Women's March Shows True Colors as Leader Promotes Anti-Israel Movement from the Stage
It’s been a bad month and change for Linda Sarsour and her Women’s March.
After conservative media had pointed out the group’s anti-Semitic ties for quite some time, the mainstream media finally picked up on it in December and the movement quickly began to splinter. When the march went off on Saturday, it was clear that what was once the flagship movement of #TheResistance was in tenuous shape.
Attendance figures weren’t available as of Sunday morning. However, The Washington Post’s live coverage of the event in the event in the nation’s capital announced that “thousands” of women had showed up for the event in Washington; the same outlet had reported that the first protest in 2017 was “likely the largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history.”
“Attendees this year appeared less in number than Women’s Marches in the past, potentially a result of allegations of anti-Semitism made against the organizers,” NBC News reported during its coverage of the protest.
Marches have been canceled across the nation and many prominent figures — the latest being Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the former head of the Democratic National Committee — have disassociated themselves from the movement over allegations of anti-Semitism among leadership, particularly ties with Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.
Sarsour, one would have expected, would have been on her best behavior Saturday. If the Women’s March movement were to continue, she needed to bridge the divide and deliver some relatively uncontroversial remarks.
And she seemed the candidate to do it. Late last year, as the anti-Semitism allegations began to percolate, she went on record as saying the movement “should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-Semitism.”
Instead, in arguably the most counterproductive example of doubling-down on a bad political hand we’ve seen in some time, Sarsour used her speech to promote the BDS movement — standing ffor Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions — which essentially seeks to treat Israel as an apartheid state on par with Rhodesia or Botha’s South Africa.
Big cheer just now when Linda Sarsour promoted the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel. The anti-Semitism is strong at today’s Women’s March. pic.twitter.com/E12ZfKueNX
— Joshua Robbin Marks (@JoshMarks78) January 19, 2019
The portion of the speech in question involved Sarsour’s support of “standing up for our constitutional right to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in these United States.”
The moment that Sarsour promotes BDS at today’s DC Women’s March. pic.twitter.com/GrVDfSjwCy
— Joshua Robbin Marks (@JoshMarks78) January 19, 2019
This got a big cheer, and I assume it wasn’t because they were all in favor of Sarsour’s “constitutional right,” but rather they supported the BDS movement.
From the knit-hat and “not my president” rhetoric, it seems the remnant of the Women’s March is essentially those that encourage or countenance anti-Semites.
If you don’t believe that, ask yourself this:
What does this have to do with women’s rights?
Lest you think that BDS support is just an aberration in Sarsour’s career, keep in mind this is also someone who recently accused Jewish legislators of “dual loyalties” — one of the oldest anti-Semitic gambits in the book — by criticizing “folks who masquerade as progressives but always choose their allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech.”
She, too, has also had significant ties to Louis Farrakhan and refuses to renounce them — and while those ties aren’t as strong as those of fellow Women’s March leader Tamika Mallory, the most controversial of the national Women’s March leadership figures — that doesn’t excuse Sarsour by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t particularly lament the decline of the Women’s March and I’m not taking on a role as their unpaid consultant, so Linda Sarsour can say whatever she so desires.
In fact, under other circumstances I could take a kind of perverse pleasure in that kind of unmitigated self-destruction.
However, it represents a form of virulent (and mostly unchecked) form of crypto- and not-so-crypto anti-Semitism on the left that’s become increasingly worrying in the last few years.
At least the Women’s March has seen the bitter fruits of this kind of behavior.
We’d be lucky if other politicians inclined to similar rhetoric were to also feel that kind of sting.
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