(JTA) — Phillip Agnew, who called Zionism “racist” in a 2015 article, has been named a senior adviser to the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I am excited to welcome Phillip to our team,” Sanders said in a statement Saturday. “He is a gifted organizer and one of his generation’s most critical voices on issues of race and inequity. He has and will continue to push me and this movement to deliver on what is owed to Black people who have yet to experience reciprocity in this country.”
Agnew, who previously served as a national surrogate for the Sanders campaign, is the co-founder of Dream Defenders, an activist group founded in response to the 2012 killing of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin. The group has repeatedly promoted the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been a U.S.-designated terrorist organization since 1997, according to the Daily Caller. The group also promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
In a 2015 article for Ebony magazine, Agnew called Zionism “a racist, exploitative, and exclusionary ideology,” according to the Washington Free Beacon. He also criticized Barack Obama for comparing the right of Jews to have a state to African-Americans seeking equal protection under the law. Agnew called the comparison a “lie” and a “figment of our well-manicured imagination.”
The Saturday statement noted Agnew’s history of activism on behalf of African-Americans and its alignment with Sanders’ goal of addressing social inequity.
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