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Anti-Israel Activist Linda Sarsour Arrested During Women's Day Demonstration

Linda Sarsour arrested by New York Police Department during 'Day Without A Woman' protest / AP
March 8, 2017

Police arrested prominent Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour for disorderly conduct on Wednesday during a demonstration outside of Trump International hotel in New York City.

Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, received several warnings along with other demonstrators to disperse and leave the roadway outside of Trump International. The New York Police Department arrested Sarsour and other protesters after they refused to move, according to news reports and social media.

Police officers escorted Sarsour away with handcuffs.

She previously accused the NYPD of "manufacturing" terrorism cases that target Muslim-Americans.

Sarsour, a co-chair of the Women's March on Washington in January, was participating in the Day Without a Woman strike on International Women's Day.

In recent years, Sarsour has made headlines for controversial comments about Israel. She appeared to praise child terrorism on Twitter in October 2015, when she held up a Palestinian child holding rocks as "the definition of courage."

"Palestinians often hurl rocks and other objects at Jews and Israeli security personnel," the Washington Free Beacon noted at the time.

Last year, Sarsour attacked an African-American pro-Israel activist because she "forgot where she came from," the Free Beacon reported. Sarsour has also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "waste of a human being" and a "bigot."

She wrote in 2012 that "nothing is creepier than Zionism," equating it with racism.

Sarsour previously tweeted dozens of messages praising Sharia law, according to the Media Research Center, and is set to be a featured speaker for an organization that "seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem." In 2003, she said that her "Arab pride was hurt" after U.S. forces captured former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who she said had done much to help Palestinians.

The Palestinian-American activist has also been a vocal critic of President Trump and his administration, calling senior White House officials racists and suggesting that they are anti-Semites.