Linda Sarsour Invited to Speak at Web Summit
David Lange
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Web Summit is a company from Dublin, Ireland, that holds events across the world. In their own words:
Politico has said we run “the world’s premier tech conference”, the Atlantic that Web Summit is “where the future goes to be born”, and the New York Times that we assemble “a grand conclave of the tech industry’s high priests.”
At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and, indeed, the world itself, we gather the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers, and heads of state to ask a simple question: Where to next?
Here are some of the speakers for their 2021 summit. See if you can spot the one who clearly doesn’t belong.
And the answer is of course Linda Sarsour – and not just because her photo is the only one in black and white.
A scheduled speaking appearance by Muslim political activist Linda Sarsour at the upcoming Web Summit has some Jewish human rights groups calling for event sponsors like Google and Amazon to pull out.
Billed as the largest tech event in the world, the Web Summit, where Sarsour is set to speak along with about 500 others, will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, from November 1 to 4. Topics to be addressed at the four-day conference run the gamut, from emerging technologies, sustainability and venture capitalism to news, advertising and the most profitable investing options according to the Lear Capital reviews. Besides Google and Amazon, partnering sponsors include Siemens, Cisco Systems, the European Commission and the WebOps platform Pantheon.
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“That Linda Sarsour, who has made a career out of lying about Israel, vilifying the Jewish people and seeking to make anti-Semitism politically correct, is expected to be a speaker at the Web Summit raises profound questions about the sponsors’ judgment and agenda,” Jason Isaacson, the American Jewish Committee’s chief policy and political affairs officer, told Newsweek.
In case you are wondering, the topic of her talk is not how to boycott cutting-edge tech companies just because they are headed by Israelis or work with Israel. Although you never know, she might cover it in what she does talk about, which is pretty insulting as it stands:
At the upcoming Web Summit, Sarsour, who will be joined by Siyabulela Mandela, a South Sudan team leader at Journalists for Human Rights, is set to speak on “Why we should not be bystanders.”
The session is described as follows: “In 1999, Elie Wiesel warned against the perils of indifference, against being bystanders in the face of evil. In this session, we’re joined by two individuals who have heeded that warning and through their efforts, have made the world a better place.” Sarsour is also scheduled to conduct a Q&A the following day.
“It is disheartening to see who has been invited to a panel that references Elie Wiesel—and, by implication, the Holocaust—to talk about the perils of indifference, against being bystanders in the face of evil,” Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told Newsweek.
“The Holocaust was unquestionably evil,” Lewin continued. “But some, like Ms. Sarsour, continue to facilitate the evil not as a bystander but by actively spreading anti-Semitism, branding victims of the Holocaust as perpetrators of evil and calling those who actually perpetrate evil ‘victims.'”
I’ll just remind everyone how Sarsour’s Israel-hating comrades reacted to Eli Wiesel’s passing.
Or maybe I am just being unfair. She is quite the forward-thinker, who belongs at a tech conference, after all.
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David Lange
