Dalia Ziada: The Muslim Activist Who Risked Everything for Peace

When October 7 happened, Dalia Ziada, a Muslim and Egyptian, was shocked and appalled. The writer and activist watched the footage of Hamas murdering innocent Israelis and couldn’t believe what she saw – especially because she heard an entirely different story about it in Egypt, where she lived. The media there framed it as just another conflict in a long list of fights between Israel and Hamas.

She knew, after seeing the Hamas bodycam footage as well as videos from Israeli CCTV, that she had to speak up. She took to X, where she has over 100,000 followers, and posted how Egyptian media was lying.

Radical Islamists in Egypt as well as those who support Hamas didn’t like that.

“They issued a fatwa against me, saying my blood is sacred no more because I support the Jewish people, I’m not a good Muslim, and I have to be punished,” Dalia, the author of “The Curious Case of the Three-Legged Wolf: Egypt: Military, Islamism, and Liberal Democracy” told Aish. “A group went to my family’s house looking for me. They wanted to kill me.”

What made the situation worse was that the Egyptian authorities didn’t help Dalia when she needed them the most. Her home country had abandoned her.

I contacted the security officers to tell them my life is in danger and they refused to protect me because I support Israel.

“I contacted the security officers to tell them my life is in danger and they refused to protect me because I support Israel,” she said. “For them, this was a sin I shouldn’t have committed.”

Several lawyers close to the Egyptian regime filed claims against her. She was accused of being a spy for Mossad, which she said, “is the most dangerous claim of all, because it’s high treason.”

Dalia had to act quickly to escape the country she loved. She contacted friends from the U.S., Europe, and Israel, and she left her family, her home, and everything behind to go to America.

“I am much safer now than I was in Egypt, but I am not 100% safe,” she said. “I still receive death threats.”

Growing up in Cairo

Growing up in Cairo as a Muslim, Dalia was exposed to antisemitism early on.

“Every Friday in our religious sermons at the mosque, we said a prayer against the Jewish people,” she said. “It was said that the Jewish people were cursed not only in Egypt, but also all over the Arab world.”

She learned from a school textbook that Jews were Egyptians’ and Muslims’ historical enemies, and when she went to university around the time of the Second Intifada in 2000, she ended up protesting against the Jewish state.

“These protests were organized by the Muslim Brotherhood,” Dalia said. “They decided to burn Israeli flags to celebrate the Second Intifada. That was expected. They burned the American flag, and I couldn’t understand why they were burning the flag of a country that was thousands of miles away. They then burned the Egyptian flag, and it was very shocking. It was the moment my eyes opened, and I started to see the truth.”

From there, she said she “got out of the ideological box they kept me inside of for so long,” and she educated herself about Israel, the Middle East, and Arab-Israeli relations. She ended up becoming an advocate for Arab-Israeli peace and a fighter against radical Islam.

“These radical Islamists are the ones who are now dominating the narrative on the Middle East in U.S. universities,” she said.

Working for Peace

Dalia pursued a degree in international relations and affairs from the U.S.-based Fletcher School at Tufts University and started on her advocacy journey. She served as the regional director in the Middle East and North Africa for the American Islamic Congress, which provides an alternative Muslim voice and promotes human and civil rights through advocacy, education, and engagement.

After a five-year stint at the AIC, Dalia co-founded the Liberal Democracy Institute, a Cairo-based think tank that advocates for liberal democracies in the Middle East. She also worked as the executive director of the MEEM Center for Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean Studies, a similar think tank.

“Our think tank was very successful, as we had a very big influence in the Mediterranean region,” she said. “We were working with high profile officials and diplomats.”

Her three focuses were: liberal democratization of the Middle East, which came with human rights and civil freedoms, peace in the Middle East, driven by Muslim-Jewish dialogue, and fighting against radical Islamists, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood and violent jihadist groups – the same ones who tried to kill her post-Oct. 7.

“When I was receiving death threats, I also received support and encouragement from young Arabs, Muslims, and Christians,” she said. “They told me, ‘You are doing the right thing. We wish we could speak out as you did, but we are scared. We are not ready to pay the price.’”

Finding Family in the Jewish Community

Now, Dalia is living in Washington, D.C. and has applied for asylum so she can stay in the U.S. Since this past April, she’s been working at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs as a senior fellow for research and diplomacy, and she keeps on speaking up online and off.

She is no longer physically close to her own family, but she has found a new family – in the Jewish community.

“I call the Jewish community my second family,” she said. “They’re not only here in Washington, but also other states like New York and New Jersey, and they’ve shown so much love to me. They are people who didn’t know me from before; they saw me in the news and said, ‘We are ready to help you.’ I’m blessed to have them on my side.”

As a devout Muslim, I believe that religion came along to make us love each other and coexist.

Dalia is also working hand in hand with other moderate and liberal Arabs with the same goals, who “want peace and co-existence and to build a future for the Middle East,” she said.

Though the war in Israel is ongoing, and at times things seem bleak, Dalia won’t give up any time soon.

“I always have hope for the Middle East,” she said. “Right now, it’s more than ever thanks to the progress that the Israeli military has had against terrorist groups and radical Islamists. They’re in the big fight against Iran. The more the IDF makes progress, the more I am hopeful that the future will be better.”

She continued, “As a devout Muslim, I believe that religion came along to make us love each other and coexist. My faith stays strong. I have faith not only in my religion, but also in humanity. What’s going on right now is only temporary. Humanity will eventually win.”