by: David Robbins January 28, 2016 By Jonathan Green­blatt CEO of the Anti-Defamation League This article orig­i­nally appeared on The Huff­in­g­ton Post Blog   In the wake of a protest against a reception featuring an Israeli community group at a recent LGBTQ conference, there has been widespread controversy. We have read blog posts and articles, watched videos of the protest, and heard from friends and allies who…

by: Oren Segal January 27, 2016 On January 2, a loosely organized group of armed anti-government extremists led by Ammon Bundy seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters buildings located near the town of Burns in remote southeastern Oregon.  They later named themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom. On Tuesday, January 26, Ammon Bundy and several others were arrested by federal and state law enforcement officers during a traffic stop near John…

by: Marilyn Mayo January 26, 2016 Two leaders of the white supremacist movement, Paul Mullet of Bainbridge, Ohio, and Billy Roper of Mountain View, Arkansas, have joined forces to form a new group, Divine Truth Ministries and its "political arm," the Nation of True Israel.  Both men have struggled for years to establish themselves in the movement and to recruit followers. Mullet and Roper practice Christian Identity, a virulently racist and anti-Semitic religion. They believe not only…

by: Oren Segal January 26, 2016 After the firing of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt, some social media users responded by posting vehemently anti-Israel, and some anti-Jewish, personal attacks against Blatt, who holds both Israeli and American citizenship. Hostile verbal attacks on individuals for being Israeli citizens or supporters of Israel appear to have become more commonplace in recent years both online and offline as well as some look to demonize the…

by: David Robbins January 25, 2016 By Jonathan Green­blatt CEO of the Anti-Defamation League This blog originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post The news the past few days has been horrifying. A mother of six children, a nurse, fatally stabbed in the doorway of her own home. Another woman, 18 weeks pregnant, knifed. And these terror attacks follow scores of more shootings, car rammings and stabbings over the past four months at bus stops, in bars,…

by: Oren Segal January 22, 2016 Over the past month, escalating tension in the Middle East between Iran and the Arab Gulf States helped fuel a resurgence of anti-Semitic statements and conspiracy theories about a supposed link between Israel and Jews to Iran. Angered by Iran’s increasing influence in the region, prominent Arab figures including politicians, religious leaders and journalists have accused Jews and Israel of secretly supporting Iran and Shi’a Muslims in their war…

by: Marilyn Mayo January 14, 2016 William Johnson, the head of the white supremacist American Freedom Party (AFP), has paid for a series of robocalls and radio time in Iowa in support of Donald Trump’s candidacy. In a recent interview on CNN, Trump disavowed the robocalls but said that “people are angry at what’s going on.” On the calls, Johnson urges people to support Trump while referring to  himself as a farmer and a white nationalist. The calls also include a…

by: Marilyn Mayo January 13, 2016 Conspiracy theories about the federal government seizing Americans’ guns have been a mainstay of anti-government extremist groups, particularly militias, since the early to mid-1990s. Today, however, these theories have expanded beyond right-wing extremists. They are also gaining ground in conservative circles, from groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) to media outlets such as the Washington Times and Breitbart. Anti-government conspiracy…

by: Mark Pitcavage January 11, 2016 On January 2, a group of anti-government extremists—who would later dub themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom—seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in remote southeast Oregon. The seizure, led by Ammon Bundy, son of a Nevada rancher who had himself engaged in a standoff with the federal government in 2014, was ostensibly conducted to protest the resentencing of a father and son pair of southeast Oregon…

by: Oren Segal January 08, 2016 Two U.S. residents were arrested on Islamic extremism related terror charges in the first week of 2016 and a third allegedly committed a shooting on January 7 on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Following record-breaking numbers of terror related arrests in 2015, these new arrests portend similarly high levels of Americans engaging in plots and other activity motivated by Islamic extremist ideology in the coming year. Aws Mohammed Younis…

by: Lorraine Array January 06, 2016 Last week, over 700 Jewish teens from across the United States and Canada gathered in Baltimore, MD as part of United Synagogue Youth’s International Convention.  The Anti-Defamation League participated in the convention as a program partner to educate and empower the students to respond to anti-Semitism. At a time when global anti-Semitism is on the rise, college campuses are rife with anti-Israel bias and Jewish youth regularly hear…

by: Oren Segal January 03, 2016 Armed anti-government activists associated with militia groups and other right-wing extremist movements seized control of the headquarters building for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on January 2, 2016, precipitating what is, in effect, an armed standoff with the federal government.  Though some sort of confrontation between militia activists and the federal government in the Pacific Northwest has been brewing for months, the seizure itself is…