Is the answer a second ADL?

First appeared in The Jewish Advocate

Written By  Professor Barry Rubin, Director of GLORIA (Global Research in International Affairs Center) in Tel Aviv

Reading the Anti-Defamation League’s answer to Charles Jacobs (“ADL fires back,” Dec. 16), much of which is insults, made me curious. It was reasonable for Jacobs to base a study on press releases; these releases, after all, announce ADL reports and activities.

If indeed Jacobs was so wrong, it would be easy for ADL to produce a long list of public activities.

To figure out the truth, I went to the ADL Web site. On the front page is a letter ADL National Director Abe Foxman sent The New York Times saying the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t moderate; alongside was a complaint that sponsors pulled out of a television show on Muslims – is that bigotry?

The Extremism section of the site only has a discussion of right-wing groups; no Islamist or leftist group or activity is named.

A page on anti-Semitism in the Arab/Muslim world has material, and a page on terrorism includes Islamist terrorist groups. The International page includes criticism of the US ambassador to Belgium’s remarks whitewashing Islamic anti- Semitism.

So my very unscientific conclusion is this: To its credit, ADL devotes a significant effort to documenting Islamist anti- Semitism in the Middle East and terrorism.

On the other hand, I didn’t find material on anti-Semitism in Islamic publications or groups in the United States, despite the fact that many such examples exist. Moreover, the Web site seems to omit all mention of left-wing anti-Semitism, the most significant form of contemporary Western anti- Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is no longer the province of neo-Nazi skinheads, but of powerful Islamist forces that are on the verge of ruling one-quarter of a billion people. The dominant Western view of many of these movements is that they are moderate, and there is a willingness to work with them. Isn’t that a threat that should be the No. 1 priority of ADL?

Simultaneously, in the West anti-Semitism has become more common and even respectable in leftist and often pseudo-liberal circles. Shouldn’t this be the No. 2 priority of ADL.

First appeared in The Jewish Advocate

Written by Kenneth Jacobson, Deputy National Director of the ADL

Charles Jacobs is at it again (“ADL-addled in Michigan,” Dec. 2). His latest diatribe against the Anti- Defamation League follows his previous pattern – replete with distortions, inaccuracies, exaggerations, and hyperbolic attacks that shed more heat than light.

The subject this time is a closed public school building in Michigan being purchased by the Islamic Cultural Association of Michigan. Playing six degrees of separation, Jacobs seems prepared to allege – without evidence – that the school is going to be a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. The conclusion is far-fetched and irresponsible. We believe that the Farmington Hills School District thoroughly researched the proposed purchaser, and the opposition to the school at a recent school board meeting is mostly a sad and unfortunate manifestation of anti-Islamic prejudice.

Regarding Jacobs’ criticism that ADL has not taken the threat of Islamic extremism seriously enough, the “research” he conducted to support this conclusion is amateurish. Counting press releases and basing an assessment on that is like writing a movie review based on what someone who didn’t like the movie tells you.

Islamic extremism has been a priority for us since 1985, when we publicly joined forces with the Klinghoffer family in the aftermath of the Achille Lauro tragedy to raise awareness of the threat and develop counteraction strategies. In the past decade, our concerns have prompted us to significantly expand our Center on Extremism, adding Arabspeaking research analysts, increasing our extensive monitoring of publications, Web sites and social media, producing a new series of newsletters and major reports, and augmenting the training we provide for law enforcement officials.

If he had spent a little more time on his research, Jacobs might have found on ADL’s Web site copies of such recently issued reports as “American Muslim Extremists: A Growing Threat to Jews” and “Brotherhood of Hate: Muslim Brotherhood’s Hatred for Jews.”

Jacobs has a lot of energy and a lot of passion. It is unfortunate that he has not found a more constructive way to channel it.

First appeared in the Jewish Advocate

By Charles Jacobs and Ilya Feoktistov

It might have been just some local government scandal: A shuttered public school sold in a no-bid contract to a private buyer after officials told other interested buyers the building was not up for sale; residents up in arms and suing. … Nasty, but it could happen almost anywhere.

