Taxpayers should not be funding this anti-American hate-spewer
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Executive director of the Arab American Association of New York Linda Sarsour with Mayor Bill de Blasio. Photo: Paul Martinka
With the fierce Twitter tirades she routinely unleashes against ideological foes — particularly American patriots and supporters of Israel — Linda Sarsour could be the scariest political player you may never have heard of.
Until now.
Sarsour, a Muslim activist and ally of Mayor Bill de Blasio, blasted into the mainstream in August with a fawning profile published in The New York Timesheadlined: “Linda Sarsour is a Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab.” Although at age 35, the married mother of three who favors hijabs, or Muslim headscarves, is hardly a girl.
President Obama named Sarsour one of his “Champions of Change.” The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, who told the Times that she wed in an arranged marriage at age 17, is described on the White House website like this: “Ambitious, outspoken and independent, Linda shatters stereotypes of Muslim women, also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage.”
But some observers got acquainted with Sarsour’s anti-Americanism two weeks after the politically correct Newspaper of Record lionized her. Sarsour, who serves as executive director of the generously city-taxpayer-funded Arab American Association of New York, based in her native Brooklyn, responded when Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz tweeted, “America is and remains a nation built on Judeo-Christian values.”
“Genocide & slavery?” she shot back.
Put aside for a moment that the ills about which Sarsour complains do not exist in the United States today, but plague parts of the Muslim world. Sarsour contends that Israel and American supporters of the Jewish state are responsible for slaughter in the Mideast.
Her outrageous online assaults sank to a depressing level this month, when Sarsour tweeted a picture of a small Palestinian boy standing before Israeli soldiers clutching rocks in both hands. She added the words, “The definition of courage.”
“No, the definition of barbarism,” Queens City Councilman Rory Lancman, 46, responded.
Sarsour has the right to free speech, however reprehensible. So says the US Constitution. But as she waged a social-media war with Lancman, first reported by The Post’s Rich Calder, she seemed unaware that he, too, enjoys the same right.
She tweeted: “city elected official attacking a constituent on foreign policy issue when they weren’t asked. Welcome to NYC Council.”
“You must be especially proud of the 13-yr-old Palestinian who stabbed the 13-yr-old Israeli,” Lancman wrote.
She replied: “don’t put words in my mouth. Shame on you. Using my tax payer $$ to attack people online. Go do your job.”
But this tweet by Sarsour turned the fight downright ugly: “The Zionist trolls are out to play. Bring it. You will never silence me.”
“This is a woman who supports violence and supports terrorists while at the same time proclaiming that this country is founded on Judeo-Christian values of genocide and slavery,” a prominent political insider, who led me to Sarsour’s nasty “genocide” tweet, told me.
“And somehow, she receives taxpayer money,” the insider said. “I think that’s a very sad commentary on where this city and society are right now.”
Sarsour did not return my phone call or email message.
De Blasio visited Israel this month in what he described as a mission to show solidarity with the Jewish nation, whose citizens lately have come under attack by bloodthirsty Palestinians.
But Sarsour has campaigned for the mayor, who has repeatedly featured her in news releases touting his education agenda and other initiatives.
His spokeswoman did not get back to me with a comment about Sarsour.
Lancman, who is Jewish, put out a statement that read, “Attacking Jews in their homes, schools, supermarkets, cafes, buses, roads, synagogues and seder tables is barbarous, and enlisting children to commit those acts is even more so.”
But he would not comment further to me about Sarsour, or say whether he believed her organization should continue receiving city funds, which have totaled $164,050 since 2012.
Sarsour, a co-founder of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, has said she’s considering running for the Brooklyn City Council seat that Vincent Gentile, 56, is to vacate in 2017 due to term limits.
The Times piece describes Sarsour as some kind of dynamo, celebrating her for helping to partly dismantle the city Police Department’s surveillance program of Muslims.
Among other successes, she was credited with working with City Hall officials to close public schools for the observance of two Islamic holy days. Last year, she traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, to protest the police killing of Michael Brown, whose death is described as a “murder” on the Arab American Association of New York’s website.
Linda Sarsour is free to express anything she wants, but so am I. And I don’t think that someone who recklessly spews hate should be rewarded with accolades and public funds.
The money spigot to her organization should be shut off. She should be shunned.
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