Embroiled in an ongoing anti-Semitism controversy that has cast a shadow over this year's national women's march in Washington, leaders of Women's March national non-profit organization touched on the issue in passing at the national event in Washington on Saturday.
Women's March co-chair Tamika Mallory, who has faced the most criticism of late for her support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, attempted to address criticism in her speech, saying, "And to my Jewish sisters, do not let anyone tell you who I am. I see all of you. I see you and I hear your pain."
Despite pleas for unity at Saturday's demonstrations, internal tensions were most keenly felt in New York. An alternate women's march organization held a parallel rally a few miles away from the official New York Women's March protest, and one activist actually disrupted the main prowwww.
As New York march director Agunda Okeyo was making her opening remarks, activist Laura Loomer came on stage and shouted that the march "does not represent Jewish people" and called it "the real Nazi march."
Asked on PBS' Firing Line whether she thought Israel had a right to exist, Mallory said, "I have said many times that I feel everyone has a right to exist, I just don't feel anyone has a right to exist at the disposal of another group."
She said "Jewish scholars" were of the same mind.
When host Margaret Hoover pressed the issue, asking if that meant Israel and Israelis had a right to exist, Mallory, visibly agitated, said, "I'm done talking about this."
Hoover replied, "I just don't think it requires scholarly knowledge to say that Israel has the right to exist."
Hoover later took to Twitter to say, "If you are vigorously defending [against] allegations of anti-Semitism, seems like affirming Israel's right to exist would be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, that's not what happened."
In a separate appearance on ABC's The View on Monday, Mallory was asked about her ties to Farrakhan. Co-host Sunny Hostin said the Nation of Islam leader was "known for being anti-Semitic, for being homophobic, but you do attend his events and you posted… a photo calling him the G.O.A.T., which means the greatest of all time. You are running an organization that says it fights bigotry."
Hostin asked Mallory, "Do you understand why your association with him is quite problematic?"
Mallory refused to condemn Farrakhan on the program, instead saying, "I didn't call him the greatest of all time because of his rhetoric. I called him the greatest of all time because of what he's done in black communities."
Mallory is not the only Women's March co-chair to be criticized for her anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League has accused Mallory's fellow Women's March co-chair, Palestinian-American Linda Sarsour, of fomenting anti-Semitism.
Sarsour has posted a photo of a Palestinian boy about to throw rocks at IDF soldiers, captioning the image "the definition of courage" and praised Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who served a life sentence in Israel for her involvement in two terrorist attacks, one of which took the lives of two Israelis.
Sarsour has warned American Muslims against "humanizing Israelis" and accused Jews critical of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of dual loyalty, after Omar was revealed to have tweeted in 2012, "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
Sarsour said Jews who speak out against Omar "masquerade as progressives but always choose their allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech."
