Well this is a new one. Actress Mayim Bialik is a pretty standard Hollywood sort, advocating abortion, bashing Trump and Republicans, and quick with the “misogyny” charge. But she’s different in one respect: Bialik is an Orthodox Jew.
Linda Sarsour, on the other hand, is a Palestinian activist and national co-chair of the Women’s March that took place in D.C. earlier this year. She’s also a frequent defender of the treatment of women under Sharia law.
Sarsour made news this week attacking, well what a surprise, Israel. In an interview with The Nation, she said that you can’t be Zionist and feminist (though apparently if you think women shouldn’t be allowed to drive you’re good to go.)
And Bialik, perhaps surprisingly, has fired back.
From Legal Insurrection:
Yet Sarsour, despite her regressive views and embrace of female-abusing Islamism, has become one of the faces of the Women’s March and related protests. Sarsour uses that position to try to drive out liberal feminists who support Israel.
Bialik was having none of it …
Bialik wrote an article at her website Groknation:
“Zionism is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to have an autonomous state in Israel,” Bialik, an Orthodox Jew, wrote in a post on her website GrokNation. “I am a Zionist. Feminism is the belief that a woman-driven movement can bring about race, class and gender equality and that women deserve all of the rights and privileges afforded to men. I am a feminist.”
And that’s not all. Bialik took on the biggest taboo when she dared to speak of the treatment of women under Islam, a verboten topic in Hollywood circles.
Are there things that happen in Israel and the Palestinian territories which cause pain and suffering to women? Absolutely. And being a Zionist doesn’t mean a definitional indifference to this suffering, especially of Palestinian women and children. The question is this: Many countries – many Muslim countries, in fact – perpetrate atrocities against women which include: female genital mutilation, forced marriages, child brides, systematic abuse of women by the justice system, revenge rape and honor killing. Why is Israel held to a standard none of these other countries – whose offenses are, arguably more extreme – are held to? And why is belief in the State of Israel something that should exclude women – or men, for that matter – from identifying as feminists?
Accusing Zionism of being incompatible with feminism is exceptionally short-sighted. It smarts of a broad-stroke bias against the entire Jewish people for the violations that occur in a state that was founded on the principles of Zionism. That’s not good. Bad things happen when we paint with such a broad brush. It’s bigotry.
Wow. Good for her. There’s more here from Legal Insurrection.
Sarsour was a terrible face for the Women’s March, even as a liberal enterprise. She is an apologist for the mistreatment of women, a radical, and someone who feels free to trash women of not just opposing political points of view, but who are from the wrong country.
She’s exactly what happens when liberals are blinded by “diversity.” At least one actress had her eyes open this time.