Winnipeg Group Urged to Cancel Linda Sarsour Speaking Invitation
by Benjamin Kerstein
The Winnipeg Social Planning Council and the Canadian Muslim Women’s Institute are being urged to cancel a speaking invitation to anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour.
Sarsour is set to appear on a panel at the WSPC event “Sorry Not Sorry,” to be held on April 26.
A grassroots petition — a personal initiative of Ron East — said Sarsour was “not aligned with our community values or our responsibilities to students and the community,” and accused her of antisemitic statements and actions.
Michael Mostyn — chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, issued a statement, saying, “It is now incumbent upon the SPCW and CMWI to follow their own values of creating communities that are just and equitable and swiftly rescind their invitation to Sarsour.”
“Equity means that members of all identity groups could attend without being harassed or targeted,” Mostyn added. “That includes Jews.”
Sarsour, who supports the BDS movement and believes Israel should be replaced with a single Arab-majority state, has been accused of antisemitism several times in the past.
Last year, Sarsour attacked Jewish liberals as “some folks who masquerade as progressives but always choose their allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech.”
In 2017, she made a joint public appearance with Rasmea Odeh, an ex-Palestinian terrorist who killed two college students in a 1969 bombing in Jerusalem, and said she was “honored and privileged to be here in this space, and honored to be on this stage with Rasmea.”
In 2015, Sarsour spoke at a rally organized by antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and has since refused to distance herself from him.
Three years earlier, she tweeted, “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” She later suggested that Zionist women could not be feminists.