Is Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi an Israeli spy whose real name is David Ariel Eitan? No, that's not true: There's no evidence that el-Sisi is a Jew of Moroccan origin planted in Egypt in the 1970s. All available biographical data points to el-Sisi's birthdate and location as November 19, 1954, in Cairo. The timing of the claim comes before Egyptian elections later in December 2023.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on December 5, 2023, with the caption (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff):
Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi's real name is David Ariel Eitan, a Zionist spy who reached the highest position as president of the Egyptian republic with the help of the Zionists in Egypt's military
The 53-second video, posted by a user identified as @abo_3obida.710, shows a speaker who says (as translated):
The battle is on Friday, December 8, a date for all Egyptians ... (to rally) after the noon prayers. We will send a strong message to the bullyman who wants to forcibly rob the leadership position.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Dec 5 14:53:12 2023 UTC)
The reference to a "bullyman who forcibly wants to rob the leadership position" is to Egypt's upcoming presidential elections on December 10, 2023, in which el-Sisi, who vowed previously not to run for a third term, claims to be ahead in polls.
The website of the Egyptian Presidency says el-Sisi is the eighth president of the Republic of Egypt who was born in Cairo in 1954, lived all his life in Egypt and received his elementary, secondary and military education there. It did not say if el-Sisi has another nationality, which is banned under the nation's constitution. The Egyptian Constitution stipulates that a presidential aspirant "must be an Egyptian born to Egyptian parents and enjoy civil and political rights."
A search (archived here) for the name David Ariel Eitan shows a Facebook page by the same name filled with posts against Israel, rebuking el-Sisi and opposing his government's policies. It was created weeks after the "Arab Spring" pro-democracy protests and uprisings in 2010 and 2011 that toppled four Arab leaders, including the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Its About page includes the following description (as translated):
David Ariel Eitan Or Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, an Israeli spy who succeeded in talking the helm of Egypt following a coup against the entire Egyptian people, not just the martyr President Mohamed Morsi, may God have mercy on him. He deluded us all that he is (an observant) Muslim and fasts on Mondays and Thursdays and that his wife is veiled. But the truth was uncovered: He is a Zionist Jew of Moroccan origin, who was planted in Egypt in the 1970s until he turned against the people and destroyed Egypt. Now, we learned the truth about him and saw the extent of the devastation and destruction that he caused. Recently, he sought to displace the Palestinian people from Gaza so that he and his defiled Zionist gang could implement the plan to besiege our people in Palestine and humiliate the Egyptian people. All mosque preachers in Egypt and the entire Islamic world must mobilize efforts and declare jihad for the sake of God against the Zionist gang and liberate our usurped homelands.