It turns out, however, that the new owner plans to turn the school into a mosque. And that among the buyers who were turned away was a religious Jewish school. And that the mosquebuilding group is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. And that the Anti- Defamation League – the nation’s largest Jewish defense organization – did nothing for the Jewish school, but is defending the mosque deal. This is not just some local corruption story.

The drama is unfolding in Michigan’s Farmington public schools, a district in the most affluent county in the state, not far from Dearborn and Detroit. The Islamic Cultural Association of Michigan (ICA) – the organization that got the inside deal – is affiliated with the North American Islamic Trust – which is, according to federal authorities, a Muslim Brotherhood front. The ICA invited the vicious anti-Semite Norman Finkelstein to lecture to its members. The Brotherhood’s recent massive rally in Cairo featured mass chants of “kill all the Jews.”

When the good citizens of Farmington Hills discovered what had transpired, they were angry but also perplexed. How did the ICA snatch up the school behind the public’s back? Some initial digging unearthed a set of circumstantial facts that might whet the appetite of a prosecutor: The school district’s legal firm, Miller Canfield, funds an interfaith project that is closely allied with a state-wide Muslim umbrella group – the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, of which the ICA is a member.

Miller Canfield was also the main sponsor of a speech by controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who had been banned by the Bush administration from the United States because of his ties to Hamas fundraising, but since allowed in on a visa. Ramadan was recently videotaped praying that Allah “strike the enemies of Islam” in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan (view him at Bit.ly/vao7OZ).

Miller Canfield provided a secret property appraisal that cinched the $1.1 million deal between the school district and the ICA. When Farmington residents asked for the details of the appraisal, the school board denied the request, claiming lawyerclient privilege between itself and Miller Canfield. A local news outlet sifted through county records and found that two school board members up for re-election had received campaign donations from ICA members. One, Karen Bolsen, received almost half of her campaign funds from people at the ICA. Just two days before a critical school board decision on the sale, a self-identified ICA member donated $2,000 to Bolsen’s campaign, double the legal limit.

On June 14, at an explosive school board meeting lasting past midnight, residents questioned the district’s failure to follow normal and transparent procedures. Speakers, many of them from outside the district, supported the deal. They claimed their opponents weren’t really bothered by breaches of fiduciary duty, but instead were motivated by racism and Islamophobia. Calling ICA members his “constituents,” Dawud Walid, executive director of the local branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), made that same accusation. CAIR is a radical organization, identified by federal authorities as a front for Hamas, a terror group with a charter that calls for genocide of the Jews. School officials joined in the attack. Board member Bolsen complained of the “feeling of hate … directed at us.” Board member Timothy Devine called the opponents “abominable, juvenile.” Board member Sheilah Clay told the residents: “You made me disappointed. … I’m sure that when African Americans moved into Farmington you probably said the same thing.”

CAIR’s use of the “bigotry” card surprised no one. What did surprise was the seeming alliance between CAIR and some of Detroit’s Jewish leaders. Concurring with CAIR’s Walid in support of the deal were Betsy Kellman, ADL’s Michigan director, and Robert Cohen, executive director of the Detroit Jewish Community Relations Council. They accused Farmington residents of having “strong anti-Muslim feelings” and “making generalizations about Muslims.” They said nothing about the proposed mosque’s radical links or its likely animus toward their own Jewish constituents. They said nothing about the board’s barring the Jewish school from buying the property. CAIR thanked them for their support and then falsely attacked the pro- Israel group StandWithUs for instigating the opposition.

In a phone interview, ADL’s Kellman told me she knew nothing about other buyers being turned down. She did not know that ICA is linked to the North American Islamic Trust. She did not know that the Islamic trust is a Muslim Brotherhood front. She told me it was the Huda Muslim school that invited Finkelstein, not the ICA. She did not know that the Huda school is operated by the ICA. She told me that the whole issue is dead because a lawsuit by opponents of the ICA purchase was thrown out of court. This is also not true – the case is pending in appeals court. When I asked why the Huda school would have invited Finkelstein, she said she didn’t know. When I asked how she could be sure that ICA was not tied to radicals, she referred me to the ICA Web site. “They pledge not to take foreign money.” Not exactly a vigorous vetting.

