How The Anti-Defamation League Fuels Islamophobia

The ADL's anti-Arab, pro-Israel mindset has led the group to perpetuate an anti-Muslim worldview.
 
The Anti-Defamation League bills itself, and is typically seen by many in the mainstream Jewish community and beyond, as the "nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency.”[1] In fact, the ADL’s conduct over the years is at odds with this one-dimensional view of the group as a long-time champion of civil liberties. The ADL mission statement, for instance, describes it as a group that “fights all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all."[2] Yet, a record going back decades shows something very different, including a shift “from civil rights monitoring to espionage and intelligence gathering.”[3] Mistrust of the ADL among those concerned about civil and human rights has deep roots.

In the 1970s, the ADL, which had been tracking neo-Nazis and other right-wing U.S. groups, began to also focus on critics of Israeli policies.[4] Since the 1970s, the ADL and its chapters have issued numerous publications to expose alleged “Arab propaganda” on university campuses and to silence and intimidate Arab Americans and others who did not share their perspective on Israel.[5] Branding any criticism of Israel as “anti-Semitism,” ADL publications like Pro-Arab Propaganda in America: Vehicles and Voices, a Handbook (1983) effectively developed a “blacklist” of faculty, staff, and campus groups.[6] The Middle East Studies Association singled out “the New England Regional Office of the ADL for circulating a document on college campuses ‘listing factually inaccurate and unsubstantiated assertions that defame specific students, teachers, and researchers as 'pro Arab propagandists.’"[7]

Front-page investigative reports in the San Francisco Examiner during the winter and spring of 1993 revealed that the ADL had been carrying out surveillance of almost 10,000 people and 950 organizations.[8] The Examiner reported that the ADL particularly targeted Arab Americans and Arab American organizations and also spied on such groups as the ACLU, ACT UP, Artists Against Apartheid, Americans for Peace Now, Asian Law Caucus, Greenpeace, NAACP, New Jewish Agenda, and the United Farm Workers, as well as three current or past members of Congress.[9] The FBI had also found that the ADL had been sending surveillance information on U.S. anti-apartheid groups to South Africa (which was an ally of Israel).[10]

The San Francisco Examiner exposé revealed that the ADL’s domestic spying involved a San Francisco police officer and a “full-time salaried undercover investigator,” who had been working for the ADL for 32 years.[11] Running “a public/private spying ring,” the ADL received aid from local police and federal agencies.[12] The Examiner reported that “FBI documents released through the Freedom of Information Act show that special agents in charge of FBI field offices throughout the nation were explicitly ordered by Bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C. during the 1980s to cooperate with the ADL.”[13] Six years after the filing of a class action suit coordinated by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the ADL was fined in 1999 and “under the permanent injunction issued by Federal Judge Richard Paez . . . [was] permanently enjoined from engaging in any further illegal spying against Arab-American and other civil rights groups.”[14] As Nabeel Abraham has written in “Anti-Arab Racism and Violence in the United States,” “The overall effect of the ADL’s practices is to reinforce the image of Arabs as terrorists and security threats, thereby creating a climate of fear, suspicion, and hostility toward Arab-Americans and others who espouse critical views of Israel, possibly leading to death threats and bodily harm.”[15]

*****

The ADL’s anti-Arab, staunchly pro-Israel mindset, which was behind decades of illegal spying, enabled it to easily incorporate an anti-Muslim worldview that has become increasingly pervasive after 9/11.[16] This has been a period of growing popularity for the “clash of civilizations theory,” which characterizes the causes of conflict in the post-Cold War world as fundamental “cultural” differences between Islamic and Western civilizations, rather than history, politics, imperialism, neo-colonialism, struggles over natural resources, or other factors.[17] Further, the Islamophobic belief that all Muslims were responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that all Muslims, as well as Arabs and South Asians, should be targeted provides a dominant U.S. narrative that brands all members of these groups as “terrorists,” “potential terrorists,” or “terrorist-sympathizers.”[18] Like others within and outside the Jewish community, the ADL views the U.S. focus on the domestic and global “war on terror” as integral to ensuring Israeli security and maintaining the United States’ “special” relationship with Israel.

During the post-9/11 period, the ADL engaged in a number of actions that targeted Muslims and Arabs. It also marked a time when the ADL, with allies like Daniel Pipes’ Freedom Forum, was busily labeling mainstream Muslim community groups as “terrorist sympathizers” and trying to exclude them from the public sphere.[19] Although the ADL was rebuffed, it brought pressure to prevent representatives from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the country’s largest Muslim civil liberties group, from speaking at the November 2001 Florida Commission on Human Relations annual conference, “Day of Dialogue Across Ethnic, Cultural and Religious Lines,” and then, around a month later, at a public hearing of the State of California Select Committee on Hate Crimes. [20]

In 2003, an ADL press release praised President George W. Bush for appointing Daniel Pipes to the board of the United States Institute for Peace.[21] Pipes believes that “militant Islam” is “infiltrating America” and supports student monitoring of professors for their views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. [22] While the ADL commented on Pipes’ “important approach and perspective,” Muslim and Arab American leaders characterized his appointment as “a slap in the face for Islam” and described him as “a bigot” who “promotes fear and hatred of many communities, not just Arabs and Muslims." [23] As a result of strong opposition to Pipes by Senator Edward Kennedy and other Senate Judiciary Committee members, President Bush had to resort to a recess appointment of Pipes.[24]

Another attack on Islam and the Muslim community took place in 2004, when the ADL, along with the American Jewish Congress and the Zionist Organization of America, charged that Muslim students at the University of California Irvine who planned to wear Shahadas, green Arabic-covered stoles, at graduation were expressing hate and glorifying suicide bombers.[25] By the time the three Jewish groups had bothered to get an accurate translation of the Arabic, “The O’Reilly Factor” and others had already repeated the charges as fact. On one side the stole contained the Shahada or Muslim declaration of faith (“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet”), while the other side said, “Oh, God, increase my knowledge.”

The ADL apologized, but insisted that it remained “deeply troubled” by a garment that, it said, “has been closely associated with Palestinian terrorists.”[26] The American Jewish Congress did not respond, and the Zionist Organization of America saw no need to apologize, afterwards calling for action against “this outrageous and immoral conduct” that, according to them, exhibited insensitivity to “what many find as offensive.” In an article that was otherwise sympathetic to the students, the Jewish Daily Forward headline, “Muslim Students Get Apology in a Tiff Over ‘Shahada’ Scarf” minimized the impact on the students, their families and their community.[27]

*****

In the past decade, the ADL has been on the anti-Muslim side of three high-profile Islamophobic campaigns: the multi-year initiative to block the building of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center; an anti-Muslim smear campaign targeting educator Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the country’s first English-Arabic dual language public school; and Park51, the proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan. Members of what Center for American Progress researchers have called “the Islamophobia network in America” played a role in instigating each of these local campaigns—fear-mongering, providing misinformation, and using the right-wing media and blogosphere to foment or sustain a high level of anti-Islam sentiment.[28] And each received some measure of support from members of the local Jewish establishment, including the ADL.

