Andrew Cuomo: Hypocrite

Dave Zirin notes that Andrew Cuomo is hypocritically tweeting about how Muhammad Ali is the greatest while simultaneously destroying free speech in his state by criminalizing BDS or other boycotts of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. Of course, this means that Andrew Cuomo would gladly put Muhammad Ali on his state-sanctioned blacklist.

 Muhammad Ali was many things: boxer, humanitarian, draft resister. He was also someone who unapologetically stood for Palestinian liberation. Despite the fact that Ali had already felt the sting of a blacklist, banned by boxing from 1967–70, he did not stop speaking out upon his return to ring. In 1974, Ali visited the Palestinian refugee camps of Southern Lebanon and, amid the crushing poverty and disease, said, “In my name and the name of all Muslims in America, I declare support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland and oust the Zionist invaders.”

Of course, those who claim that opposition to Israeli policies is anti-Semitic, like Cuomo, would jump all over this, but any look at Ali’s own history, including his close relationship with rabbis, would know he’s not anti-Semitic. Zirin again:

 To deny Muhammad Ali’s pro-Palestinian politics is erasure. It’s whitewashing. It’s violence. It’s performing the ugliest possible sin: lying about someone’s life over their dead body. Upon Ali’s passing, Andrew Cuomo tweeted, “RIP Muhammad Ali, you inspired us all and will always be ‪#‎TheGreatest.” Get the Champ’s name out of your mouth, Governor, and tell the disturbing truth. If Muhammad Ali was in his prime today, he would be your target: someone denied the right to make a living in the state of New York.

Yes.