Egypt, the UAE and Oman were among the 117 countries that voted Israel into the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) membership on Friday.
Namibia was the only country that voted against Israel, while 21 countries abstained from voting.
The main reason behind Egypt voting for Israeli is to support the “Arab countries’ candidate” in the UN committee, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid.
Social media users expressed their criticism of Egypt’s move on social media, through a Twitter hashtag, ‘Egypt votes for Israel’, and posts on Facebook. Users shared narratives of Israel’s history of aggression and published photographs of children and adults who were allegedly killed and injured in Palestine by Israeli forces.
Several political parties and users expressed their anger and condemnation of Egypt’s vote for Israel through social media, urging that it would have been better to abstain from voting.
The Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SPAP) released a statement on its official Facebook page condemning the vote decision, and saying that no citizen could accept any of the ruling regime’s justification for this “shameful” act.
“We demand that the Egyptian authorities publicly apologise to the Egyptian citizens and the martyr’s families,” the statement read.
Yehia El-Gaafary, Media Secretary at the SPAP, told Daily News Egypt: “Israel is Egypt’s first enemy, and voting for Israel is considered a breach of the 25 January Revolution’s goals, after it succeeded to close the Israeli embassy in Egypt in 2011.”
Furthermore, the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement further released on their Facebook page a statement declaring their rejection of Egypt’s vote in favour of Israel, and the state’s justification for it.
“We are sending an apology to our brothers in Palestine and all the occupied Arab countries, affirming our support for the Palestinian uprising. We call on all the Egyptian people to reject and condemn this situation to confirm their support for the Palestinian people,” the BDS statement read.
Ahmed Hassan, Secretary General of the Nasserist Party, commented on the Foreign Ministry’s justification for Egypt’s vote, saying it is illogical for Egypt to vote for Israel in order to “support the Arab countries’ candidate” when Israel represents a danger to Arab countries and “encourages terrorist attacks in the Middle East”.
Hassan and El-Gaafary both concluded that Egypt’s vote represents support for the Israeli aggression in the Arab region.
