Ibtihaj Muhammad posted anti Israel tweets on her Twitter feed

There is a willful attempt to hide the hater her side.  But do not fall for her image managers.  The Isreal hating tweets are there for all to see on her Twitter feed. 

This post is in Soapbox.  I will let people in Maplewood Specific go along with their scam,  and if Jewish start their walk to the gas chamber. 

Like this baldfaced lie:

I'll join Bramz on this one.  To be clear, I don't think athletes have to be apolitical but advancing old debunked  defamatory BS stories is not cool:

era.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=147&x_article=2955

Zoinks,

You aren't helping Israel with your comments.  I don't think she knew at the time that the flooding was caused by heavy rains.

1) a little googling could have shown that.

2) Tweets can be deleted. 

It links to this site http://www.albawaba.com/ I  don't know anything about it, but it seems like a mainstream news site, not some extreme dark web place.   Why do you feel the need to smear her?

It is her actions in posting anti Isreal Tweets pointing out actual actions is hardly a smear. It is bringing facts to light. 

It's just one tweet. That said, when most people hear "flood" they think "rain". 

Those that think "someone opened flood gates to drown someone else" may have some biases to work through.

There are others.  I just chose one example. 

Lots of people have issues with all kinds of things the Israeli government does, myself included. Not sure what the point of this thread is supposed to be. That she should have deleted this tweet after it turned out to be inaccurate? Maybe so, but she's probably had other stuff on her mind.

@dave @jamie Clean up in aisle three. Another thread worthy of deletion. Can you put this creep into the penalty box, maybe for what remains of Olympics? Or pin an asterisk on his account name.

Bram, are you studying the tweets of every US Olympic athlete?  Have any others posted tweets that offend you?  Please let us know.

I think this is a legitimate conversation to be had. Athlete grows up in very diverse town with large Jewish population. Athlete becomes known for speaking out about tolerance. Athlete took a strong position regarding Israel that was proven mostly factually false. Athlete won't admit mistakes and work to patch things with local affected community. Our tax dollars went for a parade for her as well as tons of local support given freely by citizens all going to someone who despises some within the community. It's a concern that hopefully can lead to dialogue and greater understanding. That being said, it can be articulated better IMHO

Let's see some evidence backing up these assertions. She tweeted one thing out of thousands of tweets that was a news report from The Guardian that it seems might not have been totally accurate (I don't know; I'm not an expert). Does that disqualify her from our support and congratulations? Hard to imagine.

The second assertion below is nasty and uncalled for, IMO. Absolutely no reason whatsoever to think she has any issue with anyone within the community. The only negativity I'm seeing toward community members is being directed at her. Anyone who thinks her criticism of another country's government is a personal attack on them has some serious issues.

BubbaTerp said:

Athlete took a strong position regarding Israel that was proven mostly factually false.

someone who despises some within the community.

It's interesting, if you grow up in a community that has a sizable population of group X, generally you have a greater affinity towards, knowledge of and comfort level with that group. You would think then that a person in that community would take greater pains to self-censor themselves from wild accusations. Whether you like Israel or not, the country simply doesn't flood people out of homes, that's bizarre to accuse any country of doing, even truly despicable regimes.

I'm not trying to get into it with anyone.... what I'd really like is to actually get Ibithaj's thoughts on the matter to set the record straight.

Just to be clear, she didn't accuse anyone of doing this. She retweeted an article in The Guardian, a publication that's as mainstream as The New York Times. If it turned out not to be true, that's on the publication, not on her. And again, this was one tweet out of thousands.

BubbaTerp said:

It's interesting, if you grow up in a community that has a sizable population of group X, generally you have a greater affinity towards, knowledge of and comfort level with that group. You would think then that a person in that community would take greater pains to self-censor themselves from wild accusations. Whether you like Israel or not, the country simply doesn't flood people out of homes, that's bizarre to accuse any country of doing, even truly despicable regimes.

The open dam lie was not a repost of a Guardian article. It comes from something I never heard of called "Al Bawaba" But at least Al Bawaba has removed the lie from its website. Muhammad has not done so from her Twitter feed.

Again, for someone who promotes herself via a narrative of tolerance, understanding and pioneering it's surprising to see these familiar and unfortunate anti-Israel troupes appear in her official channels.

Her post was from 18 months ago. If it offends you so much, bramzzoinks, why re-broadcast it? Let it rest.

Or, maybe...you were just fishing for something to blast this woman on?

