That Was Quick: Women’s March Drops Anti-Semite It Brought in to Replace Its Other Anti-Semites

Just three days after she was added to the board of the Women’s March, the virulently anti-Semitic Zahra Billoo announced Thursday on Twitter that she has already been voted off the board. Billoo, Executive Director of the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), blames (what else?) “an Islamophobic smear campaign led by the usual antagonists.” Of course. That must be it. It certainly can’t be because the Women’s March actually rejects anti-Semitism.

The proof of that is the fact that the Women’s March kept Linda Sarsour, a close friend of Billoo, and Tamika Mallory on their board for months after their anti-Semitic statements and actions were revealed. They finally dropped them last week, when the negative publicity had grown too intense, and immediately replaced them with Billoo, who, if anything, is even more anti-Semitic than Mallory and Sarsour. And now Zahra Billoo is only out because her anti-Semitism was publicly exposed. The same can be said of Sarsour and Mallory. If they hadn’t been exposed, they would still be there. It isn’t as if the Women’s March has suddenly decided to reject the increasingly mainstream anti-Semitism of the Left.

But predictably enough, Billoo blames “Islamophobia” and sees the whole thing as a dark conspiracy by “Islamophobes” who “have long targeted me, my colleagues, and anyone else who dares speak out in support of Palestinian human rights and the right to self-determination.”

There couldn’t be a clearer acknowledgment of the fact that the struggle for “Palestinian human rights and the right to self-determination” is really a hateful and ruthless campaign against the very existence of the State of Israel. For all those who noted the implications of Billoo’s presence on the Women’s March board did was quote her saying, among other things, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” This familiar call is a declaration that “Palestine” must be liberated from Israeli rule from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which would mean the total destruction of Israel and a new genocide of the Jews. That is apparently what Zahra Billoo means by “Palestinian human rights and the right to self-determination.”

But it wasn’t enough for Billoo to charge those who dared to quote her with “Islamophobia,” a common tactic among Islamic supremacists.” In all-out victimhood mode, she went on to complain that “the past 48 hours have been a spiral of bad news and smear efforts. Part of the smear campaign is motivated by opponents of the Women’s March, because the organization has traditionally challenged the status quo of power and white supremacy in our country.”

So apparently the Women’s March has to have a genocidally-minded anti-Semite on its board, or else it is abetting “white supremacy in our country.” Of course, the Left’s entire “white supremacy” scare-mongering is built on sand, so it constantly needs shoring up. If Zahra Billoo can portray her getting dumped by the Women’s March as feminists’ capitulation to the all-encompassing white supremacist bogeyman, then victory may be able to be snatched from the jaws of defeat.

But in reality, all that the dropping of Billoo – and Sarsour and Mallory – means is that Women’s March leaders are sensitive to charges that they support the increasingly mainstream anti-Semitism of the Left. That is curious enough in itself. With Bernie Sanders repeatedly praising Linda Sarsour and yet remaining among the leaders in the Democratic presidential polls, it is clear that anti-Semitism is not an issue that will cost one support on the Left today. So the Women’s March could have kept Sarsour, Mallory, and Billoo, and no one would have complained except those who Billoo defames as “Islamophobes” and “white supremacists.”

It is likely that many leaders of the Women’s March are aware of this as well. When the latest wave of bad publicity over their selection of Billoo to replace Sarsour and co. blows over, expect them to appoint to their board yet another anti-Semite. You didn’t really expect them to become genuinely “diverse” and “inclusive” toward Jews and supporters of Israel, did you?

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.