🔗 Share this article

The Anti-Defamation League, among the most prominent Jewish advocacy as well as anti-hate organizations in the US, is now the focus of a rightwing crusade that escalated on Wednesday when FBI director Kash Patel condemned the organization and announced the bureau would sever relations with the group.

Patel's statement came after several days of attacks by conservative commentators and Elon Musk aimed at the ADL over its digital glossary on hate groups, which included a entry on deceased conservative activist the activist's Turning Point USA and the organization’s connections to far-right extremists. On Tuesday, the ADL removed its entire extremism database, a key initiative that contained more than 1,000 entries on groups and movements linked to hateful ideologies. This action failed to quell the backlash.

The anger against the ADL this week has put the century-old non-profit in a difficult position. It has experienced years of staff disputes as well as accusations it has tried to placate the former administration and the billionaire at the expense of its founding principles. Currently it finds itself under fire by many of the very rightwing forces it previously supported.

How Did the ADL Backlash Begin?

Recently, a number of prominent rightwing accounts started sharing images of the ADL’s page on TPUSA, criticizing the organization for including the conservative organization in its Glossary of Extremism. One of the initial comments, from a so-called “online provocateur”, claimed the ADL of having “responsibility for violence”.

The ADL had not classified TPUSA as an extremist organization, but instead recorded events where its officials and affiliated activists had either aligned with radicals or made “offensive statements”. Other conservative voices soon followed with more posts about the ADL. Some spread a screenshot of the league's entry on the an extremist ideology – an extremist ideology that espouses a racial holy war against Jewish people and marginalized groups – to claim that the Anti-Defamation League was biased against Christians in general.

The digital crusade targeting the ADL escalated further over the weekend after Musk, who owns X and boasts over 220 million users on the platform, started replying to comments about the organization and joining in on the criticism.

“The ADL hates Christian people, therefore it should be considered a extremist organization,” the billionaire replied recently to an X account that often tweets anti-immigrant material. Elsewhere, he suggested that the ADL’s operations encouraged violence.

Following a period of rightwing outrage – that featured Anna Paulina Luna – accusing the ADL of “creating a focused smear effort against Christian communities”, the group announced this week that it had eliminated its complete extremism database from its website – a resource it promoted in 2022 as “the fullest and intuitive guide on extremist speech presently accessible to the public”. The ADL framed the move to remove as a way to “investigate fresh approaches and innovative methods to present our data and present our findings more effectively”.

The ADL has weathered similar backlash efforts from rightwing activists in the past, including from an influential online figure of the popular Libs of TikTok in 2023, though these campaigns did not lead to drastic deletion.

Failure to Stop the Criticism

Despite the league's apparent capitulation to Musk and other critics, the rightwing campaign against the group persisted. Within 24-hours after, the FBI director, wrote on the platform that his agency would end its partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, claimed the non-profit of spying on conservative groups, and criticized former FBI director James Comey’s praise of the group. The ADL had long partnered with law enforcement to conduct trainings on antisemitism, provide historical lessons and provide information on extremist groups.

“The former director authored ‘love letters’ to the Anti-Defamation League and embedded federal officers with them – a organization that operated unethical operations spying on citizens,” Patel posted on X. “That era is FINISHED. This FBI will not work with biased groups masquerading as monitors”.

The ADL did not get any formal communications from the former administration about its relationship with the bureau and is working to learn more, the organization said in a statement on Thursday.

“We has deep respect for the FBI and law enforcement officers at all levels nationwide who work tirelessly constantly to protect every citizen regardless of their ancestry, faith, ethnicity, beliefs, views or any point of difference,” the announcement states.

The campaign targeting the Anti-Defamation League has occurred amid a conservative movement that has aimed to target people and organizations that have been critical of Kirk. Conservative activists have stated to have focused on tens of thousands of people who have reportedly criticized Kirk or applauded the activist’s death, with one group declaring: “We will reshape the membership of US organizations.”

Following the Anti-Defamation League removed its glossary of extremism, Musk and additional conservative commentators started moving their focus to the Southern Poverty Law Center – another prominent human rights and anti-hate organization. Musk called for the SPLC, which additionally recorded the organization's links to radical beliefs, an “evil organization” that “needs to be shut down”.

Didn’t the Anti-Defamation League Defend Elon Musk?

The entrepreneur's assault on the Anti-Defamation League recently is one aspect of a long-term, fraught relationship between the wealthy executive and the organization. The ADL has sometimes criticized Musk and his firms for events such as his Grok chatbot endorsing pro-Nazi ideology and referring to itself as “MechaHitler”; but, it additionally defended him when he encountered claims of anti-Jewish sentiment.

The ADL CEO, ADL’s leader, praised the billionaire in 2023 for stating he would block use of the pro-Palestinian slogan “a disputed expression” on his platform. Shortly prior, however, he had endorsed an bigoted idea on the site that alleged Jewish communities promoted animosity against white people. The CEO's praise led to an uproar within the group, and a its top executives stepped down following the incident.

The ADL went to bat for him once again recently, when Jewish lawmakers and advocacy organizations criticized what they described as Musk’s controversial gestures publicly after a speech after the election. The ADL posted: “It appears that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.”

Carrying water for Musk once more led to additional unrest within the group, with news outlets