The War of Ideas in the Middle East
The back-of-the-envelope history of the Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was formed by B'nai B'rith in
1913 to be the leading Jewish defense agency in the wake of the
conviction of Leo Frank, an officer of the National Pencil Co. of
Atlanta, Georgia, for the murder of 13 year old Mary Phagan, a shop
floor worker at the pencil factory. It was a verdict that many
believed to be a miscarriage of justice, which was compounded by Frank
being kidnapped from prison two years later and lynched, the only
American Jew known to have suffered that fate.
By 1937, the Anti-Defamation League had embarked on another occupation, assisting in keeping files and spying on who were alleged to be communist or pro-communist organizations and individuals. In that year, a 1947 Congressional hearing revealed, it had begun providing information on the recently formed National Lawyers Guild and on individuals applying for government jobs to the original House Committee on Un-American Activities chaired by the notorious racist and anti-semite, Rep. Martin Dies, which came to be referred to simply as the Dies Committee.
In the anti-communist witch hunts conducted at the beginning of the Cold War, the ADL assisted and acted as a go-between for both the Congressional committees and members or former members of the CPUSA who chose to inform on their former comrades and friends. (With Jewish domination of most of CPUSA and most of the the communist movement in the U.S. this served many purposes.)
While the ADL’s recent public face was that of an organization determined to rid the country of neo-Nazis and skinheads, its raison d’etre in the absence of any serious threats of anti-semitism, was not defense of Jews, per se, but defense of Israel and the intimidation and public humiliation of its critics. While that invariably gained the ADL headlines, what was hidden from the public was of equal importance.
The ADL, by the late 1980s had begun one of the largest private spying operations in the United States, a fact that was discovered by the San Francisco police in 1992 when it raided the ADL office after discovering that it had been working with a rogue SF cop, Tom Gerard, who had been providing the organization with personal non-public information about a host of American citizens, but, in particular, those supporting the Palestinian cause and opposing South African apartheid.
It turned out that this cop was partnering with a San Francisco weight lifter, Roy Bullock, who had infiltrated the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a number of other organizations and had in his files the names of over 10,000 individuals and over 600 organizations, most of which were kept in what Bullock labeled as Pinko files. Bullock and Gerard were also being paid by South African intelligence officials to provide them with the same information on anti-apartheid activism that they had been collecting for the ADL.
Bullock had been identified as the ADL’s “main fact finder” by the late Irwin Suall, who headed the group’s intelligence apparatus, but depositions taken at the time revealed there were similar spying operations being conducted by the ADL across the United States. Despite the ADL having promised to cease trying to illegally obtain information on its enemies at the time in exchange for not being prosecuted, there is no evidence that it has. Rather it has strengthened its ties with police across the country through its LEARN program (Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network) in which it trains police in dealing with what they deem to be “extremist groups” and “hate crimes” (which often focuses on what the ADL perceives as enemies and rivals from other ethnic groups, whether it be Muslims, African Americans, Whites, Mexicans and anti Zionists and aggressive critics of all stripes.)
The ADL has become identified with the antics and pronouncements of its long-time national director, Abe Foxman, who has made a name for himself by taking on anyone he considers guilty of anti-Semitism, which means criticizing Israel or the abuse of Jewish power. In the past this has included Marlon Brando, Mel Gibson, and most recently Oliver Stone. Jews are not immune, as New York University professor Tony Judt, a very moderate critic of Israel policy found out in 2006 when Foxman interceded with the Polish Consulate in New York to prevent the British Jewish writer from giving a talk in the building’s meeting room on “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
Now, Foxman is in the headlines once again, trying to prevent an Islamic center, one that would be open to everyone, from being constructed adjacent to the site of the World Trade Center bombing. This would appear to be a clear violation of the mission statement of the organization, part of which states that its “purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” For Foxman, apparently, that mission no longer includes Muslims.
By 1937, the Anti-Defamation League had embarked on another occupation, assisting in keeping files and spying on who were alleged to be communist or pro-communist organizations and individuals. In that year, a 1947 Congressional hearing revealed, it had begun providing information on the recently formed National Lawyers Guild and on individuals applying for government jobs to the original House Committee on Un-American Activities chaired by the notorious racist and anti-semite, Rep. Martin Dies, which came to be referred to simply as the Dies Committee.
