#DropTheADL: Why The ADL Is Not An Ally
What Is The ADL?
At the highest level, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a Zionist propaganda arm designed to pressure well-meaning progressives into supporting the Israeli apartheid state, under the guise of combating antisemitism.
Make no mistake: The ADL is not an ally of our movements.
The ADL attempts to brand itself as a civil rights organization to conceal and legitimize its right-wing activities undermining the rights of marginalized communities (including Black, immigrant, queer, Arab, and Muslim communities). There is extensive research¹ on how the ADL uses its documentation of antisemitism as a Trojan horse to lobby on behalf of the Israeli state, manufacturing consent for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people with racist propaganda.
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, and to conflate the two is dangerous for Jews, as well as for Palestinians and all who speak up for their rights. It’s crucial that we reject this conflation, oppose all forms of bigotry, and fight for the collective liberation of all people without exceptions.
What Does The ADL Stand For?
The ADL may stand for Anti-Defamation League, but its anti-defaming efforts are largely spent on protecting Israel from criticism. A better name for the ADL would be the Apartheid Defense League as it lobbies on behalf of the Israeli apartheid state.
Every year, the ADL publishes an audit of antisemitic incidents across the country. The ADL’s 2024 audit acknowledges that 58% of catalogued incidents were related to Israel or Zionism², though it’s quite possible Israel-related incidents were not catalogued as such. Still, the ADL uses these misleading numbers to solicit government funding outright and indirectly via state-sponsored “education oversight” programs.
Why the ADL Is Bad
See for yourself why over 200 organizations across the U.S. have gotten behind the call to #DropTheADL as a partner in social justice work. Read the facts laid out in this “The ADL is not an ally” primer. This primer covers the ADL’s history of:
- Targeting and surveilling progressive movements
- Supporting racist, militarized policing
- Repressing Palestinian rights and smearing critics of colonialism
- Supporting antisemites, Donald Trump, and other right-wing, racist influencers
- Islamophobia/anti-Muslim hate
- Campus repression
- Trampling anti-racist, immigrant, queer, and other justice movements.
We hope this primer can be helpful in strengthening all of our social justice movements in resisting repression and advancing a vision of liberation for all. For more information and updates, visit DropTheADL.org.
“The ADL Is Not An Ally”: At a Glance
100 Years Of Surveilling Progressive Movements
Since the 1930s, the ADL has functioned as a proxy surveillance agency for the U.S., apartheid Israel, and apartheid South Africa governments by spying on over 700 organizations and 10,000 activists in at least seven cities, including:
- Anti-racist protesters at the 2017 Charlottesville white supremacist rallies
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Jewish peace groups
- American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
- National Lawyers Guild
- McCarthy era popular movements
- Anti-apartheid South Africa activists
- United Farm Workers
The ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has shamefully argued for the suppression of movements for social justice. “There is a throughline from Occupy Wall Street to BLM to ‘defund the police’ to ‘River to the Sea,’” he told attorney generals. “They are the same people, these are the same kind of nihilists.”5
Read the full primer on the ADL’s History of Targeting and Surveilling Progressive Movements.
The #1 Non-Governmental Police Trainer in the US
The ADL is proud to be the #1 non-governmental police trainer in the US after 80 years of collaboration with law enforcement. Its “Advanced Training School In Extremist and Terrorist Threats” boasts that it has trained cops from 100% of major metropolitan police departments.
After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, ADL executives reportedly questioned whether their program has contributed to the increase in police brutality in the US. The draft memo read as follows:
“In light of the very real police brutality at the hands of militarized police forces in the US, we must ask ourselves difficult questions, like whether we are contributing to the problem… We must ask ourselves why it is necessary for American police, enforcing American laws, would need to [sic] meet with members of the Israeli military. We must ask ourselves if, upon returning home, those we train are more likely to use force.”
Read the full primer on the ADL’s Support for Racist, Militarized Policing.
Weaponizing Antisemitism To Smear Human Rights Activists
The ADL legitimizes the IHRA definition of antisemitism that conflates criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Jewish hate. This is problematic for several reasons, the first being that anti-zionism is NOT anti-semitism. The ADL’s harmful conflations paved the road for doxxing and smear groups like Canary Mission, Stop Antisemitism, and Betar US, including Betar US’s recent attempts to deport non-citizen activists by reporting them to ICE under the Trump administration.⁶
Cataloguing Palestine demonstrations and advocacy as incidents of hate:
- Spreads baseless fear among the Jewish community.
- Legitimizes “anti-terror” policing in Black and brown communities.
- Obfuscates an understanding of antisemitism as it relates to the Jewish people, rather than a political state.
- Defames Palestinian testimony of their experience of Israeli violence as inherently hateful.
Read the full primer on the ADL’s Smearing Critics of Colonialism as “Anti-Semites”.
