A piece (paywall) in the Independent by Robert Fisk (“What the weaponisation of religion in the US presidential race reveals about the Biden camp’s true stance on Israel”, Aug. 26) focused in part on criticism of Linda Sarsour by Democratic Party leaders:
I was slightly more worried this week by a tiny, nasty, unpleasant and largely unnecessary dispute within the House of Biden. It started when Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American “activist”…appeared on a panel as part of the Democratic National Convention where she discussed voting in the American Muslim community…
But Sarsour also supports BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel which is decidedly non-violent and calls for Israel to abide by international law (withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory, for starters), but which Israel’s self-proclaimed supporters constantly label “antisemitic”.
Fisk’s characterisation of BDS is a lie, as we’ve repeatedly documented that the movement’s openly stated goal is not for Israel to “abide by international law”, but for the state to no longer exist.
We favor a two state solution, the BDS Movement opposes it
— Democratic Majority for Israel (@DemMaj4Israel) July 23, 2019
"Most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian – rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian – will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine." -BDS Co-Founder Omar Barghouti pic.twitter.com/CAiWpNNbuR
However, leaving details of the row within the Democratic Party aside, Fisks’s suggestion that Sarsour’s support for BDS is the only example of her antisemitism is an even more egregious lie.
She supports a “one state solution”, in which, by her own admission, Jews would be a minority, and, as this tweet demonstrates, views Zionism, supported by the overwhelming majority of the world’s Jews, as intrinsically racist – a view deemed antisemitic by the IHRA definition.
In 2019, she went further, in claiming, during a speech delivered at the 12th Annual Conference for Palestine in Chicago, that Israel was built on the idea of Jewish supremacy.
Here’s an audio of the relevant part from her speech:
Sarsour also leveled the charge that Zionist women can’t be true feminists.
In this tweet, Sarsour evokes the antisemitic dual loyalty charge.
Here’s another example of Sarsour peddling the dual loyalty canard, in a Facebook post that was called out in this tweet by American Jewish Committee:
In the following tweet, Sarsour expresses support for violence and Palestinian child abuse:
Sarsour also has repeatedly expressed support for convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted for her role in the the bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket in which two Hebrew University students were murdered.
In June, 2020, the group she leads, MPower Change, encouraged its social media followers to attend a Juneteenth rally that was open to everyone “minus cops and Zionists.”
Finally, Sarsour implicitly endorsed notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan in her decision to speak at an October 2015 event organised by the Nation of Islam leader, and has denied that Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic, calling him “a great leader”.
As you can clearly see, even leaving aside the question of whether or not BDS is intrinsically antisemitic, there is a well-documented record of Linda Sarsour evoking racist tropes about Jews and glorifying terrorists.
