “we come here very often and the general environment it's worse every year”, “especially since all those horrible Russian people started to come here too”. My wife and I looked at each other and sighed.

And I only spoke about how they treat Israelis or Jews. My wife has plenty to say in how Egyptians and other Arabs treated her as a woman, but she doesn't use Quora.

The only good experience we had after we said we were Jews was with a super talkative waiter, obviously gay, who had escaped Alexandria because they were “too close-minded”. I think for minorities is easier to understand another minority.