Latest nutty Arab rumor: US ambassador says Jews are real owners of Egypt

Arabic media is in an uproar over alleged statements from US ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson.

According to the story, Patterson told Ma'ariv that Jews are the real owners of Egypt, since they were expelled after they built the Pyramids and that DNA analysis showed that King Tut was of Jewish origin.

Moreover, the ambassador is alleged to have said that "Israel will no longer be threatened by Arab barbarians who want to destroy it."

Poverty and eventual bankruptcy in Egypt will push the Egyptians to famine, and then Jews will return again to the land of Egypt to enslave the Egyptians and feed them and save them from starvation and poverty, according to the bizarre rumored interview, which seems to be based on the biblical story of Joseph.

Patterson is then supposed to have stressed that by the end of 2013 all of Egypt will be under the control of the Jews, perhaps through an all-out war with NATO, the US and Great Britain.

One Egyptian politician has already called for Patterson to be expelled from the country because of these supposed statements.

The US Embassy in Egypt issued a strong denial that any such interview took place, and of course, there is no such interview in Ma'ariv or anywhere else. They posted the denial on their Facebook page in Arabic and English:

Statement on Falsehoods in the Media

Online and media reports claiming that the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Anne W. Patterson, made statements to the website of the Israeli newspaper Maariv asserting that Israel has the right to Egyptian land are completely false. The Ambassador has never conducted an interview with Maariv and never made any of the reported statements. We encourage journalists to call our press office (which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to check the facts about U.S. Government policies, activities and statements before publishing stories about the United States

Arabic media is endlessly amusing.