The Boston mosque controversy took five years to play out. Instigated in 2002 by William Sapers, who had done work with the ADL, opposition to the mosque construction was subsequently backed by Charles Jacobs of the David Project, Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, and other hardline pro-Israel groups and individuals, including Steven Emerson, who has claimed that Islam “sanctions genocide, planned genocide, as part of its religious doctrine.”[29] After the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) broke ground in 2002, the right-wingBoston Herald—using information provided mostly by Emerson—charged the ISB with having connections to “radical Islamic” groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.[30] Newspaper coverage included an incendiary picture of the planned mosque next to one of Osama bin Laden.[31]

The opponents also recruited someone to file a suit against the Islamic Society of Boston (ultimately dismissed as “without merit”), and the Islamic Society filed a suit alleging a conspiracy “to libel the ISB, its leadership and to prevent the Muslim community from establishing a place of worship.”[32] The Boston Jewish establishment characterized the conflict not as libel or conspiracy against Muslims, but as a “free speech” right to raise concerns about links to “Islamic terrorism.”[33] Although the ISB community expressed willingness to be part of multiple mediation efforts initiated by both Jewish and interfaith groups, the mosque opponents refused.

The ADL’s public role in this controversy appeared at first to be limited. It criticized as anti-Semitic statements made by an ISB trustee and condemned the Islamic Society of Boston for its failure to promptly renounce anti-Semitism and “terrorism.”[34] Subsequently, the Islamic Society of Boston distanced itself from the trustee’s statements, and the trustee apologized for them to a group of religious and lay leaders, including a representative of the David Project.[35]

The ADL, as it later did with Park 51, gave cover and credibility to the right-wing anti-Muslim forces. It did not publicly criticize the ways in which the anti-mosque camp used an alarmist, anti-Muslim media campaign to capitalize on the prevailing post-9/11 narrative that links Muslims with “terrorism.” Nor did it express public reservations about anti-mosque advocates who are prominent anti-Muslim ideologues, including Steven Emerson, a researcher with a history of erroneous and virulently anti-Muslim findings, and Robert Spencer, who spoke out against the mosque at a Newton synagogue (and whom the ADL has since identified as co-founding an organization with a “conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda”).[36]

Like other local mainstream Jewish groups, the ADL failed to publicly place in a larger context the litany of accusations that right-wing Jewish groups and individuals brought against the Islamic Society of Boston and its leaders. Placing it in just such a context, Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voice for Peace maintained that the anti-mosque forces were engaged in a “fishing expedition for ways to block the mosque in Boston [that] crossed a line from citizen’s advocacy to profoundly shameful efforts at preventing a group from practicing their religion.”[37]

Subpoenaed emails released in 2007 indicated that the ADL seems to have played more of a role than had been apparent from its public positions.[38] The emails revealed that the David Project and others “had worked actively to initiate the lawsuit [against the mosque] and news stories as part of their ‘strategies to attack the mosque.’"[39] Furthermore, in a 2004 email that proposed reaching out to the ADL, mosque opponent Steve Cohen stated that the ADL was "much more concerned and knowledgeable about this matter than their public statements would indicate. But, being associated with various ecumenical [read: interfaith] efforts, they are reluctant to be the lightning rod on this issue.”[40] In 2007, when the emails became public, the Islamic Society of Boston identified Robert Leikind, the executive director of the ADL (New England Region), as among those who “collaborated” with The David Project, Emerson, and others in the campaign against the mosque.[41]

Despite opponents’ attempts to stop the mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center opened in 2007 under the management of the Muslim American Society.[42]

Also in 2007, the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA) in New York City was about to open. In the spring of 2007, members of the country’s Islamophobia network initiated media and internet attacks on the school and its founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, an Arab American and observant Muslim who was widely respected as an educator and bridge-builder. Frank Gaffney, for example, who views mosques as “Trojan horses” in Muslim attempts to promote “sedition” and impose “Sharia Law” on the United States, claimed that, if opened, the school would be an Islamist “beachhead in Brooklyn.” [43] Opposition to the school by Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Pamela Geller and other anti-Muslim ideologues gathered limited support. But, in August 2007, the group that the anti-KGIA forces formed, the Stop the Madrassa Coalition, found “the ultimate pretext to ignite a media firestorm” by trying to connect Almontaser to “Intifada NYC” T-shirts made by an Arab youth organization that used space in an office of a group on whose board she served.[44]

Attacks on the school and Almontaser intensified after a New York Post reporter asked Almontaser “about the origin of the word ‘intifada.’” Almontaser responded that “the Arabic root word from which the word intifada originates means ‘shake off’ and that it has evolved over time to have different meanings for different people, but certainly for many, given its association with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict during which thousands have died, it is associated with violence.”[45] The New York Post mischaracterized and sensationalized her comment in a headline that read: “City Principal Is ‘Revolting.’”[46]

At this point, some Jewish groups, including the ADL, which had been supportive of Almontaser in the face of early opposition to the school, changed their position, despite knowing full well that virulent Islamophobes and tabloid journalists were distorting her views. Though Abraham Foxman, ADL's national director, for instance, believed that Almontaser could “absolutely” continue work with the ADL, because “she continues to be an important person in interfaith relations,” he blamed her for the dispute and viewed her removal as principal as appropriate. “She gave herself a body blow,” Foxman said, “making her unacceptable as principal of Khalil Gibran.”[47] Foxman thereby threw the weight of the ADL behind the New York City political powers who forced her resignation—Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein—and did not challenge the blatant Islamophobic attacks on Almontaser that Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, and other anti-Muslim ideologues spearheaded.

In March 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission completely vindicated Almontaser. The EEOC concluded that the New York City Department of Education (DOE) "succumbed to the very bias that creation of the school was intended to dispel and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on DOE as an employer.”[48] The EEOC found that DOE had discriminated against Almontaser on the basis of her “race, religion and national origin.”[49] The ADL remained silent.