In the anti-communist witch hunts conducted at the beginning of the Cold War, the ADL assisted and acted as a go-between for both the Congressional committees and members or former members of the CPUSA who chose to inform on their former comrades and friends. (With Jewish domination of most of CPUSA and most of the the communist movement in the U.S. this served many purposes.)
While the ADL’s recent public face was that of an organization determined to rid the country of neo-Nazis and skinheads, its raison d’etre in the absence of any serious threats of anti-semitism, was not defense of Jews, per se, but defense of Israel and the intimidation and public humiliation of its critics. While that invariably gained the ADL headlines, what was hidden from the public was of equal importance.
The ADL, by the late 1980s had begun one of the largest private spying operations in the United States, a fact that was discovered by the San Francisco police in 1992 when it raided the ADL office after discovering that it had been working with a rogue SF cop, Tom Gerard, who had been providing the organization with personal non-public information about a host of American citizens, but, in particular, those supporting the Palestinian cause and opposing South African apartheid.
It turned out that this cop was partnering with a San Francisco weight lifter, Roy Bullock, who had infiltrated the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a number of other organizations and had in his files the names of over 10,000 individuals and over 600 organizations, most of which were kept in what Bullock labeled as Pinko files. Bullock and Gerard were also being paid by South African intelligence officials to provide them with the same information on anti-apartheid activism that they had been collecting for the ADL.
Bullock had been identified as the ADL’s “main fact finder” by the late Irwin Suall, who headed the group’s intelligence apparatus, but depositions taken at the time revealed there were similar spying operations being conducted by the ADL across the United States. Despite the ADL having promised to cease trying to illegally obtain information on its enemies at the time in exchange for not being prosecuted, there is no evidence that it has. Rather it has strengthened its ties with police across the country through its LEARN program (Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network) in which it trains police in dealing with what they deem to be “extremist groups” and “hate crimes” (which often focuses on what the ADL perceives as enemies and rivals from other ethnic groups, whether it be Muslims, African Americans, Whites, Mexicans and anti Zionists and aggressive critics of all stripes.)
The ADL has become identified with the antics and pronouncements of its long-time national director, Abe Foxman, who has made a name for himself by taking on anyone he considers guilty of anti-Semitism, which means criticizing Israel or the abuse of Jewish power. In the past this has included Marlon Brando, Mel Gibson, and most recently Oliver Stone. Jews are not immune, as New York University professor Tony Judt, a very moderate critic of Israel policy found out in 2006 when Foxman interceded with the Polish Consulate in New York to prevent the British Jewish writer from giving a talk in the building’s meeting room on “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
Now, Foxman is in the headlines once again, trying to prevent an Islamic center, one that would be open to everyone, from being constructed adjacent to the site of the World Trade Center bombing. This would appear to be a clear violation of the mission statement of the organization, part of which states that its “purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” For Foxman, apparently, that mission no longer includes Muslims.
Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel Lobby, US Politics
“an Islamic center, one that would be open to everyone, from being constructed adjacent to the site of the World Trade Center bombing.”
How is the ADL still a respectable organization with this history? It sounds more like a hate group.
“In the absence of any serious threats of anti-semitism,” indeed. The “American Al Qaeda,” youtube and tv news phony Adam Gadahn/Pearlman is the grandson of an ADL board member. That “Revolution Muslim” group whose members had all been West Bank settlers from Brooklyn.” There was a story recently of a Jewish girl at George Washington University who painted swastikas on her own dorm door and got caught by a concealed camera. Makes you wonder how coordinated, funded and organized it all is.
Consider: ADL Trains US Police Forces and FBI
The Department of Homeland Security was Joe Lieberman’s idea. Dana Priest was interviewed on C Span Washington Journal about a week ago (before the full impact of Priest’s massive study of the explosion of US intelligence gathering contractors was buried under the chatter over Julian Assange’s revelations.) Priest said that no one understands how Homeland Security works; it’s an agglomeration of laws and rules pulled in from numerous other government institutions.
