She says her call for "jihad" against the Trump administration was taken out of context by "Islamophobes" and "white supremacists."
As a powerful Muslim woman who wears a hijab, "Islamophobes are attacking me because I'm their worst nightmare," Sarsour, co-organizer of the Woman's March on Washington, wrote in a stinging op-ed Sunday for the Washington Post.
Sarsour told her Muslim audience at the July 1-3 ISNA convention that they should remain constantly in a state of "rage" against Trump. She encouraged them not to assimilate into American society and said she hoped Allah would find their resistance against Trump as an acceptable form of jihad.
"I hope, that when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad," Sarsour said. "That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers, not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America.
"You have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House."
Watch clip from Linda Sarsour's ISNA Convention speech:
Most conservatives interpreted the rhetoric as an incitement of violence against President Trump and his supporters. But she turned the tables and made herself appear to be the victim.
Sarsour wrote in the Post:
Since the Women’s March on Washington, which I had the privilege of co-chairing with inspirational women from across the country, my family and I have received countless threats of physical violence. These ugly threats come from people who also spout anti-Muslim, xenophobic and white-supremacist beliefs. Their sole agenda is to silence and discredit me because I am an effective leader for progress, a Palestinian American and Brooklyn-born Muslim woman. In short, I am their worst nightmare.
Sarsour said she and other American Muslims have been victimized over and over since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans.
As for her use of the word "jihad," it should not be seen as a call to violence, she says, but as reference to a spiritual "struggle" and "speaking truth to power."
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For Sarsour, any and all criticism of Islam, no matter how fact-based it may be, makes one a "white supremacist" and an "anti-Muslim Islamophobe":
Most disturbing about this recent defamation campaign is how it is focused on demonizing the legitimate yet widely misunderstood Islamic term I used, "jihad," which to majority of Muslims and according to religious scholars means "struggle" or "to strive for." This term has been hijacked by Muslim extremists and right-wing extremists alike, leaving ordinary Muslims to defend our faith and in some cases silenced. It sets a dangerous precedent when people of faith are policed and when practicing their religion peacefully comes with consequences.
Pamela Geller, a Jewish American and anti-Shariah activist, said Sarsour used the platform of the Washington Post to lash back at those who expose her true motives. But she's just one of many peddlers of the "Islamophobia" meme that has no basis in fact and is really just a tool for implementing Islamic blasphemy laws on the West, she said.
"This Washington Post piece is just damage control. Sarsour knows what jihad means, and so do the terrorists she supports," Geller said. "There are no passages in the Quran that speak to a spiritual jihad. But there are hundreds calling for holy war."
But Islamic supremacists such as Sarsour know they can count on the media elites to do their heavy lifting, she said.
"This pro-Shariah Jew-hater is now directly inciting violence," Geller said. "With the left growing more violent and fascistic by the day, this will only make her all the more their icon. And if Trump is actually assassinated, the left will make her a saint, as much of a hero as Che Guevara."
Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of "Legacy of Jihad" and several other books about the history of Islamic conquests, also believes Sarsour is being disingenuous, if not hypocritical.
Several of Sarsour's friends and relatives have served prison terms in Israel after being convicted of terrorism charges. Yet, for a Shariah-compliant follower of Muhammad, killing Jews is not considered terrorism, so that might explain Sarsour's taking the moral high ground against the "right wing media," he said.
Sarsour has been part of a 50-year-old movement by Palestinians to normalize the killing of Jewish civilians in Israel, so it's ironic that Muslims like her in the U.S. are so easily offended, Bostom said.
"Gee I guess Linda's relatives and friends imprisoned for supporting Hamas need to be educated about the 'spirituality' of jihad terror as well," Bostom told WND in an email Monday.
Bostom cited a Columbia Graduate School of Journalism article from 2004 in which Sarsour, then 24, defends her brother in-law, her cousin and at least one friend, who had been jailed in Israel for their roles in violent plots against Israeli citizens.
So for Sarsour to suddenly act like her "community" has no familiarity with violent jihad is curious, indeed, said Bostom, a Jewish-American physician.
Sarsour's turning of the tables on her critics is nothing more than a blatant attempt to shut down all public discussion of Islam's obvious problem with violence, says Robert Spencer, editor of the Jihad Watch blog.
"When Sarsour says that the term jihad 'has been hijacked by Muslim extremists and right-wing extremists alike,' she is attempting not just to intimidate people into dismissing the idea that jihad involves violence, for fear of allying with hated 'right-wing extremists,' but also to liken foes of jihad terror to its proponents, thereby stigmatizing resistance to jihad terror as 'far-right extremism.' At the same time, she professes to be a devout and knowledgeable Muslim, and so must know that the central understanding of jihad in Islam involves violence, and that therefore her words were indeed inciting violence."
Sarsour beat on the same "white supremacist" drum in her op-ed that she struck in the speech to ISNA, where she said white supremacists posed a bigger terrorist threat to the United States than Muslims.
Even the liberal New America Foundation now admits that Muslim terrorists have killed more Americans since 9/11 than white supremacists.