Although the ADL played a relatively small role in the Khalil Gibran controversy, it caused a great stir within the Jewish community when, in 2010, Foxman criticized the proposal for Park51 on the grounds that it would be in the vicinity of Ground Zero. Foxman argued that, though the planners had the right to locate a mosque and community center there, it was insensitive for them to do so.[50] He perpetuated the Islamophobic assumption that, because a small number of Muslims attacked the World Trade Center, all Muslims were responsible--a type of collective guilt never assumed about other religions. Commenting on this premise, Jon Moscow of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice noted, “We don’t hear anyone saying that there should be a ‘church-free’ area around the Oklahoma City Federal Building because Timothy McVeigh claimed to be acting as a Christian.”[51]

Jews who were opposed to the ADL position offered multiple critiques of it. Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak of JewsOnFirst.com, a First Amendment group, and a board member of the Progressive Jewish Alliance, pointed out the irony of Jewish leaders supporting the concept of an “Islam-free zone.”[52] In a statement put out by Jews Against Islamophobia, Rebecca Vilkomerson, director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said, “As Islamophobia rises in the U.S. and becomes the racism that dares to speak its name, it is terribly disappointing to see that organizations that were supposedly founded to promote tolerance and civil rights are failing to stand up for the rights of Muslim Americans."[53]

But, despite such critiques, the ADL position had a broad impact. Within the mainstream Jewish community, this position, along with the anti-Muslim statements of some other Jewish groups, had a chilling effect on those wanting to express public support for Park51. At the December 2010 Rabbis for Human Rights conference, Rabbi Joy Levitt, executive director of the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Manhattan, alluded to the ADL and referred more generally to having heard “comments of ‘fear, ignorance, xenophobia’ from members of the Jewish community when her support for the Cordoba House [Park51] was publicized.” “Jewish leaders,” Rabbi Levitt said, “made this a more complicated issue than it needed to be. [They] made it very difficult for the rest of the community’—less-prominent individuals who support the Islamic center—‘to speak out.”[54]

In the larger political world, the ADL position legitimized and fueled Islamophobia. Mainstream critiques of the ADL position came, for example, from the Union of Reform Judaism, whose then-president Rabbi Eric Yoffie said:

    . . .the effect of [the ADL’s position] . . . was to open the floodgates and lend weight and legitimacy to those whose primary concern was not Ground Zero or the victims' families but, instead, inciting hatred against American Muslims. . . Most of what we've witnessed in recent weeks has nothing whatever to do with location-specific issues related to the World Trade Center site. Most of what we've witnessed is an orgy of hatred against Muslims and a concerted effort to exclude a group of our fellow citizens from our neighborhoods and to limit their ability to worship as they choose in America.[55]

The ADL did not apologize for how it had helped legitimize virulent anti-Muslim sentiment and action. However, it did release a statement in late August that condemned the Park51 opponents primarily responsible for amping up Islamophobia.[56] And five and a half weeks after announcing its position on Park51 and being roundly criticized by some other mainstream Jewish organizations, the ADL announced the creation of a new group that it had initiated and sponsored, the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques (ICOM). “Concerned with a disturbing rise in discrimination against Muslims trying to legally build or expand their houses of worship—mosques—across the United States,” the ICOM statement of purpose reads, “interfaith and religious leaders have formed a coalition to assist those Muslim communities confronting opposition.”[57]

A connection between Park51 and the ICOM announcement was impossible to ignore. “Conspicuously absent from the group’s statement of purpose...” noted an article in the Jerusalem Post, “is any mention of New York City.”[58] As one report in the U.S. Jewish press noted, the ADL “established [ICOM], conspicuously, after its wrongheaded stance” on Park51.[59] The timing of the announcement led Foxman to acknowledge that it did “give the impression that the group is paying penance for its opposition to the New York Islamic center.”[60] It also (conveniently) gave him the opportunity to trumpet the ADL’s “commitment” to Muslims’ religious liberty and explain once again his opposition to Park51.[61]

In the past couple of years, the ADL has backed mosque construction in California, Georgia and Tennessee, and condemned anti-Muslim hate speech and various acts of individual violence against Muslim American institutions and individuals.[62] It has also opposed the state anti-Sharia laws that are part of a nationwide Islamophobic smear campaign to promote the baseless accusation that Muslims plan to take over the U.S. legal system.[63] In 2011, the ADL condemned the “significant level of anti-Muslim bigotry [that] has surfaced in a variety of public forums over the past year” and issued “backgrounders” on David Yerushalmi, “the driving force’ behind anti-Sharia efforts in the United States.”[64] It subsequently posted backgrounders on other members of the national Islamophobia network, such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Stop Islamization of America.[65] However, the ADL did not acknowledge its own anti-Muslim role at the University of California at Irvine, in Boston and New York City, and in several decades of spying on Arab Americans and progressive activists.

*****

While we can locate articles about the ADL speaking out against Islamophobia, we don’t have the same sort of records to document its silent complicity. But, for a group like the ADL that sees itself as committed to “civil rights for all,” the public battles it avoids—not just those it undertakes—can be instructive. The ADL, which is headquartered in New York City, has been noticeably silent about the New York City Police Department's attacks on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans.

The NYPD is part of the broad U.S. counter-terrorism effort, characterized by pervasive civil liberties violations and driven by a “war on terror,” in which the U.S. government views Israel as its invaluable ally. The ADL’s failure to speak out against NYPD civil liberties abuses is totally consistent with the organization’s strong support for both Israeli and U.S. policies, as well as with its long-standing anti-Muslim and anti-Arab history. Further, the ADL has long-standing ties to the NYPD (as well as federal agencies) through ADL anti-terrorism training programs, including training in Israel and instruction in both Israel and the United States by Israeli security forces that routinely view Arabs and Muslims as the enemy.[66]

Three examples of the NYPD’S infringement on the civil rights of Muslims are particularly salient.

In 2007, the NYPD issued Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, which laid out several unsound, dangerous anti-Muslim assumptions that motivated NYPD actions and policies and served as a template for other law enforcement agencies.[67] Speciously linking Islam and terror, this report provides the theoretical foundation for the NYPD’s development of a four-stage post-9/11 “theory of radicalization” that views acts like “giving up cigarettes, drinking, gambling,” as well as opposition to U.S. policies and actions, as precursors to a Muslim man’s “self-designation” as a “holy warrior.”[68] The Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, created in the wake of the report, and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice (New York University) and the Center for Constitutional Rights expressed “serious civil liberties concerns” about the type of approach to “homegrown terrorism” taken by the NYPD.[69] But not the ADL.

Similarly, news about Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s appearance in The Third Jihad (2009), a rabidly Islamophobic propaganda film, and its showing to nearly 1,500 officers at NYPD training sessions led to widespread community outrage.[70] Before the public learned the truth, the NYPD claimed that the film had been “mistakenly screened ‘a couple of times’” and that Kelly had not been specially interviewed but appeared only in old film clips.[71] The Brennan Center engaged in a “nine-month legal battle” for access to NYPD information about the extent of The Third Jihad showings.[72] Unlike other local civil liberties groups, the ADL neither condemned Kelly and the NYPD nor spoke out about the need for honesty and transparency.

