Bernie Sanders Surrogate Linda Sarsour Accuses Israel of ‘Jewish Supremacy’

Bernie Sanders and Linda Sarsour (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press)
Mary Altaffer / Associated Press
Joel B. Pollak

Radical Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who is a surrogate for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), claimed Friday that Israel is built on Jewish “supremacy.”

She declared: “How can you be against white supremacy in the United States of America, and the idea of living in a supremacist state based on race and class, but then you support a state like Israel, that is built on supremacy — that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everybody else?”

Sarsour was speaking at the the American Muslims for Palestine conference in Chicago, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Though Israel defines itself as the nation-state of the Jewish people, Jews, Arabs, and people of all faiths enjoy equal rights in Israel, where Jews comprise an 80% majority.

Jews outside Israel do enjoy the right to immigrate to Israel, thanks to the Law of Return. But that is not based on any concept of “supremacy”; rather, it was created as a response to the Holocaust, when British authorities in Palestine, in an attempt to appease local Arab sentiment, closed immigration to Jews, leaving millions to be murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Law of Return exists so that Israel can provide a refuge to Jews facing persecution.

Sarsour’s remarks appear to be aimed at pro-Israel Democrats, whom she has sought to exclude from the left. In 2017, while still serving as one of the leaders of the Women’s March, Sarsour sought to exclude pro-Israel women from the movement.

Sarsour also worked with antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan before being booted from the Women’s March earlier this year, together with two other board members accused of antisemitism (though one, Carmen Perez, remained).

She backed Sanders in 2016 and endorsed him again in September, and serves as a Sanders surrogate. Sanders himself is Jewish, though he has also been harshly critical of Israel, and suggested earlier this year that he might move the U.S. embassy out of Jerusalem if elected president.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Photo: file

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