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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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January 15, 2019
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Prominent
Sponsors Bail on Women's March
Jan 15, 2019 at 11:17 am
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Be the
first of your friends to like this.
First it was actors Alyssa Milano and Debra Messing.
But in recent weeks, a slew of prominent liberal groups has – mostly quietly – withdrawn their support for the
national Women's March. The third march is scheduled for Saturday.
It apparently will
take place without support from the NAACP, the Democratic National
Committee (DNC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Emily's List and
the National Organization for Women (NOW).
March leaders have struggled to put accusations of anti-Semitism behind them since February,
when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan gave a speech calling Jews "powerful" and
"Satanic" and saying they "are my enemy." March
co-president Tamika Mallory, who has called Farrakhan the "greatest of
all time," was present for the speech.
She has refused to condemn Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and homophobia,
most recently during an
appearance Monday on "The View." The most Mallory would say
is she does not use the kind of rhetoric Farrakhan espouses, but "I
called him the greatest of all time because of what he's done in black
communities."
Activist Tali
Goldsheft has been comparing this year's list of
"partners" on the Women's March website to previous years, finding a decrease from more than 500 organizations to
about 200 today. She noticed the DNC's name missing from the list Tuesday
morning. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are the most prominent sponsors
still listed.
In addition to the Farrakhan connection, a Tablet investigation published Dec. 10 cited
former March officials recounting anti-Semitic diatribes from Mallory and
board member Carmen Perez arguing that "Jewish people bore a special
collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people,"
including the slave trade. March co-President Bob Bland denied the
accusation on "The View."
But former March spokeswoman Mercy Morganfield told the Tablet
that the March was plagued with ideological and fiscal problems: "I
told them over and over again: It's fine to be religious, but there is no
place for religion in its radical forms inside of a national women's
movement with so many types of women. It spoke to their inexperience and
inability to hold this at a national stage. That is judgment, and you can't
teach judgment."
The March's other board member, meanwhile, is Islamist activist Linda Sarsour. A strident foe of Israel, Sarsour embraces conservative and extreme Islamist clerics and
in 2017 said she said she was "honored" to share a stage with Rasmieh Odeh, a terrorist whose 1969 Jerusalem grocery
store bombing left two college students dead.
In September, Sarsour claimed a police training program in Israel organized
by the Anti-Defamation League directly leads to police "killing
unarmed black people across the country." Sarsour spoke at Farrakhan's
20th anniversary Million Man March in 2015, saying that
black liberation and Palestinian liberation are "bound up."
A petition Goldsheft launched calling on the March
leaders to step down has attracted more than 8,500 signatures.
Related Topics: Women's
March, anti-Semitism,
Louis
Farrakhan, sponsors,
Democratic
National Committee, NAACP,
NOW,
SPLC,
Tamika
Mallory, Bob
Bland, Carmen
Perez, Linda
Sarsour, Tali
Goldsheft
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