Alaa Al-Aswany is Egypt’s preeminent novelist. His 2002 best-seller The Yacoubian Building highlighted the political corruption, moral duplicity, and economic inequality of contemporary Egypt, and established him as one of the most influential critics of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. His star grew brighter following the 2011 uprising that ousted Mubarak, when Aswany became an oft-quoted voice of the Egyptian opposition—“The Face of Egypt’s Uprising,” as The Wall Street Journal put it—and he is generally regarded in the Western press as an authentically “liberal” Egyptian intellectual. It is likely thanks to this reputation that The New York Times announced earlier this month that it was giving Aswany a monthly column as part of its newly expanded opinion section.

It is a choice that the Times will regret, however, because despite his brave stance against Mubarak and his broadly progressive pronouncements in English, Aswany is hardly a liberal. He is, in fact, among Egypt’s most prolific conspiracy theorists, and he often uses his very public platform to reinforce some of Egypt’s most popular bigotries—and he typically does this when speaking or tweeting in Arabic, which is why the Western press often misses this aspect of his public persona. Aswany said on Egyptian television, for instance, that a "massive Zionist organization rules America,” which is why “Obama is not able to go against Israel’s desires.”

For much of the past year, Aswany has tirelessly promoted the theory that “the United States supports the Muslim Brotherhood to reassure Israel.” This is what he told an Egyptian television interviewer in June, and he has reiterated this claim repeatedly in subsequent months. Immediately following Mohamed Morsi’s ouster on July 3, Aswany tweeted, “Obama is worried because Israel is worried.” When Egypt’s defense minister called Egyptians into the streets later that month to “authorize” the government’s subsequent crackdown against the Brotherhood, Aswany tweeted, “The army requested authorization because the June 30 revolution was subjected to distortion by the Western Zionist media, which does not forgive us for aborting the Brotherhood’s plan with American and Israel.” In August, when Senator John McCain visited Egypt to encourage negotiations between the military and the Brotherhood, Aswany tweeted, “The Zionist John McCain, one of the biggest defenders of Israel, threatens Egypt if it does not release [Brotherhood leader] Shater immediately. The only explanation is that Brotherhood rule is in the interest of Israel.”

How, exactly, does it benefit Israel when an extremely anti-Israel organization such as the Brotherhood is governing Egypt? In the real world, of course, it doesn’t. But Aswany's conspiratorial rantings argue there are two benefits. First, he argues, supporting the Brotherhood bolsters Israeli security. As Aswany tweeted in August, “Zionist support for the Brotherhood prevents Hamas from attacking Israel.”

Second, writes Aswany, Israel desires a weak Egypt so that it can dominate the region. Given the Brotherhood’s miserable performance in power, “Brotherhood rule guarantees to Israel that Egypt remains underdeveloped and subordinate.” Indeed, the notion that Israel views Egyptian weakness as its ticket to regional hegemony is an article of faith for Aswany. When a web video attacking the Prophet Muhammad sparked mass outrage in September 2012 and was used to encourage an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Aswany warned Egyptians that “angry and ill-conceived reactions” would play into the hands of Israel, which knows “Arab reactions well and would find a pretext for intervening in the affairs of the country.”