ADL ignores the anti-Semitism of the left
July 26, 2021
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Pay Pal have announced a partnership that will seek to go after the financing for extremism and hate. One worries that it may end up in the usual suppression of conservatives views by proxy while ignoring the large anti-Semitic left in America.
“Through this collaboration,” says the ADL press release, “PayPal and ADL have launched a research effort to address the urgent need to understand how extremist and hate movements throughout the U.S. are attempting to leverage financial platforms to fund criminal activity. The intelligence gathered through this research initiative will be shared broadly across the financial industry and with policymakers and law enforcement.”
We’re excited to announce a new partnership with @PayPal to fight extremism and hate.
We’ve launched a research effort to understand how extremists leverage financial platforms to fund criminal activity. To read more: https://t.co/1iQVHVWBpV pic.twitter.com/1LgISDPsos— ADL (@ADL) July 26, 2021
While anything that will legitimately address violent extremism is certainly welcome, the ADL has a notable blind spot when it comes to violent views from anyone other than “white” people or conservatives these days.
A case in point is a recent audit done by the ADL that mentions only one race in regards to anti-Semitism.
The report uses the word “white” followed by “supremacist” 23 times in its 42-page report, citing no other hate groups or tying no other race to anti-Semitism, even as it says that extremist ideology only accounts for 16% of the 2,024 incidents of anti-Semitism in the U.S. in 2020.
“We track all the kind of worst elements like white supremacists and the armed militia groups who stormed the Capitol,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who first got involved in politics volunteering for Bill Clinton, told CNBC recently.
Again, Greenblatt mentioned only one race in his interview: white people. And, by proxy, he also tried to tie the groups who protested at the Capitol to anti-Semitism.
The ADL has transformed since the election of Donald Trump, speaking out forcibly against “white supremacy” while ignoring the larger group of liberal anti-Semites who mainstream anti-Jewish views on the left.
In 2017, the ADL was accused of targeting Jewish conservative writer Seth Mandel because of Mandel’s opposition to the ADL’s petty politics.
The ADL even tries to tie those of us who oppose Antifa because of their communist views to white supremacists, just because it’s fashionable and politically expedient to do it.
And no wonder: Last year, the Smithsonian Magazine described Antifaschistische Aktion, an antecedent to today’s Antifa, as a group of communists who opposed Hitler in Germany and organized against “anti-Semitism and homophobia” when in fact, no group in Europe killed more Jews after the Nazis than the communists did. Or more intensely persecuted gay people from 1917 to 1990.
Both the Antifaschistische Aktion and the Nazi Party were despicable, and normal people should say so.
By all means, track the Nazis and white supremacists and the 16% of bad white actors who are committing crimes. But by ignoring the 84% of groups who make up the majority of anti-Semitic incidents– because you happen to agree with their ‘other’ politics – you just make it easier for them to commit more and worse crimes.