In 2011-2012, a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press articles found that the CIA had enlisted the help of the NYPD in order to target Muslims because of their religion, not because of indicators of criminal activity—infiltrating about 250 mosques in New York. [73] The NYPD went far beyond legitimate law enforcement interests to targeting people in several Northeast states just because they were Muslims.[74] As the public learned more details, a broad coalition of Muslim American and other community and civil rights groups criticized NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and called for his resignation.[75] Anger at the spying initiative and The Third Jihad was heightened by an aggressive stop-and-frisk policy that targeted residents of color. The ADL did not join the many civil rights groups that condemned the NYPD’s actions.

Instead, the ADL had cast its lot with the NYPD. It was not deterred by the 2011 AP revelations about the NYPD surveillance operations.[76] Even after this information had become widely known, the ADL gave Thomas Galati, commanding officer of the Intelligence Division, an award for “outstanding achievements in combatting terrorism, extremism, and injustice.”[77] In June 2012, Galati gave a deposition that made clear that, rather than having an outstanding track record as chief of this Division, the NYPD’s more than six years of spying on the Muslim American community “never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.”[78] The ADL made no public comment on the fundamental injustice of a spying program that targets people based on religion, as well as on linguistic and geographical profiling.

While others expressed outrage at the NYPD’s spying on the Muslim community and its religious, ethnic, and racial profiling, the ADL stood up for Muslims only in limited ways, like condemning the more outwardly rabid Muslim ideologues, such as Geller, Spencer and Yerushalmi. It was obviously unwilling to challenge the NYPD and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who fully backed both the commissioner and his approach to information-gathering and profiling.

*****

The ADL spent decades compiling dossiers, collaborating with local police and the FBI, and engaging in illegal surveillance of Palestinians, other Arabs, and groups and individuals who did not share its pro-Israel politics and worldview.  More recently, it has (at times) backed Muslims’ religious freedom and condemned anti-Muslim hate speech. But it has also continued to target Muslims and Arabs, been on the anti-Muslim side of Islamophobic campaigns, and failed to challenge the NYPD’s aggressive and discriminatory surveillance of the Muslim community. Informed by its support for the domestic and global “war on terror” and right-wing Israeli policies, the ADL continues, with appalling frequency, to abandon its stated mission—to protect “civil rights for all.”

Research by Elly Bulkin. Read the authors' previous articles: "How the Jewish Establishment's Litmus Test on Israel Fuels Anti-Muslim Bigotry" and "Follow the Money: From Islamophobia to Israel Right or Wrong." -By Elly Bulkin and Donna Nevel/AlterNet/February 1, 2013

NOTES

[1] ADL, “About the Anti-Defamation League,” http://www.adl.org/about.asp (accessed Feb. 25, 2012).

[2] ADL, “About the Anti-Defamation League.”

[3] Peter Schey of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, lead counsel in the suit against the ADL, paraphrased in Michael Gillespie, “Los Angeles Court Hands Down Final Judgment in Anti-Defamation League Illegal Surveillance Case,” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1999, http://washreport.net/component/content/article/181-1999-december/9255-los-angeles-court-hands-down-final-judgment-in-anti-defamation-league-illegal-surveillance-case.html (accessed Dec. 22, 2011).

[4] Dennis King & Chip Berlet, “ADLgate,” Tikkun Magazine, July/August 1993, http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jul1993_berlet/print (accessed Feb. 25, 2012).

[5] Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims,” New York University Annual Survey of American Law 58 (2002), 304, http://www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv3/groups/public/@nyu_law_website__journals__annual_survey_of_american_law/documents/documents/ecm_pro_065053.pdf; Joel Beinin, “The New McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East,” in Beshara Doumani, Academic Freedom After September 11 (Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books, 2006), 249. Also available at http://www.stanford.edu/~beinin/New_McCarthyism.html (both accessed Feb. 25, 2012).

[6] Akram & Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001,” 304; and Beinin, “The New McCarthyism.”

[7] Phebe Marr, “MESA Condemns Blacklisting,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 17, 1984, 8 http://www.wrmea.com/component/content/article/72/450-mesa-condemns-blacklisting.html (accessed Feb. 25, 2012).

[8] Abdeen Jabara, “The Anti-Defamation League: Civil Rights and Wrongs,” Covert Action Quarterly 45 (Summer 1993), 28-33, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0058244.html (accessed December 22, 2011); King & Berlet, “ADLgate”; Akram & Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001,” 306-307.

[9] Jabara, “The Anti-Defamation League: Civil Rights and Wrongs”; King & Berlet, “ADLgate”; Akram & Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001,” 306-307.

[10] Jabara, “The Anti-Defamation League: Civil Rights and Wrongs”; King & Berlet, “ADLgate.”

[11] Quote from Jabara, “The Anti-Defamation League: Civil Rights and Wrongs.” Also see King & Berlet, “ADLgate.”

[12] King & Berlet, “ADLgate.”

[13] Examiner Staff Report, “Anti-Defamation League: A History of Collecting Data,” San Francisco Examiner, April 1, 1993, cited in Jabara, “The Anti-Defamation League: Civil Rights and Wrongs.”

[14] Quote from Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), in Michael Gillespie, “Los Angeles Court Hands Down Final Judgment in Anti-Defamation League Illegal Surveillance Case.”

[15] Nabeel Abraham, “Anti-Arab Racism and Violence in the United States,” in The Development of Arab-American Identity, ed. Ernest Nasseph McCarus (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 187; cited in Akram & Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001,” 308.

According to a 2005 Los Angeles Times article on the seven Palestinians and one Kenyan who would become known as the Los Angeles 8:

After the arrests in 1987, Anti-Defamation League officials claimed that the investigation had been triggered by information developed by their organization. They would back away from this boast a few years later, however, in the wake of embarrassing disclosures that ADL operatives in several cities, including Los Angeles, had kept thousands of covert files on people they deemed worthy of extra vigilance. Indeed, ADL files on [defendants] Hamide and Shehadeh did turn up. (Peter H. King, “18 Years Waiting for a Gavel to Fall,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2005, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2005/jun/29/world/fg-laeight29 [accessed Dec. 22, 2011]).

The government case against the Los Angeles 8 did not conclude until 2007, when the government dropped charges. The presiding judge held that "’the attenuation of these proceedings is a festering wound on the body of these respondents [Khader M. Hamide and Michel I. Shehadeh] and an embarrassment to the rule of law’ and . . . [found] that ‘the government has failed to carry its burden of proving respondents deportable based on clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence.’” (“The L.A. 8 Decision,” n.d., Progressive Jewish Alliance Policy Statement, http://www.pjalliance.org/article.aspx?ID=354&CID=9 [accessed December 22, 2011]). Although the government brought no criminal charges against the defendants, they did indict six for visa violations and charged the two permanent residents, on the basis of their association with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, with distributing materials that supported “world communism” and the overthrow of the U.S. government (Akram & Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001,” 317-321). The Progressive Jewish Alliance noted that the defendants had engaged in “activities that would clearly be constitutionally protected if undertaken by U.S. citizens” (“The L.A. 8 Decision,” Progressive Jewish Alliance Policy Statement).

