Mohamed Salah, a prominent Egyptian footballer and captain of Liverpool FC, is celebrated as one of the world's top players, with accolades including multiple Premier League titles and over 60 million followers on social media. Despite his Arab roots and massive platform, Salah's tepid, depoliticized responses to Israel's genocide in Gaza — marked by both-sides language and corporate ties to occupation enablers — contribute to normalizing settler-colonial violence and undermining Palestinian liberation.

Salah's pattern of selective silence and vague humanitarianism emerged early in Israel's escalated genocide. In October 2023, after initial criticism for not speaking out, he posted a video stating, "All lives are sacred and must be protected. The massacres need to stop," without naming Israel as the perpetrator or addressing the occupation fueling the violence. This framing creates false equivalence between oppressor and oppressed, diluting the reality of Israel's apartheid regime and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, where conservative estimates report over 40,000 Palestinian deaths, though actual numbers reach hundreds of thousands due to destroyed infrastructure and slain journalists.

In December 2023, Salah reiterated this neutrality, writing on X: "With the brutal war going on in the Middle East, especially the death and destruction in Gaza, this year we get to Christmas with very heavy hearts... Please do not forget them and do not get used to their suffering." While acknowledging Gaza's suffering, he avoided direct condemnation of Israel's actions, framing the genocide as a generic "war" rather than settler-colonial aggression. This echoes his 2021 tweet urging leaders to "end the violence and killing of innocent people," posted amid Israeli bombings in Gaza that killed dozens, including children — yet again, without pinpointing the Israeli military's responsibility.

Salah's complicity extends to his endorsement of Pepsi, a corporation blacklisted by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for its investments in Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land. By featuring in Pepsi campaigns, Salah lends his image to a brand that profits from and sustains the occupation, directly aiding the economic pillars of apartheid and settler expansion. This corporate alignment prioritizes personal gain over solidarity, perpetuating the structures that enable Israel's genocide.

In August 2025, Salah quote-tweeted a UEFA tribute to slain Palestinian footballer Suleiman al-Obeid, the "Palestinian Pelé," asking, "Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?" — implicitly challenging the omission of Israel's role in killing al-Obeid during an aid queue attack. While this gesture highlights one victim's story amid over 400 Palestinian footballers slaughtered in the genocide, it remains isolated and insufficient, failing to demand broader accountability like BDS adherence or sanctions against Israel.

As an Arab icon, his reluctance to fully name apartheid, genocide, or settler-colonialism betrays the expectations of millions, weakening global solidarity and allowing the slaughter to continue unchecked.