A Muslim woman who gained international fame after posing for a series of ironic selfies with anti-Islam protesters, as herself been outed as an anti-Semitic bigot.

22-year-old Zakia Belkhiri was feted by international media outlets for her act of defiance, and portrayed as a hero of tolerance and multiculturalism, after posing in front of and even among marchers from the right-wing Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party in Belgium.

The BBC, CNN, Buzzfeed and many other media outlets penned glowing profiles of Belkhiri, who simultaneously claimed to be publicity-shy while clearly reveling in her newfound fame on social media.

But, as Belkhiri was soon to learn, with fame come increased scrutiny – including of past social media posts in which she expressed extreme anti-Semitic sentiments.

In one Twitter post from 2012, Belkhiri wrote: “Hitler didnt kill all the jews, he left some. So we [would] know why he was killing them”.

Belkhiri reacted furiously to the revelation, first claiming the tweet was forged, and then deleting her Twitter account in an apparent bid to delete the evidence of that post – and potentially many others.

However, clearly unable to stay away from the media glare, she reopened her account and admitted she had, in fact, made the tweet – while adding a “disclaimer” commonly used by anti-Semites: that her post about “Jews” was actually directed at “Zionists” (i.e. people who support Jewish rights to self-determination.)

“My opinion many years ago was meant on the zionist back then, that spread hate instead of love so to all the other jews peace be upon you!” she wrote.