[16] For a discussion of a shift from “the emphasis . . . on the PLO and the conflation of Arabs with terrorism” to a focus on “Islamic terrorism,” see Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2012), 121. Also Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 307-309.

[17] Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Free Press, 1996); and Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer, 1993): 22-28. As Edward Said has noted, between the 1993 essay and the 1996 book, Huntington’s work lost its question mark. (Said, “The Myth of ‘The Clash of Civilizations,’” Media Education Foundation Transcript, 1998, 2. http://www.mediaed.org/assets/products/404/transcript_404.pdf [accessed Dec. 3, 2011]).

[18] See, for example, Sunaina Maira, “Islamophobia and the War on Terror: Youth, Citizenship, and Dissent,” in Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century, eds. John L. Esposito & Ibrahim Kalin (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 122; and Mehdi Semati, “Islamophobia, Culture and Race in the Age of Empire,” Cultural Studies 24, No. 2 (2010), 257, 265-266, http://web.me.com/msemati/Dr._Mehdi_Semati_website/Research_files/Islamophobia,%20Culture%20and%20Race%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Empire.pdf (accessed Feb. 10, 2012) . As Nadine Naber has maintained about the post-9/11 period: “the arbitrary, open-ended scope of the domestic ‘war on terror’ emerged through the association between a wide range of signifiers such as particular names (e.g., Mohammed), dark skin, particular forms of dress (e.g., a headscarf or a beard) and particular nations of origin (e.g., Iraq or Pakistan) as signifiers of an imagined ‘Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim' enemy. In this sense, the category ‘Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim’ operated as a constructed category that lumps together several incongruous subcategories (such as Arabs and Iranians, including Christians, Jews and Muslims, and all Muslims from Muslim-majority countries, as well as persons who are perceived to be Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim, such as South Asians, including Sikhs and Hindus). Persons perceived to be ‘Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim’ were targeted by harassment or violence based on the assumption ‘they’ embody a potential for terrorism and are thus threats to U.S. national security and deserving of discipline and punishment.” See Nadine Naber, “’Look, Mohammed the Terrorist Is Coming!’: Cultural Racism, Nation-Based Racism, and the Intersectionality of Oppressions after 9/11,” The Scholar and the Feminist Online 6, no. 3 (Summer 2008), http://barnard.edu/sfonline/immigration/naber_01.htm (accessed Dec. 2, 2011); also the later version of Naber’s article (with the same title) in Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11, eds. Amaney Jamal & Nadine Naber (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 278-279.

[19] Solomon Moore, “Fiery Words, Disputed Meanings,” Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2001, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2001/nov/03/local/me-65250; CAIR, “CAIR Says ADL Seeks to Hinder Legal Rights of U.S. Muslims,” press release, August 17, 2007; reprinted in The American Muslim, August 17, 2007, http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/cair_says_adl_seeks_to_hinder_legal_rights_of_us_muslims; ADL, “ADL Responds to Open Letter from CAIR, Releases Photo of Group's Leader Speaking Next to Hezbollah Flag,” press release, August 30, 2007, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Teror_92/5122_92.htm; CAIR, “CAIR: ADL Gets ‘Deceptive’ in Smear Campaign,” press release, August 31, 2007, http://www.cair.com/PressCenter/ArticleDetails/tabid/165/ArticleID/22958/mid1/777/currPage/107/Default.aspx; Cecilie Surasky, “Islamic Rights Group CAIR Says ‘ADL Seeks to Hinder Legal Rights of U.S. Muslims,’" Jewish Voice for Peace, August 26, 2007, http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2007/08/23/islamic-rights-group-cair-says-adl-seeks-to-hinder-legal-rights-of-us-muslims/ (all accessed Dec. 10, 2012).

[20] Delinda C. Hanley, “ADL and AJC Demand Muslim Panelists Be Excluded,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2002, 82, http://www.wrmea.com/component/content/article/236/3995-muslim-american-activism.html; Aleza Goldsmith, “ADL Says Muslim Group in Area Forum Has Terror Ties,” jweekly, December 14, 2001, http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/16922/adl-says-muslim-group-in-area-forum-has-terror-ties/; CAIR, “CAIR Says ADL Seeks to Hinder Legal Rights of U.S. Muslims.” See also Neil MacFarquhar, “Scrutiny Increases for a Group Advocating for Muslims in U.S.,” New York Times, March 14, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/washington/14cair.html?pagewanted=all; CAIR, “Top Internet Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories about CAIR,” March 2012, http://www.cair.com/AboutUs/MisinformationandConspiracyTheoriesAboutCAIR.aspx (all accessed May 30, 2012).

[21] ADL, “ADL Commends President Bush for Daniel Pipes Appointment to the U.S. Institute of Peace,” press release, August 25, 2003, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Mise_00/4342_00.htm (accessed May 30, 2012).

[22] Quote by Pipes on “militant Islam” from Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, & Faiz Shakir, Fear Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, August 2011, Center for American Progress, 42, http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia.pdf; information on monitoring professors is from Campus Watch, “About Campus Watch,” http://www.campus-watch.org/about.php (both accessed Sept. 2, 2011).

[23] ADL, “ADL Commends President Bush for Daniel Pipes Appointment to the U.S. Institute of Peace.” Helal Omeira & Arsalan Iftikhar, “Pipes Nomination a Slap in the Face for Islam,” San Franciso Chronicle, May 11, 2003, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views03/0511-02.htm; quote from Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee from Katrin Dauenhauer, “War of Words over Bush's 'Peace' Appointment,” Asia Times Online, August 19, 2003, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH19Ak04.html. Also Muslim Public Affairs Council, “Wide Coalition of Americans Call Press Conference Asking President Bush to Withdraw Pipes Nomination, “ press release, August 14, 2003, http://www.mpac.org/programs/interfaith/wide-coalition-of-americans-call-press-conference-asking-president-bush-to-withdraw-pipes-nomination.php (both accessed May 30, 2012).

[24] Suzanne Goldenberg, “Bush Appoints Anti-Muslim to Peace Role,” The Guardian (London), August 22, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/23/usa.suzannegoldenberg/print (accessed May 30, 2012).

[25] Information and quotations in his paragraph are from Ori Nir, “Muslim Students Get Apology in a Tiff Over ‘Shahada’ Scarf,” Jewish Daily Forward, July 2, 2004, http://www.forward.com/articles/4934/. See also Stanley Allison, “A Political Yet Peaceful Graduation at UC Irvine,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2004, http://articles.latimes.com/print/2004/jun/20/local/me-ucigrad20; and Shahed Amanullah, “The Panic over Graduation Stoles,” altmuslim, June 23, 2004, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/altmuslim/2004/06/the_panic_over_muslim_graduation_stoles/ (all accessed Dec. 22, 2011).

