I am outraged at the selection of Linda Sarsour as the commencement speaker at CUNY’s School of Public Health (“Sharp Debate Over CUNY Graduation Speaker,” April 28). Her divisive and derogatory comments about Israel and Zionism and her acceptance and actual glorification and praise of terrorists seeking Israel’s destruction are totally unacceptable, especially now, at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise.
She has tweeted that “There is nothing creepier than Zionism.” She has called rock throwers in Israel “the definition of courage.” By whose definition is this a picture of courage?
Sarsour, who supports Sharia Law, overlooks the fact that her controversial views would not be allowed to be expressed under Sharia Law, nor would “Women’s Rights Marches,” which have given her a platform here in our democratic country, be allowed under Sharia Law. Getting one’s hand chopped off for transgressions is not worth the interest free loans she thinks are so great about Sharia Law.
Equally unsettling is the glowing endorsement she has received from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, quoted in Time magazine, where she has been selected as one of the 100 most influential people, calling her and her co-organizers “the suffragists of our time.” This endorsement was made, even though a close confidant of Sarsour, one of the main speakers at the Women’s March, was Rasmea Yousef Odeh, a known terrorist who is now being deported for lying to the U.S. about her conviction for her role in the murder of two Jewish students in a 1969 supermarket bombing in Israel. Is the support of terrorists and Sharia Law what women should aspire to?
Brooklyn
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