Linda Sarsour. Photo: Festival of Faiths via Wikimedia Commons.

Anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour took to Twitter on Tuesday to try to explain remarks that were widely condemned as antisemitic.

Sarsour faced heavy criticism following a speech she gave over the weekend in which she asserted that Israel was “built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.”

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, “The amount of hate in Linda Sarsour’s latest diatribe is shocking.”

The amount of hate in Linda Sarsour’s latest diatribe is shocking. She slanders the founders of Israel as supremacists, invoking a centuries-old anti-Semitic trope when she describes them as having believed that Jews are “supreme to everybody else.” https://t.co/AYCnFKXzu4

Related coverage

April 21, 2021 3:48 pm

0

Amid Rising Hate Crimes Against Jews, EU Announces $2 Billion ‘Comprehensive Strategy’ to Counter Antisemitism and Intolerance

A "comprehensive strategy" to combat antisemitism was unveiled by the European Union on Tuesday as part of a broader program...

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) December 3, 2019

In a Twitter thread on Tuesday, Sarsour sought to clarify her stance, claiming she was “specifically referring to the racist argument at the heart of the nation-state law recently passed by the Israeli government — not the Jewish people.”

However, she reiterated her view that “Zionism is the dispossession, displacement and dehumanization” of the Palestinian people.

“We need to be consistent and challenge the State of Israel on its system based on valuing one people over another,” she added. “We are against a supremacist state in America that values race/class over others & we need to be honest in how we speak about Israel.”

THREAD:

Over the weekend, I made comments about Israel that require context to understand. I was specifically referring to the racist argument at the heart of the nation-state law recently passed by the Israeli government – not the Jewish people. I apologize for the confusion.

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) December 3, 2019