Posted on September 7, 2023

#BanTheADL and the Fight for Free Speech

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, September 7, 2023

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Liberal democracy is rule by media. In theory, the people rule. In practice, the will of the people is dictated. Public opinion is not the source of government policy, but the effect.

Consider the actions of our government and allied NGOs and media organizations since 2016. Mainstream social platforms — especially YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, and Twitter (now X) — have purged a huge number of websites, organizations, and political figures. Even President Trump lost his accounts. An advertising boycott damaged Breitbart, and Fox News dismissed its most popular host after legal threats and media attacks. Its opponents celebrated. Bank accounts and website domains are vulnerable. The federal government works with “watchdogs” to censor and deplatform people. The corporate media cheer because reporters gain power if they are the only voices.

Whether the excuse is to prevent “far-right terrorism,” “foreign interference,” or medical “misinformation,” the result is the same. Media power determines what Americans see, hear, say — and therefore think. Claims of a democratic “open society” are ridiculous. Any celebrity, “influencer,” or YouTuber can be purged any time. You could say no issue is more important than the right to stay platformed.

Perhaps the most powerful censor is the Anti-Defamation League. It is supposed to protect Jews, but it is now just another liberal activist organization. Even National Review has repeatedly attacked the ADL for promoting censorship.

Still, the ADL has more credibility than the Southern Poverty Law Center. The FBI stopped working with the SPLC, but the ADL still helps train all new FBI agents. At the ADL’s December 2022 “Never is Now Summit,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said that his organization “gels very well with yours,” and bragged about hunting “Nazis,” even as violent crime plagues the country. In the 1990s, the FBI investigated the ADL’s “extensive” spy network on Americans, but the groups have since kissed and made up.

The ADL may now be in one of its worst fights ever. It began when Keith Woods, fresh from the latest American Renaissance conference, called for the ADL to be banned from X because it is trying to sabotage the company. He had tweeted about it in the past, but got far more attention this time.

Elon Musk replied, saying that the ADL would not be banned. This is a concession, because X’s new Terms of Service say that accounts can be banned for “commercial inviability,” which appears to mean harming X financially. However, Mr. Musk did say that ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt tried to destroy his business and that he might sue.

Mr. Woods continues to score victories. One of the funniest came in a Spaces discussion on X, when an Israeli intelligence operative named Vivian Berovici tried to challenge him. Mr. Woods quickly exposed her. She fled the space and deleted her X account.

However, major media are backing the ADL. “Elon Musk comes around to blaming the Jews,” wrote Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times. Talking Points Memo similarly said that Musk was just “against the Jews.” The Daily Beast insisted that “advertisers and governments must dump Elon Musk.” NBC piled on.

Rolling Stone, once a magazine about music, was aghast.

The Atlantic chimed in:

Vox said Elon Musk was in a “strange new feud,” with what it laughably called a “Jewish anti-hate group.” Pure faux-naivete. Author Zack Beauchamp, who has a long history of anti-white commentary, was scandalized that Mr. Musk interacted with a user who had elsewhere said he respected Jared Taylor. No mention that Jared Taylor is still not back on the platform, which is the true scandal.

This is the problem: Journalists want to hide information, “civil rights” groups want to end free speech, and the “defenders of democracy” don’t trust the people. Still, Mr. Musk is getting support from Jews, notably Stephen Miller, Ashley St. Clair, and Chaya Raichik (of LibsofTikTok). It’s not true that Elon Musk is attacking “the Jews” or that “the Jews” oppose him. Of course, that’s what the ADL and its friends claim.

The ADL also put out a fundraising appeal, linking Mr. Musk to a “highly toxic, antisemitic campaign” before complaining about “a surge of bomb threats and swatting attacks of Jewish synagogues,” in addition to “dramatic levels of antisemitic propaganda.” Documentation, please?

Censorship advocates will say there would have been no problem if X had just banned more people, but the ADL dug this hole for itself. It started pressuring advertisers as soon as Mr. Musk took over and before he had changed anything.

In an interview on Squawk Box, Andrew Ross Sorkin, a Jewish man, asked Jonathan Greenblatt if he had asked for a donation from Twitter or a monitoring role at the company. Mr. Greenblatt called that an “anti-Semitic trope.”

Mr. Musk is blasting other ADL claims.

While the ADL is powerful, it’s also an appealing target because of its hypocrisy. Unlike many other “civil rights” groups, the ADL doesn’t maintain universal standards; it’s explicitly Jewish and pro-Israel. This is an awkward balancing act. The ADL says a “one-state solution” or anything that undermines Israel’s Jewish majority would be a threat to Jews. The “right of return” of Palestinian refugees would mean, “in effect, the end of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.” That’s true, but The Great Replacement is a “racist conspiracy theory” when it happens to anyone else.

Hypocrite at best, an enemy at worst. “It’s okay to be white” is part of the ADL’s hate lexicon.

The Jewish angle is always tricky. Former ADL head Abraham Foxman once sternly lectured Ukraine not to dare compare the Holodomor with the Holocaust. In 2018, the ADL subtly threatened Iceland not to consider a ban on circumcision, suggesting an association with Nazism, “even if that association is not justified,” would cost Iceland money. Of course, the ADL could have simply sought a simple religious exemption for the country’s small Jewish community. Instead, it practically extorted an entire nation.

The ADL honored Borat comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen in 2019 and gave him the keynote address at its conference. Mr. Baron-Cohen’s career is about racial humor: hateful jokes about Europeans, Central Asians, and white Americans. Nontheless, he had the chutzpah to call for more social media censorship because “our pluralistic democracies are on a precipice” and “the role of social media could be determinant.” The press doesn’t consider his venom “hate.” He smears groups who can’t defend themselves.

The ADL seems to have one purpose: criticize gentiles in terms it would never tolerate against its own people. It worries about declining support for Israel among young American Jews, but when it comes to free speech, they’re on its side. While older Jews mostly favor free speech, a May 2019 study found younger Jews are overwhelmingly opposed. Maybe free speech was useful for pornography, flag burning, and pushing Communism, but no longer.

Free speech is not negotiable. Even if the ADL sets Israel adrift and tries to become just another universalist propaganda shop, it doesn’t deserve a veto. No one else does, either.

Of course, Elon Musk and X have not restored free speech. Jared Taylor and American Renaissance are still banned, despite promises of amnesty. These accounts never violated the Terms of Service. Kevin MacDonald, James Edwards, Tom Sunic, and Paul Fromm — whose accounts survived into the Musk era — were banned after he took over. Mr. Musk is talking about releasing all past correspondence with the ADL. We have our suspicions about what we might find.

Credit Image: © Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

We’ve been critical of Elon Musk because he hasn’t lived up to his claims about free speech. That said, his fight against ADL censorship is the bravest thing a businessman has done in a long time. Protection rackets fall apart if just one victim says no. If Elon Musk beats the ADL, Americans, and people around the world, will be in his debt.

About Gregory Hood

View all posts by Gregory Hood
Mr. Hood is a staff writer for American Renaissance. He has been active in conservative groups in the US. You can follow him on Gab.