Four years of paranoia
 
 

Days after the start of nationwide protests demanding the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak, on February 2, 2011, a woman made a television appearance that would spark the foreign interference theory.

The privately owned Mehwar channel hosted a woman who referred to herself as Shaimaa. She confessed to being trained alongside other activists by US-funded Israeli agents to kick start Egypt’s revolution.

Until this day, the foreign spy remains the main suspect in all that has transpired since 2011.

The government and a large portion of society often blame “foreign hands” for crimes in which the perpetrators are never caught, such as inciting violence and other dark turns the revolution has taken.

Accusations of foreign interference are primarily based on preexisting suspicions of certain countries that are deeply rooted in Egypt’s history. They also come from a long-standing belief nurtured by the nation’s leaders that Egypt is the target of an envious world, and everyone wants to see it fail.

Below is a rundown of some of the most prominent foreign spy theories that have unfolded in Egypt over the last four years.

The start: The repentant spy

When appearing on Mehwar, the woman known as Shaimaa made extravagant allegations that protest leaders were paid US$50,000 each to start the revolt, and had been trained by Israeli militants in the United States, Qatar and Serbia.

She burst into tears as she confessed that after hearing Mubarak’s second speech on February 1, she repented and decided to come forward.

The interview was frequently aired on state television and had a surprisingly strong impact, sending a wave of xenophobia across the country that resulted in brutal attacks on foreigners or even citizen arrests, prompting several countries to evacuate their citizens.

After Mubarak’s removal, the interview was considered a scandalous professional mistake that put the careers of the two television hosts on hold for a while. A journalist named Nagat Abdel Rahman has since revealed herself to be the infamous Shaimaa.

The naïve spy

In June 2011, the authorities broke big news. An Israeli spy had been caught in Tahrir Square. Newspapers buzzed with elaborate tales of Ilan Grapel, the Mossad officer who mingled with protesters and sent reports back to Israel.

However, one detail didn’t seem quite right. The evidence used against Grapel consisted of photos he posted on his Facebook page of himself in Tahrir Square and visiting monuments, a not-so-sly move for a spy.

Four months later, Grapel was released in a prisoner exchange deal with Israel.

The cliché spy

In June 2012, paranoia against foreigners was already at an all-time high when an infomercial aired on both state-owned and private television channels warning people against the spies around them.

The 40-second ad featured a blue-eyed man with a suspicious look on his face scanning a café, then sitting with young men and women who start to tell him about Egypt’s problems as he squints and flashes evil smiles.

The narrator warns that the spy will blend in and “steal your heart” until you offer him valuable information. The spy in the video exclaims “Really?” in English as the gullible young people divulge information. He then proceeds to send text messages from under the table.

The ad ends with the warning, “Every word is valuable, a word can save a nation.”

Spies transcending world order

The most common suspects accused of deploying spies and conspiring against Egypt were the United States, Iran, Qatar and Hamas. These names resound repeatedly in the media, as well as in court cases investigating espionage charges.

These nations or groups — which are on radically different ends of the political spectrum and engaged in dire international political conflicts — are typically portrayed as setting their differences aside and collaborating to bring Egypt down. Testimonies in the espionage case against deposed President Mohamed Morsi often refer to the four names as one cohesive entity.

The totally random spy

Last November, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Ali Beshr was accused of spying for the US and Norway — and people just gave up. No one even attempted to make sense of why this European country, with only cordial and minimal relations to Egypt, was added to the list of conspiring countries.

Bird spies

The plot thickens as conspiracies against Egypt extend beyond humans. In 2013, a security guard filed a police report against a pigeon, claiming that it was carrying a microfilm. Later that year, a stork was also briefly held by authorities after a fisherman turned it in, reporting having seen an electronic device attached to the bird. 

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