Women’s March Connected to Anti-Semitism From the Beginning

As the 2019 Women’s March approaches, controversy continues to percolate around the organization at the heart of the progressive resistance.

Earlier this year, Women’s March co-president Tamika Mallory was widely criticized for her association with the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. More recently, reports have surfaced that Board Member Carmen Perez referred to Jews as the driving force behind the slave trade.

But as David Harsanyi points out in The Federalist, allegations of radical anti-Semitism on the part of the leaders of the Women’s March should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. After all, the original march, held days after the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump in 2017, honored none other than communist spitfire Angela Davis, who has long been known for her anti-Semitic views.

Harsanyi notes that Davis, who in 1980 ran as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Communist Party USA, is a supporter of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement, the aim of which is the demonization and delegitimization of Israel and those who support the Jewish state.  According to Harsayni, Davis is not just a supporter of BDS, “but a champion of men like Marwan Barghouti, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades leader who coordinated suicide bombings targeting Jewish civilians.”

Although the website of the Women’s March describes Davis as a scholar and a social justice activist, Harsanyi reminds us that Davis was prosecuted for buying “the shotgun that was used in a 1970 Marin County court room kidnapping and shootout that ended up killing a superior court judge and three others.”

She was ultimately acquitted, after which she announced that she would devote the remainder of her life to defending “political prisoners” like herself.  Harsayni reports that, a short time later, Professor Alan Dershowtiz, who had worked as an unpaid consultant on Davis’s defense team, called Davis’s office to ask her to advocate for a number of Soviet Jewish prisoners of conscience on her planned trip to Moscow. Her secretary told Professor Dershowitz that Davis regarded the prisoners as “Zionist fascists and opponents of Socialism” who belonged in prison.  

It’s been two years since Angela Davis served as Honorary Co-Chair of the 2017 Women’s March. Yet, today we are shocked – shocked! – that the Women’s March is run by anti-Semites.