Kellman chairs the interfaith group ALPACT, which includes CAIR. She defends that by saying that law enforcement agencies and the NAACP also belong. In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder caused controversy when he addressed an ALPACT meeting with CAIR present – despite an FBI policy not to deal with CAIR. I would admire a Jewish leader who quit ALPACT and used the occasion to instruct the public on the dangers of Islamist Jew-hatred. Abe Foxman, ADL’s national head, acknowledges that Islamic Jew hatred poses the biggest threat to Jewish life, yet he does little to educate and warn Jews about it: Over the last 15 years, for example, only 3 percent of ADL’s press releases focused on Islamic extremism and Arab anti- Semitism (see www.charles jacobs.org). Foxman told The Advocate that his organization feels it must fight “Islamophobia” – so that the Muslim community “will stand with us.” Even if this were not as naively delusional as it sounds, why does opposing some presumed anti- Muslim bias require the ADL to support radical Muslim groups who invite Norman Finkelstein? Is inattention to radical Islam’s deadly threat to Jews part of ADL’s strategy to get Muslims to “stand with us?” Finally, President Barack Obama himself just signed a law prohibiting the FBI from dealing with terrorism trials’ unindicted co-conspirators – groups like CAIR and the ICA-affiliated North American Islamic Trust.

What in heaven’s name is the ADL doing? 

An Analysis of the Anti-Defamation League’s Press Release Archive as a Measure of the Organization’s Priorities

By Ilya Feoktistov and Charles Jacobs

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This study analyzed the 4269 ADL press releases archived on the ADL’s website as of October 17, 2011, which span 16 years (1995-2011) and are grouped on the ADL website into 25 focus categories: Major findings include:

• Only 7.7% of the press releases issued over the past 15 years focused on Islamic extremism (1.3%), Arab anti-Semitism (1.3%), and terrorism (5.0%).
• Of the 57 press releases that were devoted specifically to Islamic extremism, most were issued in the 1990s. While a total of 22 press releases were issued in 1996, only 13 have been issued during the ten years since September 11th, 2001.
• Press releases condemning traditional sources of anti-Semitism, such as Nazism and Christian theology, totaled 37.8%, those promoting “social justice” causes like civil rights totaled 30.5%, and pronouncements relating to Israel, the United Nations and the Middle East conflict totaled 24.0%

A more complete study of the ADL’s organizational focus would look at how the ADL apportions its multi-million dollar annual budget. 

BACKGROUND

The Anti-Defamation League has recently been criticized for not devoting enough resources to combating radical Islam's threat to World Jewry. Taking a qualitative look at the ADL's website and printed material suggested to us that the ADL devotes relatively little attention to Islamic extremism in its public communications. This study sought a way to quantify the ADL's priorities, predicting that the results will show a relatively low emphasis on Islamic extremism.

DATA SET AND RANGE

In order to most efficiently and objectively gauge the ADL’s overt focus on various topics, this study focuses on its extensive archive of press releases. This was done for several reasons. 

• A press release reflects an immediate focus of an organization – the issues which it most closely monitors and to which it most rapidly responds; the issues to which it calls public attention.
• Press releases are by far the largest discreet data set among all of the ADL’s published material, numbering 4269 individual press releases issued over 16 years between 1995 and 2011, as of October 18, 2011.
• The releases have already been divided into 25 focus categories on the ADL’s website – allowing us to analyze the ADL’s focus without the bias that creating an independent categorization scheme might cause. However, the ADL’s categorization scheme is imperfect, as discussed in the methodology section below.

