In an opinion piece published Thursday titled “19 People Jews Should Worry About More Than Linda Sarsour,” The Forward, a publication founded in the late 19th Century by and since then run by leftists of Jewish descent, fancied itself “enforcer” against those who would dare to criticize anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour, who has called for “jihad” against President Trump and who has enjoyed a national spotlight since her role organizing the so-called “Women’s March” in Washington, D.C. during Inauguration Weekend.
The opinion piece was written by Steven Davidson, an editorial fellow at The Forward whose current Twitter profile photo can be seen immediately above. He has his own website, stevendavidson.com, the first text of which reads: “I am a proud graduate of Duke University (go Blue Devils!) …”
The opinion piece does not exactly gush over Sarsour, who is proud of the fact that her last name means “cockroach” in Arabic.
Yes my last name means cockroach in Arabic and yes I am proud of it!
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) April 17, 2010
Instead, the opinion piece uses the following quirkly reasoning in comparatively minimizing the dangerousness of Sarsour.
I’ll be honest with you. I’m a progressive, feminist, anti-occupation Arabic-speaker, and even I have a few qualms about Sarsour. The language she uses can be coarse and insensitive, like her 2011 tweet in which she said she wished she could take Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s vagina away — ignoring that Ali survived female genital mutilation.
But despite having reservations about Sarsour’s Twitter etiquette, I find the unending obsession baffling. The fevered pitch of the articles against her seems to have no basis in reality. You may not like her politics. You may not agree with BDS. But it is inarguably nonviolent. Why the hysteria?
The real threats to the Jewish people, as pronounced by the “proud graduate of Duke University,” include Morton Klein (pictured immediately above), the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Davidson apparently feels no sense of compunction about including the longstanding president of the ZOA, the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States, on a list which includes David Duke, “Actual violent jihadists
,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah
, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei
and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
.
Among the others the Blue Devils enthusiast includes on the list of threats to the Jewish people are:
– Mike Cernovich, who “recently pushed back at the ADL with a cartoon of George Soros as a puppetmaster.”
– Milo Yiannopolous (“Though half-Jewish, Milo has had no problem disseminating Jewish conspiratorial tropes …”). It should be noted that Yiannopolous is actually a quarter-Jewish according to grandparents’ lineage … and, due to the fact that that one grandparent is his maternal grandmother, 100% Jewish according to the actual matrilineal standard of Judaism.
– Steve Bannon, about whom Davidson writes: “Donald Trump’s chief strategist long oversaw Breitbart News, the outlet spewing xenophobic hate like it’s their job (well, it kind of is) …”
– President Trump, whom Davidson lambastes for having “[m]ade the deafest of tone deaf statements in Yad Vashem’s visitor book, saying, ‘It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends — so amazing & will never forget!”’
– Sebastian Gorka (“Under any other presidential administration, information revealing your top counter-terrorism advisor is a member of a far-right group founded by Nazis would be a fireable offense. Welcome to 2017.”)
Twitter replies to Davidson’s list have been something other than gushing with praise. A few examples follow:
Linda literally preaches killing Jews, this is not journalism this is insane propaganda
— GeneEverett (@geneeverettshow) August 5, 2017
Gorka is anti-terrorist who defends Israel with NO association with a Nazi org. Phony allegations. article has untruths 2 fit their agenda
— AS_4FreeEconomies (@AS_4FreeMarkets) August 4, 2017
What drivel. Linda Sarsour is the most imminent threat to Jews. To put Trump on the list is ludicrous. You have zero credibility.
— David Sands (@Sandman36) August 4, 2017
Really Klein? You worry about his associations on the right more then leftists who associate with Sarsour?
— Steven Turner (@DocSST) August 4, 2017
The right primarily stands with Israel. Why do some of these people just not get it? The left wants Islam to destroy all Jews.
— Veronica Covfefe 👌 (@vgirl93) August 4, 2017
The Forward, formerly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, was founded in 1897 by a group of about 50 Yiddish-speaking socialists. According to Wikipedia, it “was a successor to New York’s first Yiddish-language socialist newspaper, Di Arbeter Tsaytung (The Workman’s Paper), a weekly established in 1890 by the fledgling Jewish trade union movement centered in the United Hebrew Trades as a vehicle for bringing socialist and trade unionist ideas to non-English speaking immigrants.”
Writer Daniel Greenfield has previously explained the historical Leftist giddiness toward the term “Forward”:
The Obama slogan for 2012 is in and it’s “Forward.” The left has always been enamored of “Forwardism” or “Progressivism” which mean much the same thing. Before MSNBC had “Lean Forward,” Mao had the Great Leap Forward, which killed some 40 million people, far more people than MSNBC can ever dream of tuning in to their programs.
When Lenin wanted to launch his own newspaper, he called it, “Vperod” or “Forward.” The name has popped up on the mastheads of left-wing newspapers across the world. It’s “Vorwarts” in Germany, “Voorwarts” in the Netherlands and “Ila al-Amam” in the Arab world. Back in New York it’s “The Forward.”
There are any number of left-wing political parties who have named themselves “Forward”, including the Forward Communist Party of India, Kadima, the left-wing opposition party in Israel, and Vperod, a Russian political party that split off from the Socialist Resistance on account of the latter not being radical enough.
Picking “Forward” as his campaign slogan puts Obama in good company with Lenin and Mao, and it sounds positive until you stop and realize that it’s meant more as an order than a suggestion. There’s a reason leftist newspapers with that name add an exclamation mark at the end of it. It’s not a proposal, it’s a command. Lean forward, march forward, live forward and then die forward. We’ve burned the bridges, run up the deficit and trashed the economy so there’s no going back.
