Latest news with #Greenblatt


The Herald Scotland
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
ADL survey: Majority of Americans reject antisemitism
The survey assessed more than 1,000 Americans across the nation and various demographics including age, political parties and views on Israel. Respondents were asked about deadly attacks in Washington D.C. and Boulder, Colorado as well as an arson attack at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's residence on April 13. Last month, a 45-year-old man allegedly used a Molotov cocktail to attack members of the Jewish community during a march in Colorado, killing an 82-year-old woman and injuring 14 others. On May 21, a 31-year-old man fatally shot two staff members at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Around 22% of respondents said those attacks were not antisemitic, and 14% did not consider them hate crimes, according to the ADL. Around 13% called the attacks "justified" and 15% agreed that the violence was "necessary." The survey also found that the majority of Americans consider the recent attacks on Jewish people "morally wrong." "As the Jewish community is still reeling from recent antisemitic attacks that killed three people, it's unacceptable that one-quarter of Americans find this unspeakable violence understandable or justified -- an alarming sign of how antisemitic narratives are accepted by the mainstream," ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a news release. 34% say Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than US Greenblatt said antisemitic hate has continued to increase since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in Gaza. Since then, more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to Reuters, and millions are suffering from acute malnutrition, starvation and illness. "The torrent of antisemitic hate has continuously increased since Oct. 7, 2023, with Jews being harassed and targeted, blamed and attacked, wounded and killed. The bipartisan majority of the American public must act," Greenblatt said. The ADL also shared more findings on perspectives toward the Jewish community, including that 34% of survey respondents said they believe Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. Around 30% of Americans believe Jewish people have too much influence in politics and media, the report states. Meanwhile, the report says one in four Democrats and 23% of Republicans have expressed concerns about antisemitism within their own political ranks. The survey revealed that 27% of recipients said they believe Jewish Americans bear responsibility for the actions of Israel. ADL survey: Other key findings The ADL survey also revealed several other key findings, including that 29% of Americans are favorable toward anti-Israel protesters. However, that favorability decreased with age, from 59% in favor for Gen Z, 29% for millennials and 16% for baby boomers. Other findings include: 58% said protesters use the term "Zionist" to refer to Jewish people in general 68% said violence toward Jewish people rose with slogans like "Globalize the Intifada" or "From the River to the Sea." 34% said they aren't sure what "anti-Zionism" means 82% said they support removing online hate speech that celebrates violence 77% want government officials to do more to combat antisemitism Islamophobia also spiked since the Oct. 7 attacks Reports of discrimination or violence toward Muslims and Palestinians have peaked to new highs following Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In March, CAIR reported that Islamophobia in the U.S. continues to be at an all-time high with many discrimination cases going toward "those speaking out against genocide and apartheid." "Speaking out against Israel's policies of apartheid, occupation and genocide came with a price," CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor said in the report. "For the first time in our report's nearly 30-year history, complaints reported to us were often the result of viewpoint discrimination rather than religious identity." During the two months after the Oct. 7 attacks, reported incidents of Islamophobia rose by 300% in the U.S., according to Vision of Humanity. The platform also reported a 270% rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. between September 2023 and November 2023, as well as a 200% increase in 2024.