METHODOLOGY AND STUDY LIMITATIONS

1. Islamic extremism and terrorismIn this general category are included the press releases listed by the ADL as devoted to Islamic extremism and its consequences: international terrorism, domestic terrorism, and the propagation of Arab anti-Semitism. Reading through the latter three categories, it’s noticeable that the ADL mostly ignored the Islamic extremist roots of terrorism and theological underpinnings of Arab Jew-hatred in the press releases it issued on these topics. Also, some press releases in the terrorism categories didn’t actually focus on Islamic terrorism. These releases either condemned Jewish terrorists (Dec ’01: “ADL Applauds FBI For Arrest of JDL Leader Irv Rubin for Alleged Acts Of Terrorism”), or warned of a backlash against Muslims due to Islamic terrorism (Sep ’01: “ADL Says Americans Must Remain United, Reject Group Hatred in Aftermath of Terrorist Attacks”) Due to the relatively small number of such press releases, the terrorism categories in their entirety were included within this general topic – making the findings slightly more favorable to the ADL.
2. Traditional sources of anti-SemitismThis category includes press releases devoted to long-recognized types of anti-Semitism: Nazism, white supremacism, etc. Several vaguely-worded ADL categories were classed in this topic. The “Internet” category is included here because the overwhelming majority of the press releases therein focus on Neo-Nazi online activity. It should be noted that a small number of press releases in this category (e.g. Jun ’08: “ADL recognized for combating cyberbullying”) actually have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. ADL’s press releases on international anti-Semitism are included here because the overwhelming majority of these focus on traditional anti-Semitism in Central and Eastern Europe. (Although there are a few press releases focused on Arab governments as well, e.g. Mar ’98: “ADL Appalled By Egyptian Press Anti-Jewish Attack On U.S. Ambassador, Urges Mubarak To Denounce Persistent Anti-Semitism In Egyptian Media”) The Nation of Islam is included in this topic because it is not generally considered to be a true Islamic movement and is more accurately described as traditional African-American anti-Semitism.
3. ”Social justice”Many of the ADL categories in this topic are vague: “Supreme Court,” “education,” “religious freedom,” etc. This topic was created because the vast majority of press releases in the ADL categories assigned here promote ADL positions on American politics and don’t specifically deal with Jewish defense. For example, the “Supreme Court” category contains press releases that mostly promote separation of church and state, gay rights, pro-choice politics, and gun control. (Jun ’00: “ADL Dismayed at Supreme Court Decision Allowing Boy Scouts to Discriminate Against Gays;” Apr ’07: “ADL Disappointed With Supreme Court Ruling On Partial Birth Abortion Act;” Jun ’08: “ADL Disappointed In Supreme Court Decision On Gun Rights”) One press release in the category urges the Supreme Court to extend civil protections to Guantanamo Bay detainees. (Aug ’07: “ADL Urges Supreme Court To Preserve Due Process Rights Of Guantanamo Bay Detainees”) The “education” category, while infrequently including Jewish-related press releases (e.g. Feb '09: "As Colleges Face Renewed Anti-Israel Activism, ADL Provides Students with Tools to Fight Back,"), most often focused on other issues. (E.g. Feb '05: "Miami-Dade Newborn Centers Get Free "All Kinds Of..." Diversity Board Books;" and Dec '09: "ADL Recommends New Anti-Bullying Report.")
4. Israel, the Middle East, and the United Nations. The ADL’s “Israel and the Middle East” category comprises by far the largest fraction of its press releases. It was grouped together with the ADL’s “United Nations” category because most of the press releases there focus on Israel’s relationship with the UN. The “Israel and the Middle East” category is a complicated one that was looked at in detail because the ADL might have classified some Islamic extremism-related press releases here. In fact, this potential error was negligible, but a large portion of the releases was found to be devoted to condemnation of “Jewish extremists” and promotion of leftist politics. This is discussed in the Findings below.

FINDINGS 

Based on an empirical analysis of the ADL’s press releases focused on Islamic extremism, it appears that: 

1. Far from being its primary focus, Islamic extremism is near the bottom of ADL’s concerns, with only 1.3% of its releases being devoted to the issue.
2. The fraction contributed by ADL press releases on three topics related to Islamic extremism: international terrorism – 3.8%, domestic terrorism – 1.3%, and Arab anti-Semitism – 1.3% still add the total up to only 7.7% of ADL’s press releases between 1995 and 2009.
3. A preliminary scan of the press releases suggests that the Islamic theological sources of hatred for Jews expressed in Arab anti-Semitism are mostly left undiscussed by the ADL. We note this for further study and analysis.

