The ADL’s crazily irresponsible crusade against anti-Zionism

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In a move that has become all too predictable, yet nonetheless worrying, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently announced a new intensification of its longstanding campaign to falsely equate criticism of Israel with the growing threat of antisemitism.

On May 1st, during the ADL’s National Leadership Summit, CEO Jonathan Greenbatt declared that “antizionism is antisemitism.” He labeled anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), as well as the prominent Muslim-American organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), as “extremists,” suggesting that they are the counterparts to the far-right, perhaps just as threatening.

The ADL promised to “apply more concentrated energy” against “the threat of radical antizionism,” including the use of “litigation” and “advocacy muscles” – signaling a potentially major escalation against human rights activists.

The ADL’s erroneous assertion that the “radical Left” represents “the photo inverse of the extreme right that ADL long has tracked” is a dangerously misleading exercise in ‘both-sidesism.’ It obscures the fact that white Christian nationalism is far and away the greatest threat to the safety and thriving of U.S. Jews and all marginalized groups in America.

Just during the last few years, from Pittsburgh to Poway, white nationalists have murdered Jews in synagogues, while antisemitic dogwhistles and conspiracy theories fixated upon George Soros, “globalists,” “Cultural Marxism,” QAnon cabals and similar scapegoats have multiplied across the U.S. conservative movement, with its unending culture wars and moral panics. This radicalization on the Right, which threatens Jews alongside all marginalized groups, only continues to accelerate.

With the U.S. Capitol in the background. members of the Proud Boys join supporters of President Donald Trump as they march in WashingtonAP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

A 2021 analysis of survey data of 3,500 U.S. respondents showed that “the epicenter of antisemitic attitudes is young adults on the far right,” while another survey found that 32 percent of right-leaning adults (and 49 percent of QAnon believers) agreed with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the claim that “the rise of liberalism has equipped Jews to destroy institutions, and in turn gain control of the world,” as compared with just 8 percent of left-leaning adults.

Meanwhile, last week’s revelation that the Supreme Court will likely strike down Roe vs. Wade – signaling a victory by the Christian Right that has been decades in the making – strikes a perilous blow to the religious freedom of Jews across the country, another sign that the Christian nationalist movement is a dire threat to long-term Jewish safety and thriving in the U.S.

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By erroneously equating left-wing human rights activism to the powerful and fast-mounting threat of anti-democratic authoritarianism on the Right, Greenblatt and the ADL are actually helping to shift the focus on antisemitism away from where it belongs, undermining the much-needed concerted effort to protect the imperiled foundations of multiracial democracy in the U.S.

Simply put, anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitic. Rather, legitimate opposition to the political ideology of Zionism has a long and diverse history as old as Zionism itself. For over a century, a wide range of Jewish movements and thinkers have opposed Zionism for a number of reasons. Many of them mounted theological objections to Zionism’s orientation toward Jewish history and identity, while others argued that Zionism is inadequate for ending antisemitism, or challenged Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians.

Most Palestinians oppose Zionism because it resulted in the creation of a state which exiled them from their ihomes and subjects them to permanent occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Many activists today identify as non- or anti-Zionist for similar reasons. This political opposition to Zionism is rooted not in thinly-veiled hatred of Jews, but in universal, concrete demands of human rights and equality.

To be sure, there are antisemitic forms of anti-Zionism as well. On the Right, some white nationalists demonize Zionism and Israel using classic antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and perfidy. In the Stalin era and beyond, the USSR circulated conspiratorial forms of anti-Zionism, imagining Israel as a sinister, global manipulator of world affairs.

But there is nothing inherently antisemitic about the demands that Israel should grant Palestinian refugees the right of return and repeal policies that enshrine Israeli Jewish privilege and demographic dominance over Palestinians, all of which are central to what anti-Zionist activists are campaigning for. These demands, and the movements that give voice to them, are founded upon human rights, justice and equality.

American Jews rally in support of the Palestinians and against Israel’s occupation in Tucson, Arizona last yearAP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

It is certainly possible for activists to dip into antisemitism, often unknowingly, when engaged in their work. Many activists possess little deep understanding of antisemitism, and in a political climate where they routinely face hyperbolized accusations of antisemitism – such as those currently levied by the ADL – some unfortunately become resistant to taking the claim seriously at all.