USA Today
11-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Majority of Americans call 2025 attacks toward Jewish people 'morally wrong,' survey says
Nearly one in four Americans considered three recent violent incidents against Jewish Americans understandable, according to a new report on the alarming rise of antisemitic viewpoints in the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a new report on Friday, July 11 revealing that while the majority of Americans (60%) largely reject antisemitism, 24% of survey respondents justified three violent attacks that occurred in 2025. The survey assessed more than 1,000 Americans across the nation and various demographics including age, political parties and views on Israel. Respondents were asked about deadly attacks in Washington D.C. and Boulder, Colorado as well as an arson attack at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's residence on April 13. Last month, a 45-year-old man allegedly used a Molotov cocktail to attack members of the Jewish community during a march in Colorado, killing an 82-year-old woman and injuring 14 others. On May 21, a 31-year-old man fatally shot two staff members at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Around 22% of respondents said those attacks were not antisemitic, and 14% did not consider them hate crimes, according to the ADL. Around 13% called the attacks 'justified' and 15% agreed that the violence was 'necessary.' The survey also found that the majority of Americans consider the recent attacks on Jewish people 'morally wrong.' 'As the Jewish community is still reeling from recent antisemitic attacks that killed three people, it's unacceptable that one-quarter of Americans find this unspeakable violence understandable or justified — an alarming sign of how antisemitic narratives are accepted by the mainstream,' ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a news release. 34% say Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than US Greenblatt said antisemitic hate has continued to increase since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in Gaza. Since then, more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to Reuters, and millions are suffering from acute malnutrition, starvation and illness. 'The torrent of antisemitic hate has continuously increased since Oct. 7, 2023, with Jews being harassed and targeted, blamed and attacked, wounded and killed. The bipartisan majority of the American public must act,' Greenblatt said. The ADL also shared more findings on perspectives toward the Jewish community, including that 34% of survey respondents said they believe Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. Around 30% of Americans believe Jewish people have too much influence in politics and media, the report states. Meanwhile, the report says one in four Democrats and 23% of Republicans have expressed concerns about antisemitism within their own political ranks. The survey revealed that 27% of recipients said they believe Jewish Americans bear responsibility for the actions of Israel. ADL survey: Other key findings The ADL survey also revealed several other key findings, including that 29% of Americans are favorable toward anti-Israel protesters. However, that favorability decreased with age, from 59% in favor for Gen Z, 29% for millennials and 16% for baby boomers. Other findings include: Islamophobia also spiked since the Oct. 7 attacks Reports of discrimination or violence toward Muslims and Palestinians have peaked to new highs following Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In March, CAIR reported that Islamophobia in the U.S. continues to be at an all-time high with many discrimination cases going toward 'those speaking out against genocide and apartheid.' 'Speaking out against Israel's policies of apartheid, occupation and genocide came with a price,' CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor said in the report. 'For the first time in our report's nearly 30-year history, complaints reported to us were often the result of viewpoint discrimination rather than religious identity.' During the two months after the Oct. 7 attacks, reported incidents of Islamophobia rose by 300% in the U.S., according to Vision of Humanity. The platform also reported a 270% rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. between September 2023 and November 2023, as well as a 200% increase in 2024.

The Hindu
09-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Social media rollbacks have caused ‘explosion of hate,' says antisemitism watchdog
U.S. social media giants have rolled back content moderation in recent months, leading to an "explosion of hate" online, according to the head of a leading New York-based antisemitism watchdog. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, says antisemitism has surged since the start of the Gaza war, after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In the United States in particular, universities have become the setting of vocal protests against Israel's military onslaught in Gaza, as well as sometimes tense counter-demonstrations. "Social media companies and big tech more broadly has a critical role to play" in fighting hate speech, Greenblatt told AFP in a recent interview. Yet "the big companies, the most profitable businesses in the world, the most innovative companies in the history of business, have decided to outsource moderation to their users." In the United States, tech leaders broadly fell in line around U.S. President Donald Trump after he won re-election last year. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg in January ended Facebook's U.S. fact-checking programme, of which AFP was a part, after it faced criticism from conservatives. He also rolled back content moderation on Facebook and Instagram, saying users would however be able to add context to posts. The move followed Elon Musk, until recently a Trump ally, repealing content moderation on X, formerly Twitter, in the name of "free speech" after acquiring the company in 2022. "From Amazon to X, from Alphabet to Meta, all these businesses need to be far more proactive because, as they have retreated from moderating the services; as flawed as it was, things are now far worse," Greenblatt said. "We've seen an explosion of hate on these services since they've pulled back," he added. Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed more than 57,523 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures to be reliable. "Antisemitism can certainly be exacerbated by events in the Middle East," Greenblatt said. A string of incidents has targeted Jews in the United States in recent months. Two Israeli embassy workers were murdered in Washington. A firebombing attack at a protest in Colorado supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza killed an 82-year-old woman. And tensions persist on university campuses. Universities have "become breeding grounds for antisemitism", Greenblatt said. "We've seen a massive rise in harassment and vandalism and violence on university campuses," Greenblatt said. The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2024. It said that a little over half of 5,000 anti-Israel rallies it tracked that year involved antisemitic messaging in the form of signs, chants or speeches. But many pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who include a number of Jewish students, have disavowed antisemitism and criticised officials equating it with opposition to Israel. Since taking office in January, Trump has targeted elite US universities, including Harvard and Columbia, which he and his allies accuse of being hotbeds of liberal, anti-conservative bias and antisemitism. He has sought to control college curriculums and staffing as well as slash funding, while deporting foreign student activists associated with the pro-Palestinian movement. Greenblatt said the ADL was "grateful when Trump came into office saying he was going to tackle" antisemitism, then "released an executive order shortly after his inauguration" to help fight the issue. But, Greenblatt said, "we are concerned about the possibility of overreach." "Whereas we think real work needs to happen to help Harvard and Columbia correct the issues they were unwilling to address themselves, we don't want the cure to be worse than the disease," Greenblatt said, without elaborating.


The Intercept
04-06-2025
- General
- The Intercept
MIT Student Condemned Genocide — So ADL Chief Said She Helped Cause Boulder Attack
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt speaks at the Javits Center in New York City on March 3, Anti-Defamation League As the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt has done little to uphold his organization's claims to fight antisemitism as the 'leading anti-hate organization in the world.' Instead, he's shored up the ADL's role as little more than a fierce pro-Israel lobby group known for defending Israel by attacking its critics. With no sense of irony, much of this effort manifests as defamatory speech — at least in the everyday, if not the legal, sense — by Greenblatt. This weekend on Fox News, however, Greenblatt outdid himself. In his appearance, Greenblatt said college graduates and social media influencers who have spoken out against Israel's genocide were responsible for a man in Boulder, Colorado, throwing Molotov cocktails at a group of elderly people calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Greenblatt singled out a speech by the graduating class president from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while naming streamer Hasan Piker and social media influencer Guy Christensen as 'promoters of hate.' 'These speakers at these graduations — it just happened the other day at MIT — spreading blood libels about the Jewish people or the Jewish state, it creates conditions in which this kind of act is happening with increasing frequency,' Greenblatt said, referring to both the attack in Boulder and the shooting of two Israeli embassy officials in Washington, D.C., last month. Megha Vemuri, the MIT class president that Greenblatt referenced, did not mention 'the Jewish people' at all and spread no 'blood libels' — antisemitic false accusations that Jewish people are murderous. She is one of several graduating students around the country who have used their commencement speeches to decry Israel's U.S.-backed onslaught, which had already razed every university in Gaza to rubble by January of last year. Every day, new footage of mutilated children's bodies, desperate hospital workers, and scenes of searing grief are broadcast directly from Gaza to our phones. While Greenblatt's claims on Fox were false and harmful, strong free-speech protections under the First Amendment mean that it is unlikely a defamation lawsuit against him would succeed in this country. But there is little doubt that, in the everyday sense of the term 'defamation,' the Anti-Defamation League CEO's claims that commencement speakers were spreading antisemitic lies — and suggestion that they're responsible for two stochastic, violent attacks — were defamatory and dangerously so. 'We've got to stop it once and for all,' Greenblatt said of speeches like Vemuri's. 'I hope the Trump administration will do just that.' Read our complete coverage In her fact-based and morally informed criticism of a nation state under investigation for genocide, Vemuri praised her classmates for protesting for their school's divestment from 'the genocidal Israeli military.' 'As scientists, engineers, academics and leaders, we have a commitment to support life, support aid efforts and call for an arms embargo and keep demanding now as alumni, that MIT cuts the ties,' Vemuri said. 