By Pat Savage
Linda Sarsour likes Bernie Sanders for president.
That’s odd, since leftist extremist Sanders is Jewish by birth and Sarsour is an ardent anti-Semite.
They say politics makes strange bedfellow.
Sanders recently penned a piece in which he referred to Israel as an “enormous achievement” and “a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.” Not long afterward, Arab-American activist Sarsour said that support for the State of Israel was out of place in the progressive movement.
Here are some notable quotes from Sarsour:
* “At a time of a startling rise in white nationalism and anti-Semitism, I would be so proud to win, but also to make history and elect the first Jewish-American president this country has ever seen and for his name to be Bernard Sanders.”
* “Ask those who call themselves progressive Zionists to explain to you how they can be against the separation of children on the U.S.-Mexican border, how can they be against building a wall between us and Mexico, how can they be against agencies like ICE … but then you tell me ‘Oh, you can’t push me out of the movement because I’m also against white supremacy. Ask them this, how can you be against white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class, but then you support a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.”
* “It just doesn’t make any sense for someone to say, ‘Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement?’ There can’t be in feminism.”
Earlier this year, the Jewish Journal published an open letter to Sarsour. It read, in part: “While we are grateful for the efforts you’ve made to help dead Jews, those efforts are hollow when you frequently spread inflammatory and painful language toward living Jews.
You cannot bribe the Jewish community. You are wrong if you think any sum of money would make us overlook your consistent minimizing of anti-Semitism. It’s telling that you ever thought we would. Linda, you are the Lena Dunham of anti-Semitism. The list of needlessly offensive things you’ve done to the Jewish people is longer than the Torah, Talmud and two Passover seders.”
Added National Review magazine recently: “Sarsour and her apologists on the Jewish left claim that she is misunderstood. They point to gestures such as her fundraising to help vandalized Jewish cemeteries, even if it is unclear how much, if any, help she has ever actually given such causes. And they will surely cite her statement supporting Sanders, which she spoke of her pride in helping elect the first Jewish president and opposition to anti-Semitism, as further proof of their case. But her record and stated beliefs can’t be so easily waved away.”