[26] Nir, “Muslim Students Get Apology in a Tiff Over ‘Shahada’ Scarf.”

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ali et al., Fear Inc.

[29] Dean Barrett, “The Islamists Are Coming! And They’ve Got Lawyers with Them,” The Weekly Standard, June 11, 2007, http://www.investigativeproject.org/211/the-islamists-are-coming; Emerson quote, originally in a March 1995 article in Jewish Monthly, from John F. Sugg, “Steven Emerson's Crusade: Why Is a Journalist Pushing Questionable Stories from Behind the Scenes?” FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, January/February 1999, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1443; Islamic Society of Boston “Damning Evidence against the David Project,” press release, Scoop Independent News, May 9, 2007, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0705/S00149.htm (all accessed Jan. 3, 2012).

[30] Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, Maggie Mulvihill & Kevin Wisniewski, “Radical Islam: Outspoken Cleric, Jailed Activist Tied to New Hub Mosque,” Boston Herald, October 28, 2003, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1009964/posts; and Wells, Meyers, Mulvihill & Wisniewski, “Under Suspicion: Hub Mosque Leader Tied to Radical Groups,” Boston Herald, October 29, 2003, http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1010353/posts (both accessed Dec. 30, 2011).

[31] “Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center—Timeline,” The Pluralism Project at Harvard University, n.d., http://pluralism.org/files/wrgb/islam/ISBCC_Controversy_Timeline.pdf; Islamic Society of Boston et al. v. Boston Herald et al. n1, Superior Court of Massachusetts at Suffolk, July 20, 2006 Mass. Super LEXIS 391, http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=bdihja&searchTerm=eLWS.KKOa.aadj.ebDb&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW (both accessed December 30, 2011; court document now only available with a subscription). See also Jane Lampman, “Battle Waged in Boston over New Mosque,” Christian Science Monitor, January 5, 2006, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0105/p13s01-lire.html; and Lampman, “Boston Mosque Rises above the Fray,” Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 2007, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p13s03-lire.html (both accessed Jan. 3, 2012).

[32] Quotes from Islamic Society of Boston, “Confronting Intolerance” (accessed Sept. 23, 2011; no longer available online). See Islamic Society of Boston, “Damning Evidence against the David Project.” Also Jane Lampman, “Boston Mosque Rises above the Fray.”

[33] Mark Jurkowitz, “Trial and Terror,” Boston Phoenix, December 10, 2005, http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/dont_quote_me/multi-page/documents/05096810.asp (accessed Oct. 15, 2012).

[34] Andrea Estes, “Islamic Society Urged to Respond: Group Still Quiet on Anti-Semitism Issue,” Boston Globe, October 7, 2004, http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=499145&Date=10/7/2004 (accessed Oct. 12, 2012).

[35] Lampman, “Boston Mosque Rises above the Fray”; Estes, Islamic Society Urged to Respond: Group Still Quiet on Anti-Semitism Issue”; “Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center—Timeline.”; Martin Felsen, “Rosh Hashonah Dvar—Sept. 2007,” September 13, 2007, http://circleboston.org/sites/www.circleboston.org/files/Felsen%20dvar%202007.pdf (accessed Oct. 12, 2012).

[36] Ali et al, Fear, Inc., 50-51; Martin Solomon, “Spencer Talk on the Mosque—The Day After,” February 4, 2005, Solomonia, http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005380.shtml; and ADL, “Backgrounder: Stop Islamization of America,” March 2011 (posted September 19, 2012), http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/pamela-geller-stop-islamization-of-america.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_1 (all accessed Oct. 15, 2012).

[37] Cecilie Surasky, “Campaign to Stop Mosque in Boston: The Islamic Society of Boston Drops Defamation Lawsuit Against Opponents of Mosque, Construction to Proceed,” MuzzleWatch, June 4, 2007, http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2007/06/04/campaign-to-stop-mosque-in-bostonthe-islamic-society-of-boston-drops-lawsuit-construction-will-proce/ (accessed Oct.15, 2012).

[38] The Islamic Society of Boston twice subpoenaed ADL documents. The David Project, “The Islamic Society of Boston, ‘Promoter of Interfaith Dialog,’ Subpoenas the Anti-Defamation League,” press release, February 19, 2007, http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/010079.shtml; also Daniel Pipes, “The Islamic Society of Boston & the Politicians' Red Faces,” Middle East Forum, October 29, 2003, updated December 29, 2008, http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/10/the-islamic-society-of-boston-the (both accessed Oct. 15, 2012).

[39] Lampman, “Boston Mosque Rises above the Fray.”

[40] Islamic Society of Boston, “Damning Evidence against the David Project,” Steve Cohen, email to Josh Katzen, Jack Fainberg, & Evan Slavitt, May 18, 2004.

[41] Islamic Society of Boston, “Damning Evidence against the David Project.”

[42] Surasky, “Campaign to Stop Mosque in Boston: The Islamic Society of Boston Drops Defamation Lawsuit Against Opponents of Mosque, Construction to Proceed.”

[43] Initial Gaffney quotes from Ali et al, Fear Inc., 33. “Beachhead” quote is from Frank. J. Gaffney, Jr., “War of Ideas’ Homefront [on Khalil Gibran Academy],” Washington Times, July 24, 2007.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jul/24/war-of-ideas-homefront/.  See also Gaffney, “Stop the Madrassa,” Washington Times, Aug. 14, 2007, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/aug/14/stop-the-madrassa/ (both accessed March 8, 2012).

[44] Debbie Almontaser & Donna Nevel, “The Story of Khalil Gibran International Academy: Racism and a Campaign of Resistance,” Monthly Review 63:03, July-August 2011, http://monthlyreview.org/2011/07/01/khalil-0gibran-international-academy (accessed March 19, 2012).

[45] Almontaser & Nevel, “The Story of Khalil Gibran International Academy.”

[46] Chuck Bennett & Jana Winter, “City Principal Is ‘Revolting,’” New York Post, August 6, 2007, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_UerzwvF7fcSQY8YOP1ln4K (accessed March 19, 2012).

[47] Foxman quote from Larry Cohler-Esses, “Jewish Shootout over Arab School,” New York Jewish Week, August 17, 2007, http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/jewish_shootout_over_arab_school (accessed March 8, 2012).

[48] U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Debbie Almontaser v. New York City Department of Education and New Visions for Public Schools, EEOC Charge No. 520-2008-02337, March 9, 2010, 7, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/EEOC_Determination.pdf (accessed March 19, 2012).