'We are watching Israel try to wipe out Palestine off the face of the earth, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it.' In both the Colorado and D.C. attacks, which had otherwise nothing obvious in common, the suspects shouted 'Free Palestine!' and reportedly told police that their actions were in response to Israel's assault on Gaza. Without knowing these very different individuals' media consumption habits, I doubt they were spurred to action by graduation speeches. Every day, new footage of mutilated children's bodies, desperate hospital workers, and scenes of searing grief are broadcast directly from Gaza to our phones. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regularly releases public statements about ensuring that Gaza is ethnically cleansed. His government's eliminationist violence in Gaza has been so extreme, unrelenting, and, crucially, livestreamed that even many complicit leaders in the West have in recent weeks condemned Israel's excesses. Their belated words are no doubt gestures to future-proof their own reputations against charges of enabling genocide, but they nonetheless speak to the undeniability of the horror. So blinkered is Greenblatt's view, though, that it is only criticism of brutal Israeli acts, not the acts themselves, that could promote a violent response from observers abroad. The logical conclusion of Greenblatt's claim is that anything but silence on or support for Israel's actions is not only antisemitic, but also produces the conditions for violence against Jewish people in the United States. Through Greenblatt, the ADL has backed the McCarthyite repression of campus protests and pro-Palestinian campus speech, praising overreaching crackdowns by university administrators and the government. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is continuing its campaign to cage and deport students and graduates who express criticism of the Israeli regime. Though Greenblatt marginally backtracked and called for more 'transparency,' the ADL's first reaction to Mahmoud Khalil's kidnapping by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for his constitutionally protected speech was one of support: 'We appreciate the Trump Administration's broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism.' 'We are watching Israel try to wipe out Palestine off the face of the earth, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it.' MIT banned Vermuri from walking in her graduation ceremony in retaliation for her speech. New York University withheld the diploma of commencement speaker Logan Rozos, who used his speech to 'condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide.' These were just the latest examples of universities responding to pro-Palestine speech with punishment. What further extremist censorship could Greenblatt desire? 'Blood libel' has become a standard retort of Israeli officials and their mouthpieces when critics draw attention to the Israeli military's killing or maiming of over 50,000 children in Gaza. While hardly alone in this, Greenblatt has been a consistent public voice enforcing the pernicious lie that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, and that the movement to stop the mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians — a movement in which thousands of Jewish people like myself participate — is a movement against Jewish safety. Long before last year's Gaza solidarity encampments, the ADL's reporting on antisemitic incidents played a significant role in obfuscating understanding about the state of antisemitism in the U.S. When the ADL counts antisemitic incidents, it includes actions done in protest of Israel, which in turn downplays the threat of far-right antisemitic violence; notably, Greenblatt excused white nationalist billionaire Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute at a Trump inauguration rally as an 'awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm,' while Greenblatt has compared the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf to a Nazi swastika. A number of the organization's own staff quit in the months following October 7, when Greenblatt doubled down on targeting Israel's critics. The continued insistence that Israel's brutality is carried out in the interest of all Jewish people absolutely puts Jewish people at risk all around the world through the forceful conflation of Jewish identity and an ethnostate carrying out genocide — an alignment that thousands of anti-Zionist Jews like myself reject. It is ideologues like Greenblatt, not the anti-genocide student activists he targets, who insist on connecting Jewish identity with Israeli state violence. While the ADL is ostensibly committed to tracking all forms of extremist violence, Greenblatt has not blamed pro-Israel voices in the U.S. for the rise in Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian attacks in the last two years. We did not hear equivalent calls for the government to 'deal' with Zionist advocates when three Palestinian students wearing keffiyeh were shot in Vermont in late 2023, leaving one paralyzed; or when a pro-Israel landlord in Illinois killed a six-year-old Palestinian-American tenant by stabbing him 26 times with a large military knife; or when a Texas woman attempted to drown a Palestinian-American three year old last September in an act police said was motivated by racial hatred. Greenblatt — and the U.S. government under both Biden and Trump — reserve their accusations of collective culpability for Palestinians and their supporters. In a New York Times Morning newsletter on Tuesday, which itself mangled distinctions between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, author Jonathan Weisman wrote, 'Attacks on Jews for the actions of an Israeli government a world away are collective punishment, and collective punishment is bigotry.' On this point, Weisman is entirely correct. It's nonetheless an extraordinary statement to make without stressing that Israel's all-out destruction of Gaza in response to October 7 is 'collective punishment' at its most extreme. Meanwhile, Greenblatt is inviting this country's authoritarian government to carry out further collective punishment against Israel's critics.

Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
NYC leaders: Boulder flamethrower attack part of antisemitic terror campaign; NYPD on alert
Jewish leaders and elected officials in New York City expressed horror and outrage over the flamethrower attack on Jewish marchers in Boulder, Colorado, and urged federal and local governments to do more to protect communities from growing antisemitic violence. 'We're witnessing a global campaign of intimidation and terror deliberately directed against the Jewish people,' Anti Defamation League CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. 'Sadly, none of this is surprising. In fact, it's entirely predictable. This is precisely where anti-Jewish incitement leads. This is exactly what vicious anti-Zionism enables. Elected officials, community groups, media platforms, faith leaders — they all need to commit to taking action before this crisis escalates even further.' Greenblatt joined leaders across the five boroughs to strongly condemn Sunday's fiery attack on a small group of Colorado marchers who were drawing attention to the plight of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza. Police in Boulder arrested a 45-year-old Egyptian national who was in the country illegally accused of wielding a makeshift flamethrower on a courthouse lawn where peaceful demonstrators were gathered to raise awareness of Israeli hostages who have remained in custody since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel. Cops said suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman yelled 'Free Palestine' in a brutal attack that left four women and four men ranging in age from 52 to 88 with severe burns. One of the victims was a Holocaust survivor, police said. 'The attack in Boulder is another example of a wave of domestic terror attacks aimed at the Jewish community,' Jewish Federations of North America President & CEO Eric Fingerhut said in a statement. 'This must be the highest priority for the Trump Administration and Congress.' The NYPD was already on high alert after a gunman shot and killed two Israeli Embassy staffers May 22 outside a Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Law enforcement officials described that attack a 'targeted' hate crime. 'We're monitoring the horrific attack in Colorado targeting an event for Israeli hostages,' a police department representative said in a social media post. 'The NYPD has already increased our presence at religious sites throughout NYC for Shavuot with high visibility patrols and heavy weapons teams.' Central Synagogue posted a statement on Facebook noting that 'this marks the second violent attack against Jews in the U.S. in less than two weeks. Antisemtiism and violence are not the answer. Our hearts are with the victimes, their families and the Boulder community.' Local officials expressed their outrage. 'Another act of horrific, vile antisemitism and terrorism in our country, as an individual violently attacked a peaceful crowd in Boulder, Colorado, gathered to call for the release of the hostages still held in Gaza since Hamas' terror attacks on October 7, 2023,' Mayor Adams said in a post on the X social media platform. 'Out of abundance of caution, the NYPD is increasing resources at religious sites throughout our city ahead of the sacred holiday of Shavuot. We will not rest until we root out this unacceptable violence and rhetoric from our communities.' Radio host and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa said the attack was 'beyond despicable.' 'No one should live in fear for who they are,' Sliwa said in a statement. 'Here in NYC, antisemitic hate is far too common, and City Hall has allowed those who spread hate to take over streets and bridges, trying to intimidate our Jewish neighbors. This cannot continue.' City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams called the attack 'devastating and unacceptable.' 'We must always denounce and reject antisemitism, hate and violence in our communities—they make us all less safe,' she said in a statement. 'Praying for the victims of this horrific violence in Boulder, the first responders on the scene, and our communities.'