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quoms:

Dissent Over Zionism Is Splitting the ADL From Within: Ex-Staff

Several recent ADL employees connected the ADL’s current divisions to a May 2021 speech in which [ADL CEO Jonathan] Greenblatt announced that “antizionism is antisemitism,” and pledged to “apply more concentrated energy toward the threat of radical antizionism” from left-leaning and pro-Palestinian groups that he described as “the Radical Left, the photo inverse of the Extreme Right that ADL long has tracked.”

At the time, some then-staffers objected to Greenblatt’s announcement, “not in spite of their Jewish identity,” a different former staffer told The Daily Beast, “but because of it and how Jewish history and the values they get from their faith compel them to identify with the violence and trauma inflicted on Palestinians.”

But that former employee and others said their dissent was not well received. “There was no space for any real conversation, as an organization, on what that stance was,” another said. “We would be told as employees, if that’s something that we disagreed on ethically or morally, then we can leave and find another place of employment.” […]

The ADL’s comments about pro-Palestinian groups have put it in opposition to other civil rights groups.

In its own letter to university leaders this month, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote that the ADL “recently issued an open letter to university presidents alleging, without citing to any evidence, that pro-Palestine student groups are, through their words, providing material support to Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and have urged sweeping investigations into these groups for material support of terrorism.”

The letter went on to state that, while the ACLU does not take positions on other nations’ conflicts, its staff “strongly oppose efforts to stifle free speech, free association, and academic freedom here at home. In the name of those principles, we urge you to reject calls to investigate, disband, or penalize student groups on the basis of their exercise of free speech rights.”

Meanwhile, staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that also monitors extremism, expressed frustration with the ADL’s public stances since Oct. 7. Multiple SPLC staffers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Daily Beast that the ADL’s position had driven a rift between the organizations.

“I see no reason to work with an organization that draws such false equivalencies between actual neo-Nazi terrorists and anti-war student groups,” one SPLC staffer said. “The idea that, as Greenblatt has proposed, student groups ought to be investigated for providing material support for terrorism is such an atrocious and despicable idea to begin with. But to propose that and then still call yourself a civil rights group? It’s unforgivable.” […]

Former ADL staff also described themselves as occasionally blindsided by their employer, and that ADL-wide policies sometimes came with little notice from Greenblatt, even at times contradicting other departments at the ADL, or appearing to undercut the organization’s own work against bigotry.

In one instance, the former staffer said, Greenblatt appeared to agree with Fox News when the right-wing media giant accused the ADL’s educational materials of promoting so-called “critical race theory” due to the inclusion of concepts like “structural racism” and “intersectionality.”

The ADL released a statement acknowledging that some of the materials were “misaligned with” the organization’s values, and that the ADL would “launch a thorough review” of its educational content.

“Jonathan threw the education department under the bus,” the former staffer said. “That was done over the heads of comms [communications] department. When the education department asked which materials weren’t in alignment with ADL values, and which values, they never got a satisfactory answer.” […]

The ADL has previously documented Musk’s flirtation with the far right and antisemitism. When Musk announced plans to buy Twitter last year, the ADL’s Center on Extremism published an article titled “Elon Musk Plans to Buy Twitter. Right-wing Extremists Rejoice.”

But in a CNBC appearance shortly ahead of Musk’s Twitter purchase last October, Greenblatt suggested that Musk might be a good steward for the site and help it clean up its “toxicity.” “Elon Musk is an amazing entrepreneur, an extraordinary innovator. He’s the Henry Ford of our time,” Greenblatt said in the interview.

The comparison to Ford raised eyebrows within the ADL, former staff said, because Ford was a notorious antisemite. The ADL has devoted significant space on its website to detailing Ford’s role in promoting anti-Jewish bigotry in America. Greenblatt later walked back the analogy, stating that “admittedly, the Henry Ford reference was wrong even though he was an innovator in the automobile industry. I certainly was not trying to praise Ford and didn’t intend to minimize his contemptible antisemitism in any way.”

In summary, Jonathan Greenblatt:

All of which makes him approximately as competent and in-touch and as much of a subject expert as the average American CEO. So in that sense, maybe not much to see here? Still, what better person to lead the charge against anti-Jewish bigotry at this critical juncture.