From Left and Right
The ADL explains its take on antisemitism under Trump
Last weekend, The Jerusalem Post featured two op-eds attacking the Anti-Defamation League and its CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt, for allegedly turning to the Left. The reality is these two long-time critics, contributors Caroline Glick and Isi Leibler, and their ilk suffer from two maladies: They are selective in citing information about what ADL says and does and they see any criticism of the Right, including of President Trump’s legitimizations of white supremacists, as illegitimate and a sign of left-wing bias.
In the case of their selective approach to the ADL’s actions, they conveniently ignore ADL’s continuing record in sticking to its historic role as a principled and nonpartisan organization standing up to bigots and bullies, to extremists and radicals, and always calling out antisemitism and hate regardless of the source.
Still, it is important to get the facts straight, and here are just a few examples. We have strongly condemned antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel from the Left, including renouncing the Movement for Black Lives platform for charging Israel with “genocide” among other crimes.
We denounced the Chicago Dyke March for barring a flag with the Star of David and their condemnation of Zionism. We harshly rejected the Jewish Voice for Peace for siding with hate-leader Richard Spencer in comparing White Supremacy to Zionism.
We have publicly condemned Linda Sarsour’s offensive and problematic views on Israel, her support for BDS, and her dissociating Zionism and feminism. Her claim that one cannot simultaneously be a Zionist and a feminist is deeply offensive, as our Israel director Carole Nuriel pointed out.
In fact, under Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL has made fighting the delegitimization of Israel as one of its key strategic priorities. Jonathan Greenblatt repeatedly has emphasized the battle against BDS as the front line of this struggle.
The entire leadership of the ADL believes that BDS is a form of antisemitism that must be countered aggressively. Under Greenblatt’s leadership, the ADL is devoting more resources than at any previous point in its history to this issue.
The ADL continues to call out antisemitism wherever it comes from – be it last week’s white supremacists hate-fest in Charlottesville or the two California racist imams.
And let’s not forget that, in his first week as the head of the ADL, Greenblatt publicly came out against the Iran deal, a key priority of the Obama administration that put the ADL at odds with the White House and almost the entire Democratic leadership in Congress.
It stretches the imagination to consider how criticizing a Democratic president and the Democratic Party could be seen as the handiwork of an operative of the Democratic Party. This is not to mention Greenblatt calling out problematic comments about Israel by Rep. Keith Ellison, who was then running for the leadership of the Democratic National Committee.
So the better question is not why the ADL is not speaking out about problems from the Left, which, as I have shown, we surely have, but why our critics from the Right refuse to address the very real problems that come from the Right.
Charlottesville is the latest and one of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon. It is a clear case of racial hatred and antisemitism which demanded unequivocal moral leadership from President Donald Trump, who – unlike his predecessors from both parties – not only failed in the moment, but provided succor for white supremacist groups.
Yet some on the Right, including supporters of Israel, rationalized his behavior. This poses a larger issue which some on the Right have to ponder: Does support for Israel excuse bigotry and antisemitism?
In the ADL’s view, it is immoral and ultimately self-defeating not to stand up against hatred when it comes from individuals who may be or may claim to be pro-Israel. During the campaign, Trump engaged in stereotyping of different groups, not focusing on Jews, but in the end this emboldened antisemites.
We have seen the results: a significant rise in antisemitic incidents and a new empowerment of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. At Charlottesville, we heard chants of torch bearing antisemites saying “Jews will not replace us” that conjure up memories of an evil past.
Whether the president turns out to be a great friend of Israel is still to be determined. Even if he is, he has set loose forces that are immoral, bad for America, bad for the world and bad for the Jewish people.
If there’s any soul-searching to be done, it should be by those who wish away troubling developments like this on the grounds that Trump is good for Israel. Fortunately, we saw a large number of individuals on the Right condemning Charlottesville and the president’s dealing with it no matter his views on Israel.
There are real problems for Jews and others from both the Right and the Left. Glick, Liebler and their friends can cherry-pick what they want from the ADL’s record and blind themselves to immorality and hate currently running through our country’s veins. The ADL’s eyes are wide open to this danger and we remain firmly committed to doing our job and calling out antisemitism and hate as we see it. The writer is the ADL deputy national director.