In the last installment of this newsletter, we covered a recent MSNBC appearance by Ant-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
Greenblatt had appeared on Morning Joe to promote the ADL’s “Mamdani Monitor,” a tip-line ostensibly set up for New Yorkers to report acts of antisemitism under the new mayor. Greenblatt’s organization openly conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism, and the group’s main function is protecting Israel, so we can anticipate the phone number will actually be used to snitch on people who criticize a foreign country.
Greenblatt wasn’t exactly criticized or pressed during his appearance. He wasn’t asked why there wasn’t a similar tracker set up when Trump took office, which seems like a very obvious question for a journalist.
However, he didn’t get the kind of cable news reception that he’s accustomed to. In an indirect way, conservative host Joe Scarborough essentially told him that the antisemitism charges against Mamdani were bogus.
“There’s a lot of blurring and blending here Jonathan!,” he told Greenblatt. “You know I love you, you’re on all the time and we’re always a fierce defender of yours, but you seem to be blurring a lot of things together and then looking into that camera and say ‘call us!’”
This mild pushback did not turn out to be an isolated incident.
“As a Jew and son of a Jewish refugee, I’m alarmed by the rise of antisemitism,” tweeted former senior White House adviser David Axelrod. “The ADL’s mission is to call it out when they see it. But I found their response to Mamdani’s election shockingly gratuitous, inflammatory, and deeply irresponsible.”
“We urge organizations such as the A.D.L. to lead with consistency and integrity, not selective outrage,” said liberal Zionist group J Street.
New York Jewish Agenda, Bend the Arc, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, and other liberal Jewish groups have also criticized the organization.
Criticism of the ADL was gaining mainstream traction prior to Mamdani’s win. Over the summer, New York Magazine published an article by Noah Shachtman detailing a full-blown crisis within the organization, as multiple supporters have abandoned the group over its embrace of Trump’s crackdown on Palestine activism.
Shachtman spoke with 40 people connected to the ADL for the story, and 17 of them said they’ve left or cut ties with the organization. Longtime donors say they’ve stopped giving money.
Weeks later, Greenblatt was interviewed by Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times. She asked him about the Shachtman piece and challenged him on the idea that anti-Zionists are antisemitic.
“I think the challenge is if someone defines their view of anti-Zionism in a way that allows for Jews to exist in a state of Israel but that grants Palestinians rights, but you’re seeing that as antisemitic, people don’t feel like they have the space to have a different view without being tagged with something that is pretty serious,” Garcia-Navarro told Greenblatt.
As the ADL’s brand fades among the liberal establishment, it faces anger on the right as well.
In recent weeks, the group has faced mounting attacks from conservatives because it was once listed as a Charlie Kirk-founded group on its “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.”
In the wake of Kirk’s murder, the FBI cut ties with the organization, and billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk referred to the ADL as a “hate group.”
The ADL immediately caved on the issue, deleting the glossary and removing the “Protect Civil Rights” section from its “What We Do.”
This move provides further clarity on the ADL’s function, which is to protect Israel and Zionism from criticism.
As Palestine activists have been saying for decades, it is not a civil rights organization.
Katie Wilson win
Progressive activist Katie Wilson has been elected mayor of Seattle, prevailing over incumbent Bruce Harrell.
Wilson has referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide and indicated that she’d support divestment, positions that have predictably made her a target.
“Anti-Israeli socialist appears to beat incumbent in Seattle mayoral race,” lamented the Jewish News Service.
Their piece quotes Regina Sassoon Friedland, who is the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Seattle office, and denies that a genocide is occurring.
“It is important to note that Wilson’s genocide claims lack factual or legal foundation,” Friedland told the website. “These accusations are not only baseless. They also distort realities on the ground when no mention is made of Hamas, whose announced purpose is annihilating Israel and Jews around the world.”
“We will..oppose any attempts to adopt BDS into city policy, which aims to isolate and dismantle the world’s only Jewish state and has harmful effects on Jews in the United States,” she added.
A Jewish Insider article published before the election airs the complaints of multiple pro-Israel groups in the community.
The Kids Table PAC claimed that Wilson had “allied herself with vitriolic anti-Jewish candidates” and “talked about focusing city resources on foreign affairs issues, rather than on local ones, including the urgent problem of Jewish safety and security in Seattle.”
“Time and time again we hear deep concern about Katie Wilson’s candidacy,” claimed the group.
“And at a time when, especially in Seattle, antisemitism runs rampant amongst the left in the wake of post-Oct. 7 rhetoric and propaganda, she has only fanned the flames by echoing hollow narratives about Israeli genocide in Gaza and calling for divestment of any city funds invested in Israel,” said Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle Scott Prange.
Wilson’s victory is further proof that candidates can criticize Israel and win. We should anticipate more progressive challengers following suit.
Odds & Ends
🇮🇱 AIPAC is suddenly a political liability. Is the Israel lobby in trouble?
🏫 New report details weaponization of antisemitism on campuses
🇵🇸 How it feels to live as an academic in exile while Gaza burns
🇺🇳 Trump looks to the UN to bail out his ’20-point plan’ for Gaza
🗽 Electronic Intifada: Why Israel fears Zohran Mamdani
🗳️ The Nation: The Meaning of a Muslim Mayor
🛂 Responsible Statecraft: Groups demand Israeli influencers register as foreign agents
🇸🇾 Jewish Insider: Syrian American rabbi blesses Syrian president in Washington
🗺️ Common Dreams: Trump’s Ploy at the UN Is American Imperialism Masquerading as a Peace Process
🌹 City & State New York: Public defender and DSA organizer challenges Ritchie Torres
💸 Axios: Israel seeks 20-year military aid deal with U.S. with “America First” tweaks
👀 Drop Site News: Israeli Spy Stayed for Weeks at a Time With Jeffrey Epstein in Manhattan
🇺🇸 Financial Times: Zohran Mamdani’s NY mayoral victory marks shift in US voter support for Israel
🌨️ MPR News: Activists claim divestment win, but Minnesota board says policy hasn’t changed
🚫 WGBH: After ballot Q win, Somerville backers want divestment from Israel to become a reality
If Joe said that on the BBC, or any other reputable news organisation, he’d be fired so fast, his feet wouldn’t touch the ground.
Notice the sweat-bead on Johnny’s upper-lip after the “dog-pile” on Morning Joe ?
“…Genocidal Zionists are the primary machinery of this hatred in the US. They bank on it, fuel it, and fan the flames. They cry “antisemitism” if anyone breathes a word critical of the settler colony, while actively propagating Muslim hatred.
Israelis are beginning to imagine themselves in a world liberated from the genocidal ideology that has duped them for generations. New York – and the world, in particular, Palestinians – welcome them wholeheartedly.
These [Genocidal] Zionist rabbis have no objection to the actual genocide the world has witnessed, but they object to it being called a genocide. They wish to be party to slaughtering an entire nation – men, women and children – but they object to people naming it as such…”
The genocidal rabbis, their billionaire backers, their daily tabloids led by The New York Times, the New York Post, Fox News, and the newly bought and paid for CBS News did all they could to demonise the sole Muslim candidate in the city’s history – and still they lost…”
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in the City of New York,
“….announced purpose is annihilating Israel and Jews around the world.”
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Standing “logic” used to justify ethnic cleansing, denial of rights, and peace.
I don’t really understand this passage, maybe it has a typo:
The first sentence sounds like it means that the ADL was listed as a Kirk-founded group on the ADL’s glossary.
But in context it sounds like after Kirk’s murder, the FBI cut ties with the ADL for listing a Kirk group on the ADL’s glossary.