TEL AVIV – The Women’s March leader who was lambasted for supporting virulently antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was in Israel on a tour last week with the George Soros-funded Center for Constitutional Rights.
“In #Jerusalem for today,” Tamika Mallory tweeted Monday. “Already witnessing the similarities with America.”
Mallory shot to fame as one of the leaders of the Women’s March against President Donald Trump.
Earlier this year, Mallory became embroiled in controversy for attending a particularly rancorous and anti-Semitic speech by Farrakhan in which he called Jews satanic. After receiving widespread condemnation for her refusal to take Farrakhan to task, Mallory eventually deleted photos of herself and the preacher from social media but did not specifically condemn him.
The CCR last week organized a delegation of “mostly black and brown civil and human rights leaders working on domestic U.S. justice issues who have not had an opportunity to visit Palestine and Israel,” the group said.
The trip, the organization stated, “was planned to provide an opportunity to better understand the human rights situation in Israel and Palestine, including the history of systematic displacement and institutional racism, as well as the work of human rights defenders there.”
On Tuesday, Mallory recounted a meeting with the Grassroots Jerusalem NGO who explained to the delegation about “Israeli land confiscation, settlements and other discriminatory policies toward Palestinian Jerusalemites.”
On its website, Grassroots Jerusalem says it, “strongly supports the global BDS call as a strategic tool to hold ‘Israel’ accountable for its oppression of the Palestinian people.”
Mentions of Israel by the group include quotation marks.
Grassroots head Amany Khalifa has expressed her support for armed resistance.
Mallory also visited Hebron, saying afterwards she is “still processing all the emotions around what I saw and what we experienced as a group.”
“I am deeply troubled!” she added.
Last week, Mallory slammed Starbucks for including the Anti-Defamation League in its upcoming bias training, saying the group is “constantly attacking black and brown people,” in apparent reference to the ADL’s past criticism over her affiliation with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
As the Anti-Defamation League noted, “Mallory posted two Instagram photos from the event, which Carmen Perez, another Women’s March organizer, commented on with ‘raise the roof’ emojis.”
Mallory referred to Farrakhan as the “GOAT” or “Greatest of All Time” on her Instagram page.
CCR heads Vincent Warren and Katherine Franke were slated to have joined the delegation but were denied entry into Israel on Sunday and deported, according to the organization.
“Warren and Franke were questioned about their political association with human rights groups that have been critical of Israel’s human rights record,” the group said.
Franke, the chair of CCR’s board and a Columbia law professor, said the questioning at the airport “made it clear that I was banned from entering Israel because of my work in the U.S. on behalf of Palestinian rights.”
Franke was denied entry because of her “prominent role” with anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace, a spokesman for the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which handles BDS issues, said.
CCR received close to a half million dollars in funding in 2015 from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, NGO Monitor reported.
The group has active lawfare suits against Israel and Israeli officials, including former Shin Bet security chief Avi Dichter and former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon. CCR also promotes anti-Israel BDS campaigns.
It has also accused the U.S. of “unqualified U.S. diplomatic, economic and military support for the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestine and apartheid policies in the region.”