By Daniel Greenfield
By Maryland GovPics – ADL Nation Leadership Summit, CC BY 2.0
Liberal groups can’t be counted on to defend Jews.
After Oct 7, the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt course corrected away from his previous appeasement of the anti-Israel Left. And while there were still plenty of things wrong with the liberal group, Greenblatt told the DEI people brought into the ADL that if they were anti-Israel, they could leave.
While the ADL under Greenblatt was still a long way from what it was under Foxman (which was still very liberal and weak on most issues except opposing conservatives), it did tepidly push back against the anti-Israel Left.
When Trump announced the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student leader in a movement that had called for ‘Death to America’ and supported the Hamas murder of Jews, the ADL approved.
It did so at a time when Amy Spitalnick, a former J Street anti-Israel activist running the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, and the Jewish Democratic Council of America, denounced the move.
But now Greenblatt is backpedaling.
In a self-contradictory op-ed that tries to have it both ways, Greenblatt expresses appreciation for the Trump administration taking on antisemitism, but then dissolves into a puddle of objections involving “due process” and “constitutional values” that must take priority over securing the rights of Jews.
The Trump administration has gone ahead and pulled visas for people who publicly supported terrorism or were involved with groups that did, or broke the law by taking part in illegal activities including ‘occupations’. This is not a “constitutional” issue. And the due process involves identifying this behavior.
Greenblatt is under a lot of pressure from anti-Israel groups and media outlets. A few days, Matt Bai of the Washington Post launched a vitriolic attack on Greenblatt, claiming that the ADL could not be considered a “civil rights group” if it supported the arrest and deportation of those who target Jews.
“You can’t call yourself a civil rights organization in the United States right now — let alone a civil rights organization for a minority that has been brutally evicted all over the world — and not loudly oppose the cruel and unlawful removal of foreigners whose views happen to be out of fashion,” Bai argued.
Except that the “views” in this case involve the murder of Jews and the assault on Jews in this country and they are quite in “fashion” which is why the entire Left, including Matt Bai and the Washington Post, have risen to the defense of these Hamas supporters.
And why Greenblatt and the ADL are once again turning their backs on Jewish civil rights to defer to leftist antisemites.
It’s why liberal groups can’t be counted on to defend Jews.
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