Former Women’s March, Inc. leader Linda Sarsour said in an Aug. 26 appearance on a YouTube channel that “right-wing Zionists” have allied with white nationalists to smear her.
Nomiki Konst, host of “The Nomiki Show,” argued that “there is a powerful arm of right-wing AIPAC interests” that have worked to smear Sarsour, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“This is coming from the right wing,” Konst said to Sarsour. “This is not coming from normal Jewish Americans — even Israelis, frankly — this is from the right wing. So can you clarify just like, where you actually stand?”
Sarsour replied: “Where this comes from is the alignment of right-wing Zionists with the white nationalists, and it’s such an unlikely allyship because the white nationalists are in fact very unapologetically anti-Semitic and … the root of white nationalism is anti-Semitism. That’s why, for a lot of people, they get confused when they see the very staunch pro-Israel folks align with white nationalists, with the Republican Party, with Donald Trump.”
Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper said in a statement to the Journal, “I am always amazed by the level of chutzpah when anti-Semites want to tell the Jewish community what constitutes an anti-Semite and anti-Semitism. Hypocrite Sarsour says that right wing Zionists hate her but she is the self anointed gatekeeper who bars left wing Zionists from the Women’s movement.”
Sarsour also said that “new groups have emerged as a front for AIPAC, like the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and others that are trying to rebrand themselves as Democrats who are progressive on other issues except for this issue of Israel-Palestine and we’re onto them.”
DMFI President and CEO Mark Mellman said in a statement to the Journal, “These fact-free allegations from Sarsour are outrageous lies, but they are far less important than the vile antisemitic statements for which she is infamous.”
Sarsour went on to tell Konst that she’s against a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Just by looking at a map of that region, there is no way to have a two-state solution with the types of settlements that have [been] built and the way in which the land has been divided up,” Sarsour said. “I believe in a one-state solution. I believe in democracy. I believe that Jews and Palestinians, that those who live in that land can live under one democracy where we all can participate, where we can all have access to high quality education [and] health care, where there’s no apartheid, where there’s no separate bus lines for Jews and Arabs, where we could really live in a society [where] we’re integrated, where people in our community can be judges and lawyers and they can be in parliament. That’s what I believe.”
Sarsour also expressed support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, arguing that it’s a “tactic, it’s not an organization. They used it in the civil rights movement with the Montgomery [Ala.] bus boycott, we used it to stand up against South African apartheid, and now we are in 2020 using it to stand up for the rights of the Palestinian people, which again live under military occupation funded by our U.S. taxpayer dollars.”
She went on to accuse Israel of human rights violations for its treatment of the Palestinians and said that she’s also critical of Saudi Arabia and China for their respective human rights violations.
“If you are a dictator, if you are a nation that engages in human rights violations, I will say what I need to say and I will do whatever I need to do to help,” Sarsour said. “I can’t be the spokesperson for every justice cause, but you would think that as a Palestinian that people would expect these views from somebody like me. These are by default mainstream views in the communities that I come from.
“So when the Biden campaign wants to condemn these views and say that they do not belong in the Democratic Party or that they reject them as representatives of the Democratic Party and the Democratic ticket, what you in fact are saying is that you condemn the views that my communities hold, which means you condemn my communities and are saying that people who are pro-BDS, people who support Palestinian human rights, are not welcome in the party.”
On Aug. 18, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign condemned Sarsour after her appearance on a Muslim Delegates and Allies Virtual Assembly panel during the Democratic National Convention a day earlier. Middle East Eye reported on Aug. 23 that the Biden campaign had apologized for the comments against Sarsour in an off-the-record phone call with Arab and Muslim activists.
However, Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the Aug. 23 call was “to affirm Vice President Biden’s unshakeable commitment to working with Arab, Palestinian and Muslim Americans and to standing up against anti-Muslim prejudice, and to make clear that we regretted any hurt that was caused to these communities. We continue to reject the views that Linda Sarsour has expressed.”