The specific “Islamic extremism” category (excluding terrorism and Arab anti-Semitism) was then further analyzed. A plot of the number of ADL press releases devoted to Islamic extremism per year appears below. The results were surprising: Out of the total 56 releases devoted to Islamic extremism put out by the ADL over this 15-year period, 22 were issued in 1996 alone. Yet from this peak, the ADL’s focus on Islamic extremism precipitously dropped off in the following years. In fact the ADL has only issued 13 press releases devoted to Islamic extremism since 9/11, barely half the number it issued in 1996 alone. No press releases devoted to Islamic extremism have been issued in 2011 so far. What had caused this late 1990s attenuation of ADL’s public comments on Islamic extremism?

Also interesting were the results that came from analyzing the largest ADL focus category – a fifth of total press releases issued – on Israel and the Middle East. This category was originally given a closer look out of concern that the ADL might have grouped many press releases that were actually related to Islamic extremism into the Israel and Middle East category instead. Considering the large number of press releases in this group, such miscategorization could create a significant error in our analysis. However, among the 841 press releases in this category, only three were found to be relevant to Islamic extremism (Jan ’01: “ADL Calls on PA and Islamic Leaders to Condemn Perversion of Religious Symbols;”Apr ’01: “ADL denounces claim by Muslim leaders that Pokeman game is "Jewish Conspiracy;"” Nov ’01: “ADL Says Anti-Semitic and Anti-American Reports in Arab and Muslim Media "Foment Anger And Hate."”) 

However, many of the ADL’s press releases on Israel were focused on condemning “Jewish right-wing extremism” and promoting left-of-center political causes. (E.g. Jan ’97: “ADL condemns attack on Palestinian by Israeli soldier;” Mar ‘02: “ADL alarmed by reports of new Jewish terror group;” and Nov ’09: “ADL Calls Israeli Settlement Freeze 'Courageous and Unprecedented.'”) 11% of the ADL’s press releases on Israel condemn Jewish right-wing extremists. 

CONCLUSIONS

While claiming that it sees Islamic extremism as the biggest threat to World Jewry, ADL addressed that threat, along with terrorism and Arab anti-Semitism, in only 7.7% of its press releases. This consititutes an incredibly tiny focus on what Abraham Foxman has insisted is, “the highest priority for ADL.” 
Surprisingly, even as Jewish safety is increasingly deteriorating around the globe, a large chunk of the ADL’s press release activity is apparently focused on “social justice” political issues like abortion, gun control, and due process rights for Guantanamo detainees. It is also noteworthy that so much of the ADL’s organizational focus on Israel has been diverted to promoting left-of-center causes. 

This study was a revealing, if incomplete and imperfect measure of the ADL’s focus. In the near future the research will be expanded to other quantifiable measures of organizational focus that the ADL makes publicly available – op-eds, educational seminars, etc. These are smaller and therefore less rigorous data sets, but they should be examined to determine whether the patterns exhibited by the press release data hold across other ADL publications. 

Because of the problems with the ADL’s organization scheme described in the study limitations section, the same biases that invoke criticism of the ADL also cloud its categories. Removing the errors associated with this would require a more thorough effort of grouping the press releases one by one. 

A historical and qualitative look at the ADL’s approach to confronting Islamic extremism should also be undertaken. For example, real progress against Christian anti-Semitism was achieved in great part through analysis and discussion of Christian holy texts. However, the ADL seems to exclude from its efforts any examination of Islamic canon and of the historical religious oppression of Jews as dhimmis in the Islamic world. This issue deserves a closer look.

Of course, a thorough study of the ADL’s organizational focus would examine its budget. Considering the concerns presented in this study, the ADL’s donors should urge the organization to make public exactly how it has been apportioning its multi-million dollar annual budget.