ADL has access to police information (not going to bother right now to research the police information systems that link records from all over the country into databases accessible to . . . . to ADL.
You want to go public with your activism, you feel patriotic; are you willing to expose your private life to attack by ADL who will intimidate you?
Americans have been systematically and systemically intimidated.This happened before: this is how Zionists in Germany from the 1880s thru 1940s terrorized the German public. THAT is why Germans reacted in rage to the Jewish people among them.
I had no idea about the ADL’s activities.
After Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi publicly whitewashed Mussolini’s fascist regime, the ADL gave Berlusconi an award (!!), the Distinguished Statesman Award. Why? Because under Berlusconi, Italy was a close ally of Israel. [Source: Norman Finkelstein's eye-opening book Beyond Chutzpah] The take-home lesson here is that the ADL hasn’t been a civil-rights organization for a very long time. Instead, it’s part of the Israel Lobby.
Here’s the way the game is played: someone criticizes Israel. The ADL then blasts the critic for anti-Semitism, a serious charge (if true). Thus the ADL spends much of its time in defaming critics of Israel. The ADL tried this on Walt and Mearsheimer, but without success.
Who gets to define what antisemitism is; who gets to decide whether the charge is true or false; and underlying those steps, why do Jewish people get special treatment and special protections beyond any other group in the US or, given the worldwide portfolio of the State Dept. office of antisemitism, in the whole world? Why do Jews get special treatment, and why are Jews the legislators, judge, and jury on how their privileged treatment is carried out?
Jeff Blankfort back-of-the-envelope history is predictably ridiculous, omitting the ADL’s long history of civil rights activism.
I was fortunate enough to get a copy of at least part of its spy’s file on me, which was sent by the ADL to both Israel and South Africa, and after 10 years, received a paid settlement from the organization without agreeing to sign a “confidentiality agreement.”
In other words, that I can talk about what we learned from the depositions and evidence I am free to talk about which is why when the listeners to my radio program on a public radio station complain to the ADL about me, they are told simply “to monitor” my programs, since it is not about to take any action against me.
A few years back, I was on a panel with two other anti-Zionist Jews at KPFK in Los Angeles where we were supposed to debate three full blown zionists, one of them from the ADL, who pulled out at the last minute without sending a replacement. It was too bad but smart on the ADL’s part because I had a large file from our case that I was going to ask its representative about, beginning with its spy’s work for the South African apartheid regime and why he had not only the key but the floor plan to the office of Alex Odeh, the head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Orange County who was killed when a Jewish terrorist blew up the office.
When it has come to “civil rights,” there has been only one litmus test for the ADL and for other mainstream Jewish organizations, “Is it good for the Jews.”
So why the ADL has actively opposed “affirmative action” for African-Americans because, they say, it presupposes quotas which once negatively affected Jews, they buy off black politicians and preachers so they will keep quiet about it. It is all for immigration reform benefiting Latinos, not just because it offers them a chance to hire a cheap nanny or gardener, but because it, like the American Jewish Committee, has been actively wooing the growing numbers of Latino voters because that would be in Israel’s benefit.
In fact, ADL has a special department for Hispanic Affairs, and like the Congressional Black/House Negro Caucus, all of its members of the Latino Caucus in Congress are in the Israel Lobby’s pocket. It has been so successful that there is not a single well known Latino leader who speaks critically of Israel. Next question?
The ADL has not “actively opposed” affirmative action. It filed a brief in favor of Bakke. It has been on the side of affirmative action proponents in virtually every other case, the latest being the brief filed in favor of Bollinger in Grutter v. Bollinger, as I pointed out the last time you made this nonsensical argument. Just about everybody I know at both organizations supports affirmative action, a policy, needless to say, which does not benefit Jews in any meaningful way today and in all honesty, probably hurts them. What you say is just complete and utter bullshit, the absolute opposite of the truth.
No reasonable person would conflate opposing racial quotas with being against affirmative action. It is propaganda on your part, nothing more.