[49] U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Almontaser v. New York City Department of Education and New Visions for Public Schools, 8.

[50] Although the ADL’s main objection was to the location of Park51, Foxman offered another critique. He characterized as “legitimate” “questions [that] have been raised about who is providing the funding to build it, and what connections, if any, its leaders might have with groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values.” ADL, “Statement on Islamic Community Center Near Ground Zero,” press release, July 28, 2010, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5820_32.htm (accessed Dec. 28, 2011).

[51] Jon Moscow quoted in a press statement put out by four groups, American Jews for a Just Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and Jews Say No!, “Park51 Supporters to Protest at Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance: Say Intolerant Leaders Fuel Islamophobia,” Sept. 14, 2010, authors’ personal papers.

[52] Rabbi Beliak quoted in James D. Besser, “Mosque Conflict Seen Sharpening Jewish Divisions,” New York Jewish Week, September 15, 2010, http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/national/mosque_conflict_seen_sharpening_jewish_divisions (accessed Dec. 26, 2011).

[53] Rebecca Vilkomerson quoted in press statement put out by four groups, American Jews for a Just Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and Jews Say No!, “Park51 Supporters to Protest at Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance: Say Intolerant Leaders Fuel Islamophobia,” September 15, 2010 (authors’ personal papers). Almost immediately after this protest, the 4 groups formed Jews Against Islamophobia (JAI). Three of these groups (except for American Jews for a Just Peace, which is based in Philadelphia) have continued to be part of JAI.

[54] Rabbi Levitt Quoted in Steve Lipman, “Rabbis for Human Rights Hosts Cordoba House Founder,” New York Jewish Week, Dec. 7, 2010, http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/rabbis_human_rights_host_cordoba_house_founder (accessed Jan. 3, 2012).

[55] “Comments by Rabbi Eric H. Joffie to the URJ Executive Committee Regarding Cordoba Center Community Center and Mosque,” Union of Reform Judaism, September 14, 2010, http://urj.org/about/union/leadership/yoffie/?syspage=article&item_id=49481&printable= (accessed Jan. 3, 2012).

[56] Abraham H. Foxman, “Exploiting the Mosque Controversy,” ADL press release (originally published in the Huffington Post, August 27, 2010), http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Civil_Rights/20100827-Op-ed+Huffington+Post.htm (accessed Jan. 15, 2012); ADL, “Backgrounder: Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

[57] Interfaith Coalition on Mosques (ICOM), “Statement of Purpose,” ADL press release, September 7, 2010. http://www.adl.org/main_interfaith/ICOM_Statement_of_Purpose.htm (accessed Jan. 3, 2012).

[58] Jordana Horn, “ADL Starts Interfaith Coalition to Help U.S. Muslims,” Jerusalem Post, September 14, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=188076 (accessed Dec. 10, 2012).

[59] J.J. Goldberg, “Mosque Madness: ADL Strikes Back, AJC Catches Up,” Jewish Daily Forward, September 12, 2010, http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/131160/mosque-madness-adl-strikes-back-ajc-catches-up/; Marc Tracy, “Zionists on Both Sides of Tenn. Mosque Debate,” Tablet, November 10, 2010, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/50081/zionists-on-both-sides-of-tenn-mosque-debate (both accessed Dec. 10, 2012).

[60] Dan Gilgoff, “Opponent of NYC Islamic Center Becomes Advocate for Mosques Nationwide,” CNN Belief Blog, January 28, 2011, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/24/opponent-of-ny-islamic-center-becomes-advocate-for-mosques-nationwide/ (accessed Dec. 10, 2012).

[61] Marc Tracy, “Zionists on Both Sides of Tenn. Mosque Debate”; Adam Chandler, “Prominent Park51 Opponent: Stop Anti-Muslim Bigotry,” Huffington Post, October 14, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-chandler/prominent-park51-opponent_b_761527.html (accessed Dec. 10, 2012).

[62] ADL, “Interfaith Coalition Urges Temecula, CA City Council to Reject Bigotry, Approve Mosque,” press release, January 20, 2011, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5966_32.htm; ADL, “Interfaith Coalition Acts in Support of Georgia Mosque,” press release, March 8, 2011, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5992_32.htm; ADL, “ICOM Acts Against Lawsuit Intended to Stop Tennessee Mosque,” press release, September 27, 2010, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5857_32.htm (all accessed Oct. 2, 2012). See also ADL, “ADL Welcomes Law Enforcement's Hate Crime Investigation in Brutal Beating and Tragic Death of Iraqi Immigrant,” press release, March 26, 2012, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HatCr_51/6280_51.htm; and ADL, “ADL Commends Law Enforcement in Tracking Down Florida Mosque Bombing Suspect,” press release, May 5, 2011, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HatCr_51/6032_51.htm (both accessed Oct. 2, 2012).

[63] Abraham H. Foxman, “Shout Down the Sharia Myth Makers,” JTA, August 10, 2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/10/3088943/; “ADL, “ADL Applauds Federal Appeals Court Decision Rejecting Oklahoma Anti-Sharia Amendment,” press release, January 11, 2012. http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/6217_41.htm (both accessed October 3, 2012). Also see American Civil Liberties Union, Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical “Sharia Threat” to Our Judicial System: A Report of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, 2011, 5, http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/Nothing_To_Fear_Report_FINAL_MAY_2011.pdf (accessed Dec. 12, 2011).

[64] ADL, “Anti-Muslim Sentiment ‘Significant,’” press release, March 29, 2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article-print/2011/03/29/3086618/adl-anti-muslim-sentiment-significant?TB_iframe=true&width=750&height=500); also ADL, “David Yerushalmi: A Driving Force Behind Anti-Sharia Efforts in the U.S.,” January 13, 2012, http://www.adl.org/main_Interfaith/david_yerushalmi.htm (both accessed Oct. 3, 2012).

[65] ADL, “Backgrounder: Stop Islamization of America, Pamela Geller,” September 19, 2012, http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/pamela-geller-stop-islamization-of-america.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_2; ADL, “Backgrounder: Stop Islamization of America, Robert Spencer,” September 19, 2012, http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/pamela-geller-stop-islamization-of-america.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_3; ADL, “Backgrounder: Stop Islamization of America: Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer Join Forces,” September 19, 2012, http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/pamela-geller-stop-islamization-of-america.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_4 (all accessed Oct. 3, 2012).

[66] ADL, “Senior Law Enforcement Personnel Attend ADL Anti-Terrorism Course,” June 1, 2005, http://www.adl.org/learn/adl_law_enforcement/atsmay_60105.htm?LEARN_Cat=Training&LEARN_SubCat=Training_News (accessed Oct. 3, 2012).

