#CancelSarsour Controversy Over Pro-Sharia Jew-Hater Linda Sarsour Giving CUNY Commencement Speech Reaches NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Sarsour says: “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. You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There’s just no way around it.”

Remember: the woman saying this is an open supporter of sharia. She claims that “Palestinian” women are being oppressed by Israel, but doesn’t have a word to say about the genuine oppression that Muslim women suffer because of sharia, which sanctions wife-beating, allows for polygamy, and opens the door to female genital mutilation and honor killing. That’s oppression. But Sarsour, as the new leader of the feminist movement, is never going to say a word about that.

The media adores the Islamic supremacist bigot and rabid anti-Semite, Linda Sarsour, who wields her religion like a club. My colleagues and I are shut out of universities all over the country, as they only allow leftist points of view. Or when we are invited to speak, we’re shouted down and physically menaced. But CUNY invites this annihilationist to give the commencement speech. That;s the degenerate state of academia today.

I debated this hatemonger here:

Robert Spencer wrote, “Linda Sarsour is an energetic purveyor of the ‘Islamophobia’ myth, and has hysterically claimed that ‘Muslim kids’ are being ‘executed’ in the United States. She was instrumental in prevailing upon de Blasio to end legal and necessary surveillance in Muslim communities in New York. She is also a frequent visitor to the Obama White House, and has claimed that the jihad underwear bomber was a CIA agent — part of what she claims is a U.S. war against Islam. She is a practiced exploiter of the ‘hate’ smear against foes of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, and has never apologized for using the Islamic honor murder of Shaima Alawadi to spread lies about the prevalence of hate crimes against Muslims in America. She is also an enthusiastic supporter of the ‘Palestinian’ jihad against Israel. Given the general support for that jihad among Leftists, and the hard-Left tilt of the de Blasio regime in New York, it is not surprising that her hate-filled endeavors are taxpayer funded. But it is scandalous nonetheless: a grim sign of the times.”

“Controversy Over Prominent BDS Activist Linda Sarsour Reaches New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand,” by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, April 26, 2017:

Jewish leaders and pro-Israel activists have expressed concern over a contribution to Time Magazine by New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that praised Linda Sarsour – a Palestinian-American political activist and vocal advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel.

In a short piece accompanying the magazine’s “100 most influential people” list for 2017, Gillibrand paid tribute to “four extraordinary women  — Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour” for organizing the Women’s March on Washington, DC on January 21.

“The images of Jan. 21, 2017, show a diverse, dynamic America—striving for equality for all. The moment and movement mattered so profoundly because it was intersectional and deeply personal,” Gillibrand wrote. “These women are the suffragists of our time.”

The depiction of Sarsour as a fighter for the rights of all women jarred with Jewish community leaders, who pointed to her insistence that pro-Israel sentiments have no place among progressives, and her assertion, in an interview with The Nation, that one cannot be both a feminist and a Zionist.

“I salute the progressive women who reject this phony, false, hateful choice,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Algemeiner. “Someone who says that Jews need not apply if they have an affection or an affiliation with Israel isn’t a progressive.”

Cooper urged Gillibrand to reconsider her positive view of Sarsour. “I think the Jewish community in New York and across the US has a lot of respect for the senator, but she may want to reevaluate the statement in Time magazine,” Cooper said. “If someone is in effect saying you have to make a choice between being a progressive woman or a Zionist, the senator, reflecting on such comments, would I hope make a different type of statement.”

“Linda Sarsour spends most of her waking hours working to delegitimize Israel and its supporters,” said Daniel Mariaschin, the Executive Vice President of B’nai B’rith International. “We’d ask Senator Gillibrand to recognize that you can’t compartmentalize on these things. It isn’t enough to say, ‘you know, she worked on the Women’s March, and therefore she deserves this kind of recognition.’”

Sen. Gillibrand’s office did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment.

The senator’s Time article has appeared in the midst of another Sarsour-related row, this time over the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health’s decision to invite her to speak at its forthcoming commencement event.

Barbara Aaron, chief of staff to the school’s dean, Ayman El-Mohandes, said she was “delighted to confirm that Linda Sarsour will indeed speak at our June 1 commencement at [Harlem’s] Apollo Theater.” This followed protests over the invitation from prominent New Yorkers, among them Democratic state Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

“She is someone who associates with radical Islamists. She is someone who has said, clearly, she thinks throwing rocks at cars in Israel is a good thing,” Hikind said last week.

Sarsour’s public profile has risen dramatically over the last year, as she emerged as a leading voice opposing President Donald Trump. She has made frequently inflammatory comments on social media regarding Israel and the Middle East, declaring on Twitter that there is “nothing creepier than Zionism.”

Although Sarsour has since deleted, though not apologized for, some of her more injudicious tweets, these have been archived on Facebook. Among them is an incitement to violence against the prominent anti-Islamist writers Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Brigitte Gabriel. In that tweet, Sarsour stated that the two women were “asking 4 an a$$ whipping. I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.”

Hirsi Ali, who was born in Somalia and has championed the rights of women in Islamic societies, is a victim of female genital mutilation – a well-known fact that Sarsour would have been aware of when she composed her tweet.

“For a champion of hate to be speaker at a commencement is intolerable – Sarsour is an outrageous choice,” Rabbi Meyer May, Executive Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner. “I would think a school of public health would find someone who actually speaks to public health issues, not someone who advocates (Islamic) sharia law.”

Sarsour has dismissed critics of her positive stance on sharia law as “Islamophobes.” In one tweet – again since deleted – she spoke glowingly of “10 weeks of PAID maternity leave in Saudi Arabia. Yes PAID. And ur worrying about women driving.”…