Supporting Far-Right Antisemites
The ADL routinely commends and defends right-wing antisemites like Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, and Elon Musk (including Elon’s clear Nazi salute⁷). The evidence continues to point to the ADL’s prioritized function as an anti-Palestinian lobby rather than a bastion of civil liberties for Jewish Americans.
Read the full primer on the ADL’s Support for Actual Anti-Semites.
Inciting Anti-Muslim & Anti-Palestinian Racism
The ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt frequently makes racist comments, such as comparing the keffiyeh, an intergenerational symbol of Palestinian liberation, to a symbol of hate. The constant propaganda about the Palestinian people and the wider Palestinian liberation movement is dehumanizing by design.
ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt compares a Palestinian keffiyeh (scarf) to a Nazi swastika
— Nader Hashemi (@naderalihashemi) March 30, 2024
Where is the accountability from @MSNBC ?@mehdirhasan @sarahleah1 @bridgeinit @PeterBeinart @tparsi https://t.co/FKhcTZcf0p
Read the full primer on the ADL’s Anti-Arab Racism.
Campus Repression
The ADL has suppressed free academic discussions on Palestinian rights. Historically, the ADL has routinely:
- Targeted Students for Justice in Palestine and other student groups
- Pressured university officials
- to investigate professors who dare to teach on Palestinian rights
- cancel a 2011 conference to discuss legal avenues for Palestinian rights
- Blocked Arab youth programming.
More recently, the ADL has bullied hundreds of schools to investigate Students for Justice in Palestine for sending money to Hamas, without a single shred of evidence.
Read the full primer on the ADL’s influence on campus repression.
Joint Attacks on Black, Queer & Native Movements
By branding itself as a civil rights organization in ways that conceal and legitimize its right-wing activities, the ADL has undermined the rights of Black, immigrant, queer, Muslim, Arab, and other marginalized communities.
Here are just some of the activists and movements the ADL has smeared:
- Tamika Mallory, Black organizer and co-founder of the Women’s March
- Linda Sarsour, Muslim Palestinian organizer and co-founder of the Women’s March
- Marc Lamont Hill, CNN Black commentator fired after ADL’s smear campaign
- Mohammed El-Kurd, Palestinian poet and journalist
Read the full primer on the ADL’s attacks on joint struggles.
What Progressives Should Know About the ADL
Many progressive individuals and organizations partner with the ADL while unaware of its legacy of promoting racist policing, surveillance, colonialism, and the silencing of social justice activism. Misinformation about the ADL’s work, and its credibility in progressive circles, are what allow the ADL to continue harming social justice movements.
USCPR has joined over 200 organizations in signing #DropTheADL’s Open Letter to progressives. Our goal is clear: We must break the cycle of fearmongering advocates for human rights and social justice into silence.
Campaign Spotlight: #DropTheADLFromSchools
ADL educational resources are designed to chill criticism of Israel for fear of being labeled antisemitic. When Arab students have questioned its propaganda, they have been forced to endure more of this racist and problematic ‘training.’3 Instead of encouraging critical thought and discussion, the ADL uses fear to control the narrative.
The #DropTheADLFromSchools campaign is an educator-led initiative to remove ADL influence from education, and it’s gaining traction. In March 2025, the United Teachers Los Angeles union passed a motion urging the LA Unified School District to drop the ADL as a professional partner.
For Lifelong Learners
Palestinian culture deeply values education and lifelong learning. Virtually every single university in Gaza has been bombed by Israel, destroying archives of information.4 Still, Palestinians retrieve books from the rubble, dust them off, and continue working toward their degrees while surviving genocide.
The U.S.-Israel alliance has worked very hard to prevent Palestinian stories and knowledge from reaching young minds, from banning TikTok to promoting propaganda in classrooms via the ADL. If knowledge is power, then keep learning.
1. Sign The Petition To #DropTheADLFromSchools
2. Lunch and Learn from This Webinar
“Defend our Movements, Strengthen our Communities: #DropTheADL” invites experts on media, antisemitism discourse, and policy to discuss the ADL’s role in disinformation, repression and war. Read the full webinar transcript.
3. Read the IMEU’s Explainer of the ADL
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) published an explainer on the ADL in February 2025 with updated information on its problematic actions and policies.
4. Follow Campaigns On Social Media
For ongoing information and updates, visit DroptheADL.org.
Footnotes
- https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/the-shift-another-deceptive-antisemitism-audit-from-the-adl/
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/03/schools-are-no-place-for-the-adl-examining-the-adls-no-place-for-hate-program/ - https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2024
- https://mondoweiss.net/2013/08/for-calling-israeli-speaker-a-war-criminal-boca-raton-school-forces-3-students-to-take-reeducation-program-from-zionist-org/
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/24/how-israel-has-destroyed-gazas-schools-and-universities
- https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/power-pushback-greenblatt-compares-student-protesters-to-isis/
- https://prismreports.org/2025/05/27/betar-trump-palestine-student-protest/
- https://www.pride.com/trending/news/elon-musk-reddit-ban