But the way to fight antisemitism on the Left, when it occasionally occurs, is not through criminalizing human rights advocacy, dividing movements or demonizing activists as “extremists.” Rather, it is through political education, coalition-building, and the kind of solidarity forged through deep relationships, founded upon a shared commitment to protecting each other and fighting for a more just world. This should also include confronting antisemitism when it appears on the left.

Meanwhile, the ADL’s proclamation diverges radically from the experiences of most American Jews. Poll after poll consistently shows that the majority of American Jews believe that the Right represents the greatest antisemitic threat, and do not experience pro-Palestine antisemitism, when it occurs, as the existential emergency that groups like the ADL claim it to be.

An old hate has been refreshed, replacing ‘Elders of Zion’ with ‘Soros,’ blood libel with QAnon and deicide with ‘white genocide.’ QAnon supporter at an anti-lockdown protest in BostonBRIAN SNYDER/Reuters

A growing movement of progressive Millennial and Gen Z Jews are rejecting the ADL’s misleading narrative. We see with increasing clarity Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians on the one hand, and the clear rise of antisemitism on the other, and we demand an approach which fights both, together.

For us, the ADL has become a symbol of a communal establishment that is disconnected from the reality of our lives, and has defaulted on its stated commitment to protect our community.

This establishment misrepresents antisemitism as a kind of “eternal” hatred, manifesting equally across the political spectrum and disconnected from other forms of oppression, and it offers, as communal defense, little more than Israeli nationalism and stilted “solutions” entrusted to the hands of repressive state and technocratic power, such as the censure, firing and deplatforming of human rights activists.

Instead, we need a grassroots, intersectional approach that fights antisemitism as part of a larger rising tide of bigotry, interrelated to the attacks on bodily autonomy, the growing assault on trans rights, the scapegoating of immigrant, Muslim and black communities, and more. Once we understand how these forms of oppression tie into one another – how antisemitic conspiracy theories help motivate right-wing attacks on other marginalized communities as well – we can start to build the coalitions necessary to fight back.

While the ADL has tried to work in coalitions, their increasingly rightward stance limits their ability to find new allies beyond the Jewish community, to get at the root causes of the problem.

Jonathan Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, places a stone on the memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue AP Photo/Allen G. Breed

Their threats to use “litigation skills” and “advocacy muscles to push policymakers into action” signal a willingness to work with current and future administrations, Democratic or Republican, to attack and delegitimize a range of progressive leaders and movements, under the guise of “fighting antisemitism.” In our era of creeping authoritarianism, this is the last thing that movements for social change need.

Luckily, there is a growing set of organizations who don’t seek to compromise their fight against antisemitism. Groups like Jews for Economic and Racial Justice, the Jews Against White Nationalism project and Bend the Arc see fighting antisemitism as a key part of the larger racial justice agenda. Groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace see combating antisemitism as essential work alongside their support for Palestinians, demanding the kind of clarity about antisemitism that the ADL is obscuring.

If we want to build a united front against antisemitism and all oppression, we cannot pit one community against another – instead we must find our way through shared struggle.

With the recently-launched “Drop the ADL” campaign, a range of progressive organizations have publicly committed not to work with the ADL, while in the wake of Greenblatt’s proclamation, progressive Jewish groups like the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, as well as liberal Zionist groups like J Street and Americans for Peace Now, have released statements rejecting the ADL’s latest attempt to divide anti-racist movements.

The white Christian Right remains the biggest threat to Jews, Muslims, Palestinians and all marginalized groups in America, and we need all hands on deck against that fight. The ADL’s misguided missive shows that they remain disconnected from reality within the Jewish community and beyond, and by muddying the waters about the prime source of incitement and violence against the Jewish community, imperils our safety.

Shane Burley is a journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of “Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It” (AK Press, 2017) and “Why We Fight” (AK Press, 2021). His work has been featured in NBC News, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, Truthout, In These Times and Full-Stop. Twitter: @shane_burley1

Ben Lorber researches and reports on antisemitism and white nationalism with Political Research Associates, a think tank that studies right-wing movements. He blogs at doikayt.com. Twitter: @BenLorber8