The left blogosphere is gushing with pride over its new poster girl for worldwide “peace and love.” Her name is Zakia Belkhiri and she is 22 years old. Best of all she is a Muslim. Who better to organize a worldwide chorus of “Kumbaya” than a member of two protected classes?
The BBC salutes the “cheeky selfie” Belkhiri snapped in front of a demonstration in Belgium by Vlaams Belang, a “far-right anti-Muslim group.”
A tweet capturing the selfie has gone viral:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
https://twitter.com/ArsalaiH/status/732850357018202113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Belkhiri told the BBC that she took the photo “to show that things can be different. And that we can live together, not next to each other but with each other.” Her actions strike me more as defiant than conciliatory, but her message of solidarity is certainly a positive one.
Unfortunately, her quest for inclusion doesn’t extend to every ethnic or religious group. Will T.G. Miller, writing at The Times of Israel, notes that Belkhiri’s desire for peace and harmony does not extend to Jews.
Some of Belkhiri’s earlier tweets have emerged, all carrying messages like this:
Miller notes:
Belkhiri has since gone on a deleting spree and has attempted to get rid of many of her old antisemitic and racist tweets, most of which are now only available on archive, but not before some savvy redditors wised up to what she was doing and captured the messages. In some ways, though, it is too late; the original story, with a compartmentalized narrative of an innocent Muslim woman heroically standing up to ‘hate’ and taking selfies for the cause of peace and love has already spread across the world.
She has since deactivated many of her social media accounts altogether.
For the record, Breitbart UK reports that Belkhiri denies holding any animosity toward Jews, having written in a now-defunct tweet:
I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING AGAINST JEWS THOSE TWEETS ARE FAKE THEY ARE PHOTOSHOPPED BUT if you don’t believe me that’s your choice people.
So who are you going to believe?