It clearly offends a # of people within her community. Why don't you show Bramzzoinks some more respect for his/her point of view? I'm not sure that Ibithaj deserves 100% absolution for everything she'd said simply because she grew up locally and won a Bronze Medal. She's a public figure with a public persona (and a profitable one) built around religious tolerance, she's fair game.

Hahaha said:

Her post was from 18 months ago. If it offends you so much, bramzzoinks, why re-broadcast it? Let it rest.

Or, maybe...you were just fishing for something to blast this woman on?

Right, sorry, the Guardian tweet was something else. Anyway, here is the sum total of the offending tweet, which is just a link to a news story. It's not her fault if it turned out not to be true. The source is a Jordanian news site.

Ibtihaj Muhammad ‏@IbtihajMuhammad 24 Feb 2015
Hundreds of Palestinians flee floods in Gaza as Israel opens dams t.co/dDGvu6uCTm"> http://bit.ly/1BAWFMM

You have to be extremely eager to demonize her if you're getting worked up about this. People have different points of view, especially when it comes to Middle East politics. Just because she disagrees with you doesn't make her a bad person or somebody not worthy of our support.

I mean, if a local Hassid won a medal at the Olympics and had tweeted a news story about Palestinians that turned out to be untrue, would you be equally outraged? In that scenario, I can't imagine decrying the person publicly like you're doing, even though I'd probably disagree strongly with their political opinions. It's a very strange way to see the world.

I would find it very odd if the "Hassid" in your hypothetical, grew up in a heavily Arab community and tweeted that. Moreso if that "Hassid" made a huge point to gain celebrity through their identity of a religious/ethnic minority working towards tolerance and understanding.

imonlysleeping said:

I mean, if a local Hassid won a medal at the Olympics and had tweeted a news story about Palestinians that turned out to be untrue, would you be equally outraged? In that scenario, I can't imagine decrying the person publicly like you're doing, even though I'd probably disagree strongly with their political opinions. It's a very strange way to see the world.

I don't understand what the religious makeup of the community has to do with anything. There are lots of Muslims in our community (she is not an "Arab").

I saw the parade and it was a fantastic representation of our community's diversity--a really postive and uplifting moment. Anyone who wants to turn it into something else for their own political purposes is at best seriously misguided.

imonlysleeping said:

I don't understand what the religious makeup of the community has to do with anything. There are lots of Muslims in our community (she is not an "Arab").

I saw the parade and it was a fantastic representation of our community's diversity--a really postive and uplifting moment. Anyone who wants to turn it into something else for their own political purposes is at best seriously misguided.

I was referring to your Hassid/Palestinian scenerio. I certainly know and understand that she's not an Arab. Please read my posts before responding next time. Thank you Sleeping.

This is so absurd. It's like asking anyone in our community who has posted about their pro-choice view or criticized the pope on twitter to apologize and explain themselves to all the Catholics on our community.

It's not up to anyone here to tell her how to feel about Israel's actions and if she fell for something that wasn't true, so be it.

Lots of people question Israel's policies and actions, it doesn't make them anti-semitic.....

I read your post, but you're right, I do not understand it. Sorry.

Anyway, it was a great event and I was really happy to see her and the members of that community celebrated in Maplewood. So many smiles and good vibes all around.

BubbaTerp said:

imonlysleeping said:

I don't understand what the religious makeup of the community has to do with anything. There are lots of Muslims in our community (she is not an "Arab").

I saw the parade and it was a fantastic representation of our community's diversity--a really postive and uplifting moment. Anyone who wants to turn it into something else for their own political purposes is at best seriously misguided.

I was referring to your Hassid/Palestinian scenerio. I certainly know and understand that she's not an Arab. Please read my posts before responding next time. Thank you Sleeping.

I'm glad you can turn away from an athlete marketing herself as one thing, behaving as another, and having our tolerant community ignore it because it makes for better optics. I'm also glad there are some on here who can question/challenge her actions and ask for accountability from a local celebrity.

I just don't see it. She has political opinions that differ from yours. That doesn't make her intolerant or out of step with the community. There's nothing to question or challenge. There's nothing for her to be accountable for. I strongly suspect this has a lot more to do with what's on her head than what's in her heart. I hope I'm wrong.

BubbaTerp said:

I'm glad you can turn away from an athlete marketing herself as one thing, behaving as another, and having our tolerant community ignore it because it makes for better optics. I'm also glad there are some on here who can question/challenge her actions and ask for accountability from a local celebrity.