ViacomCBS's recent announcement regarding a special broadcast featuring former Women's March leader Linda Sarsour – known for her support of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement – prompted outraged over the weekend.
"Join us 3/11 at 4:30 p.m. EST for a conversation with author and co-organizer of the Women's March, Linda Sarsour! Check your inbox for RSVP details," posted Viacom's Women's Employee Affinity Group on Facebook on Thursday.
The Women's History Month event is specifically being hosted by the multinational media conglomerate's Office of Global Inclusion, a source familiar with the situation told JNS. ViacomCBS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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Sarsour, a Palestinian American, has been an outspoken critic of Israel and has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks; the Anti-Defamation League says her BDS advocacy "encourages and spreads anti-Semitism."
Dexter Van Zile, a researcher at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, rebuked CBS for inviting Sarsour.
Van Zile also said that Sarsour, a surrogate for the Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has "worked to marginalize and demonize American Jews who support Israel as long as she has been a public figure."
"What do these people [at ViacomCBS] think they're doing?" he asked. "Why would they help promote the idea of someone who has spoken in such ugly terms about American Jews and about the victims of Islamist violence? It's unbelievable!"
He added that "the whole point of Sarsour's rhetoric is to drive Jews who support Israel from the public square and to drive Israel out of the circle of concern on the part of the so-called progressive left. That's not inclusion. That's exclusion."
The Women's March cut ties last year with Sarsour and two other co-founders due to accusations of anti-Semitism.
At the American Muslims for Palestine conference in Chicago last year, Sarsour equated the State of Israel to white supremacy.
"Ask them this: 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?" she said.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