As for Grutter vs Bollinger, this is how one site summed up ADL’s position:
“Anti-Defamation League (Gratz & Grutter)
While supporting the University’s commitment to diversity, ADL believes the University’s admissions scheme denies prospective students equal protection by emphasizing their race, and not relevant individual characteristics.”
The American Jewish Committee, the state department of the Jewish establishment which focuses on outreach to the African-American and Latino communities took a supportive position.
I have not made any claims that apply to the organized Jewish establishments. They are dedicated to doing what is best, or what they think is best for Jews, and that is the criteria for their inter-group and inter-faith relations, the latter being used to make non-Jews feel guilty for not having done more to save Jews during WW 2, an argument that has grown more than a bit tiresome and was never valid to begin with.
Jews, as individuals, have played important roles in major political and social struggles that we have seen in America, although at a declining rate since the founding of the state of Israel. Hophmi, it appears, is not one of them.
Rather he/she/it is clearly one of those Jews who has answered the call from the big machas of the Zionist International to get on websites and do their hasbara schtick.
For the life of me, I just can’t figure out the motivation for that press release, or the fact that given the outrage, even from hasbara kooks like Jeffrey Goldberg, that the press release has not been deleted or modified in any way.
I had thought they merely became corrupt. I like to think of myself as a realist, but ‘reality’ keeps on being worse than I had guessed. Does that make me an optimist? :)
Lo and behold, it turns out my comment could have easily been viewed by many as sensationalist exaggeration, given the unfamiliarity with ADL’s history.
This isn’t directed at you, Colin. It’s just that your post reminded me of several others of similar nature.
By the way, it’s good to see you posting again. That’s some hiatus you’ve been on.
I wonder how this will play in Hollywood? Their therapists will be working overtime this week.
Jeff’s dates suggest that this collaboration against the anti-apartheid ‘communists’ went on until about the time the Soviet Union collapsed, at the end of 1991. It would have undermined the ADL’s anti-racist facade completely if it had been allowed to become widely known. The alliance between center-left (or left-liberal) US jews and black rights activists in the US broke down in the late 1960s at least partly because of israel’s collaboration with apartheid south africa.
A very little part, since there was virtually no Israel-South African collaboration at that point. There are many reasons why the Black-Jewish alliance broke down and plenty of blame to go around, but South Africa does not have much to do with it.
Hatchets haven’t got a chance against white phosphorus or nuclear bombs.
What was also a part of that and critically important was a deal made in 1973 between former American Jewish Congress head Arthur Hertzberg and Rep. Charles Rangel in which the Congressional Black Caucus (which more accurately should be called the House Negro Caucus) would continue supporting without question US aid for Israel (which would also come to mean not publicly complaining about Israel’s arm sales to South Africa) in exchange for the Jewish establishment’s backing of the CBC’s domestic agenda.
The CBC/HNC kept its side of the bargain to its everlasting discredit while there should be little doubt but that the way those welfare programs were designed and administrated has been ultimately detrimental to the larger African-American community.
On the the other hand those House Negroes who agreed to take their marching orders from AIPAC invariably found the funding and critical political backing to maintain their seats.
There were a number who didn’t, the most notable being Cynthia McKinney. They were all eventually driven from office. That Rangel is now threatened with being driven from office himself thanks to his other criminal activities seems an altogether fitting end to his career.
In a sense, much like many of our conventional wars, they were a proving ground for the tactics and technology of oppression. Wasn’t South Africa the largest purchaser of weaponry from Israel, particularly due to sales restrictions imposed by other countries? There is also much written about cooperative efforts in chemical, genetic, and bio-warfare.
Great piece, Jeffrey. Thank you for your continued efforts in providing accurate background and uncovering the truth.
Comin’ down the rail-road track,
Oy, there’s a new-kind discourse comin’
Comin’ down the rail-road track!
It’s that anti-Zionist Special,
Runnin’ down those zio-hacks….”
Thanks for that piece and the follow up. I didn’t know of the adl’s collaboration with the anti-commie goons of that earlier period, before WW2 and during the mccarthy witch hunts.
but South Africa will soon be the new Zimbabwe.
And Iraq will soon be the new Cambodia.