Liberals’ sorry silence on Sarsour
It is graduation season, when activists on both ends of the political spectrum argue about commencement speakers — this year, putting the City University of New York’s School of Public Health on the front lines. The grad school tapped Linda Sarsour to be the keynote at its ceremony this Thursday, giving a privileged platform to a woman who considers herself a feminist and Palestinian rights advocate.
That Sarsour’s role hasn’t caused more of an uproar on the left, her ideological home, speaks volumes about the double standard by which many liberals evaluate alleged anti-Semitism. Which is to say: When conservatives seem to be insensitive or biased toward Jews, they come in for withering critique; when left-wingers do, they are given a virtually free pass.
I absolutely support the school’s right to choose Sarsour as its commencement speaker, just as I would support a school’s right to choose an abrasive conservative speaker such as Milo Yiannopoulos or Ann Coulter. I also find threats of violence against Sarsour as outrageous as those aimed at right-wing campus speakers.
Yet I question the institution’s wisdom in elevating such a divisive figure by inviting her to give the most important speech of the academic year.
Sarsour tweeted, “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” This is not a policy argument but an ad hominem attack that disparages and devalues those who disagree with her.
She also has argued that it is not possible to be a Zionist — in other words, a supporter of a Jewish state of Israel — and also a feminist. How she makes this assertion about a nation that gives women far more right to participate in politics and society than, say, Saudi Arabia, is beyond me.
And she is a leader in the BDS (boycott, divest and sanctions) movement against Israel, which singles out the only Jewish nation in the world for economic punishment, even though dozens of other nations are worse offenders of international law.
Sarsour recently stated she was “honored and privileged” to share a dais with Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted of playing a role in the 1969 murder of two university students in Israel in a terrorist attack, and she posed for pictures with Salah Sarsour (no known relation), a former Hamas operative.
While she has acknowledged anti-Semitism exists, she has also downplayed it, stating that it “can’t exactly compare . . . to anti-black racism or Islamophobia.”
Criticizing specific Israeli government policies certainly does not make someone anti-Semitic, and many American Jews, including myself, hope for a truly peaceful two-state solution. But Sarsour’s continually disparaging comments regarding those who support Israel and her supportive actions toward convicted terrorists go beyond mere policy debate.
Most troubling, however, is the Democratic Party and mainstream media’s refusal to challenge Sarsour. Democrats and leftleaning Americans seem to care much more about the messenger than the message; while quick to call out speech bordering on anti-Semitism on the right, they are hesitant to do so when it comes from the left.
Supporting free speech does not mean believing that offensive speech should go unchallenged; to the contrary. So it is quite disconcerting that Michael Blake, the Democratic Party vice chairman, warned in a tweet, “Making it real clear. If you keep coming after @lsarsour, we’re going to respond directly, consistently, with all heart & soul. Fall back!”
The official Democratic Party response to this “clear” statement is silence. The media have also been hesitant to criticize Sarsour; The New York Times just ran a sympathetic article implying that those who challenge her are simply Islamophobic.
The silence is especially deafening in light of the fact that pundits and politicians on the left are quick to criticize any perceived bigotry, including anti-Semitism, when it comes from the right. Recall the regular, and warranted, warnings last year about the voices on the so-called alt-right that helped power President Trump to victory using veiled and sometimes not so veiled animus aimed at Jews.
Last month, many were rightfully outraged when White House press secretary Sean Spicer implied that President Bashar Assad of Syria was worse than Hitler, since Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”
Condemnation of Spicer’s bizarre and inaccurate statement by Democrats was swift and strong. As I skimmed through the news the night of his press conference, Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow were livid; Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for Trump to fire Spicer. My Facebook feed was full of outrage from my left-leaning friends.
Americans should hold Spicer, a spokesman for the President of the United States, to a higher standard than Sarsour. Yet the left’s failure to challenge Sarsour, who has said things that are at best insensitive to Jewish concerns and arguably border on anti-Semitism, is striking. Bigotry must be denounced regardless of who the messenger is.