Why one IDF soldier continues to cause controversy in Egypt
The case of Dina Ovadia, an Egyptian woman from Alexandria who was stripped of her citizenship after moving to Israel and joining the IDF, has returned to the headlines in Egypt.
The interesting and controversial story of Dina Ovadia’s emigration to Israel is back in the headlines, triggering a barrage of demands for Egyptian authorities to strip the citizenship of Egyptian-Israeli dual nationals. At the same time, Israeli media, and perhaps Israeli officials, celebrate such cases.
This suggests there is still an Egyptian-Israeli conflict, despite the countries’ well-publicized agreements regarding political and economic normalization.
The media first became aware of Ovadia’s story in March 2013 through the Israel Defense Forces blog, but the story did not spread to the Egyptian media at the time. It re-emerged in April 2014 in a YouTube video in which Ovadia said her story of leaving Egypt represents the second exit of the Jews from Egypt, in reference to the exodus of the Israelites from the rule of the pharaoh.
Ovaida, now 22, emigrated at age 15. In her remarks on the IDF blog, she said, “I didn’t have a religious background in Christianity or in Islam. I never knew what I truly was. My parents didn’t keep the [Jewish] traditions and I always assumed that we were secular Christians.”
