BUZZ
The ADL ‘threatens the rights of Black, immigrant, queer, Muslim, Arab, anti-Zionist Jewish and other marginalized communities’
The American University Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine recently demanded the school sever its ties with the pro-Jewish/Israel Anti-Defamation League over its alleged failure “to challenge rising right-wing antisemitism.”
The faculty group, which claims to “stand against all forms of colonialism, racism, and apartheid” and alleges “students and faculty who are part of the Palestine solidarity movement are increasingly subject to surveillance, criminalization, and punishment,” criticized AU for “bragging” about the ADL giving it an “A” rating, The Eagle reports.
The AU FSJP claims the ADL “is not an ally in combating antisemitism” due to its “partnership grounded in racism” with Donald Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
The leaders allegedly “celebrate both countries’ exclusionary walls and white supremacist Trump supporters [who] cite Israel as an example of the legitimacy of ethnonationalism.”
The ADL also “promotes right-wing extremism and threatens the rights of Black, immigrant, queer, Muslim, Arab, anti-Zionist Jewish and other marginalized communities,” the AU FSJP contends.
The group cites a Guardian article which claims the ADL took down pages of “extremism research” after Elon Musk “led a rightwing backlash.
Included in the deletions was a section on “slain far right activist” Charlie Kirk’s group Turning Point USA, and another on “Christian Identity.” The ADL noted many of the entries were “outdated” and/or being “intentionally misrepresented and misused.”
AU FSJP additionally chides the ADL for running “cover” for Musk’s “Heil Hitler” gesture in early 2025, which the ADL had said was “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.” Snopes noted the Hitler accusations “were based on appearances alone and ignored the context of Musk’s words.”
A recent audit of the ADL’s highly cited antisemitism tracker found that almost 50 percent of reported instances were acts of protected speech related to Palestinian rights advocacy or criticism of Zionism. This brings into question the authenticity of the ADL’s grading criteria and what an ‘A’ truly represents. Therefore, we should take the ADL’s ‘A’ grade with a grain of salt, and consider what the ADL might actually be assessing. …
The ADL has a long history of racism and undermining social justice movements. It is an organization that has demonstrated concern about the state of Israel before actual support of Jewish people and human rights.
Through police exchanges between the United States and Israel, the worst practices of surveillance, profiling and human rights abuses are shared and promoted. These exchanges send U.S. police officers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and campus security to train in Israel and share tactics with Israeli military, police and intelligence officers.
That noted audit, by Jewish Currents in 2024, noted just over half of the 8,873 incidents that the ADL labeled “antisemitic” were “were straightforwardly” so. But it “believes” just under 1,200 incidents — such as “spray-painted swastikas under a highway overpass or the word ‘Jew’ scrawled on an abandoned building” — were “more likely to reflect obnoxious youth” or attention-grabbing behavior.
The AU FSJP concludes in part by claiming in the midst of the “genocide” in Gaza, “cutting the University’s ties with the ADL is one step in bending the moral arc of our university towards justice.”
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