Linda Sarsour blames 'Jewish media' for her controversial reputation
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Activist Linda Sarsour prepares for the beginning of a demonstration and Iftar celebration during Ramadan outside of Trump Tower in New York, U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson - RTX38MHA
Pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour, sitting on an "Anti-Semitism and the Struggle for Justice" panel at New York City's The New School, blamed the “Jewish media” for her controversial reputation.
Sarsour’s speech – which barely touched on the issues of anti-Semitism and how to fight it – focused heavily on her “unapologetically Palestinian-American” identity and how she is a “very strong staunch supporter of boycott, divestment, sanctions movement” against Israel, which singles out the Jewish state and tries to isolate it economically and culturally.
When one panelist from Jewish Voice for Peace, a Left-wing, anti-Israel group, said Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is an “anti-Semite,” Sarsour pushed back.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“If what you’re reading all day long, morning and night, in the Jewish media is that Linda Sarsour and Minister Farrakhan are the existential threat to the Jewish community, something really bad’s going to happen and we’re going to miss the mark on it,” she said.
Farrakhan, according to the New York Times, once warned Jews they should not forget that “When it’s God who puts you in the ovens, it’s forever!” and praised Hitler as “a very great man.”
Sarsour shifted the blame for her reputation to the Trump administration.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}LINDA SARSOUR SAYS ‘FASCIST’ WHITE HOUSE POSES BIGGEST THREAT TO JEWS
“The existential threat resides in the White House, in the highest offices of these lands,” she said. “We are now living under fascism – that’s what I believe – and we need all hands on deck.”
The Brooklyn-born Muslim activist also said, “Under no circumstances should the Jewish community align with people like Milo [Yiannopolous, who is of Jewish descent] or Pamela Geller,” among others.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Geller and Yiannopolous protested Sarsour’s speech at The City University of New York, where Geller called Sarsour a “pro-terror, pro-Sharia, anti-Semite” and Yiannopolous called her a “Sharia-loving, terrorist-embracing, Jew-hating, ticking time-bomb of progressive horror.”
She concluded by asking attendees to stand up against Islamophobia, anti-Arab sentiments and anti-Palestinian rhetoric.
The New School received significant backlash for putting Sarsour as one of the so-called experts in the “discussion on how to combat” bigotry against Jews.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}NEW SCHOOL UNDER FIRE FOR PUTTING LINDA SARSOUR ON ANTI-SEMITISM PANEL
The Anti-Defamation League blasted the New York City-based private school’s decision.
“Having Linda Sarsour...leading a panel on #antisemitism is like Oscar Meyer leading a panel on vegetarianism,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted. “These panelists know the issue, but unfortunately, from the perspective of fomenting it rather than fighting it.”