[67] Mitchell D. Silber & Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, New York City Police Department, 2007, http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf; Sahar F. Aziz, “Caught in a Preventive Dragnet: Selective Counterterrorism in a Post-9/11 America,” Gonzaga Law Review, Vol. 47:2 (2011/2012), 482, http://gonzagalawreview.org/files/2012/04/Aziz-final.pdf (both accessed Dec. 2, 2012).

[68] Quotes from Silber & Bhatt, Radicalization in the West, 33, 38, 45, 32.

[69] Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, CountertERRORism Policy: MACLC’s Critique of the NYPD’s Report on Homegrown Radicalism, 2008, 4, http://maclcnypdcritique.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/counterterrorism-policy-final-paper3.pdf; ACLU, “Coalition Memo to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Regarding ‘Homegrown Terrorism,’” May 7, 2008, http://www.aclu.org/national-security/coalition-memo-senate-committee-homeland-security-and-governmental-affairs-regardi. See also Faiza Patel, Rethinking Radicalization, Brennan Center for Justice, March 8, 2011, 1http://brennan.3cdn.net/f737600b433d98d25e_6pm6beukt.pdf (all accessed Dec. 2, 2012).

[70] Tom Robbins, “NYPD Cops’ Training Included an Anti-Muslim Horror Flick,” The Village Voice, January 19, 2011, http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/2337684/. Michael Powell, “In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims,” New York Times, January 23, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/nyregion/in-police-training-a-dark-film-on-us-muslims.html?pagewanted=all); and J.J. Goldberg, “Islamophobic Film and Its Jewish Backers,” Jewish Daily Forward, February 2, 2012, http://forward.com/articles/150677/islamophobic-film-and-its-jewish-backers/ (all accessed Feb. 3, 2012).

[71] Tom Robbins, “NYPD Cops’ Training Included an Anti-Muslim Horror Flick.”

[72] Ibid.

[73] Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo, “With CIA Help, NYPD Moves Covertly in Muslim Areas,” Denver Post, August 24, 2011, http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18747455 (accessed Dec. 13, 2011).

[74] Chris Hawley, “NYPD Monitored Muslim Students All Over the Northeast,” Christian Science Monitor, February 20, 2012, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0220/New-York-Police-Department-monitored-Muslim-students-all-over-the-Northeast (accessed February 21, 2012). See numerous publications of the Brennan Center for Justice, such as Faiza Patel & Andrew Sullivan, A Proposal for an NYPD Inspector General, Brennan Center for Justice, 2012, http://brennan.3cdn.net/f18d017c1e832538b5_j4m6i2f06.pdf; Brennan Center for Justice, “City Council Members, Civil Rights Advocates Press Conference Puts Spotlight on NYPD Operations,” press release, October 6, 2011, http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/city_council_members_civil_rights_advocates_press_conference_puts_spotlight/; Faiza Patel & Michael Price, “Unchecked NYPD Operations In Need Of Oversight,” October 6, 2011, http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/unchecked_nypd_operations_in_need_of_oversight/ (all accessed Oct. 15, 2012).

[75] Ryan Devereaux, “Rally Calls for NYPD Commissioner to Quit over Anti-Muslim Training Film,” The Guardian (London), January 26, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/nypd-commissioner-kelly-anti-muslim-film/print (accessed February 23, 2012). For opposition to the NYPD surveillance program in the Jewish community, see, for example, Shoulder to Shoulder, “Local and National Religious Leaders Ask Mayor Bloomberg to Investigate NYPD Surveillance and Training Practices,” press release, March 13, 2012, http://www.shouldertoshouldercampaign.org/media/local_and_national_religious_leaders_ask_mayor_bloomberg_to_investigate_nypd_surveillance_and_training_practices.html; and Rachel Kahn-Troster & Marjorie Dove Kent, “Stop Spying on Muslims,” Jewish Daily Forward, Oct. 9, 2012, http://forward.com/articles/163754/stop-spying-on-muslims/(both accessed Dec. 10, 2012). The authors are executive directors, respectively, of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. See also Alex Kane, “The Jewish Establishment Goes to Bat for Ray Kelly and the NYPD,” Mondoweiss, March 21, 2012, http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/the-jewish-establishment-goes-to-bat-for-ray-kelly-and-the-nypd.html (accessed March 22, 2012).

[76] The following AP articles were published prior to the ADL’s giving the award to Galati: Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman, “With CIA Help, NYPD Moves Covertly in Muslim Areas”; Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman, “Inside the Spy Unit that NYPD Says Doesn’t Exist,” August 31, 2011, http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/Inside-the-spy-unit-that-NYPD-says-doesnt-exist; Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan & Matt Apuzzo, “NYPD Eyed US Citizens in Intel Effort,” Sept. 22, 2011, http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/Inside-the-spy-unit-that-NYPD-says-doesnt-exist; Chris Hawley & Matt Apuzzo, “NYPD Infiltration of Colleges Raises Privacy Fears,” October 11, 2011, http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/NYPD-infiltration-of-colleges-raises-privacy-fears ; Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo, “What’s the CIA Doing at NYPD? Depends Whom You Ask,” October 17, 2011, http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/Whats-the-CIA-doing-at-NYPD-Depends-whom-you-ask; Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman, “NYPD Keeps Files on Muslims Who Change Their Names,” October 26, 2011, http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/NYPD-keeps-files-on-Muslims-who-change-their-names. A list of all of the AP articles in this Pulitzer Prize-winning series, including articles written after the ADL’s award to Galati, is available at “AP Probe into NYPD Intelligence Operations,” http://www.ap.org/Index/AP-In-The-News/NYPD (all accessed Sept. 30, 2012).

[77] ADL, “ADL Honors NYPD Intelligence Chief for Courage and Dedication,” press release, Nov. 7, 2011, http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Mise_00/6156_00.htm (accessed Oct. 1, 2012). Also Kane, “The Jewish Establishment Goes to Bat for Ray Kelly and the NYPD.”

[78] Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo, “NYPD: Muslim Spying Led to No Leads, Terror Cases,” New York Daily News, Aug. 21, 2012, http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-08-21/news/33307378_1_muslim-student-groups-demographics-unit-terror-cases (accessed September 30, 2012). Goldman & Apuzzo, “NYPD: Muslim Spying Led to No Leads, Terror Cases.” In his testimony, Galati explained that the NYPD thought it legitimate to collect information, for example, on speakers of Urdu (the language of 15 million Pakistanis and 60 million Indians) or someone from South Lebanon, because, he said, “that may be an indicator of possibility that that is a sympathizer of Hezbollah because Southern Lebanon is dominated by Hezbollah.”

About the Author: Elly Bulkin is a writer and editor. Donna Nevel is a community psychologist and educator. Both were founding members of Jews Against Islamophobia Coalition and steering committee members of Communities in Support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. They can be reached at challengingislamophobia@gmail.com.