There are many reasons why it’s a bad idea for university endowments to divest from Israel. Divestment serves to delegitimize Israel and puts the onus for solving the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict on only one side. It could also likely lead to economic ramifications, such as reduced alumni giving and lower returns, as well as open up the potential for heavier taxation of endowment income. Beyond all of these arguments, universities that decide to divest…
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Even as we pause and mourn those we have lost, we cannot rest. Read more.
As encampment protests riled college campuses throughout the Spring 2024 semester, some universities agreed to formally consider protestors’ demands that their endowments divest from companies with business interests in Israel. It is the latest iteration of the years-long Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that seeks to isolate Israel economically. Brown University reached an agreement for student protestors to take down their encampment and refrain from…
As students start returning to campuses with expected continuation of anti-Israel protests, JLens unpacks the demands and consequences of divestment campaigns.
An 18-year-old suspect who livestreamed himself stabbing multiple people near a mosque in the Turkish city of Eskişehir on August 12, 2024, was fueled by the extremist belief in accelerationism and motivated by past mass killers including white supremacists, an analysis by the ADL Center on Extremism has shown. Wearing a skull mask and a tactical vest with a sonnenrad patch — both common symbols utilized by white supremacists and accelerationists — and armed with…
JLens ran three successful proxy season campaigns with ADL that aimed to combat anti-Israel shareholder proposals and support efforts to protect kids online.
Riots across the United Kingdom involving far-right elements broke out after the murder of three young girls at a dance class in the Southport knife attack was falsely attributed to a recently arrived Muslim migrant. It is predictable but still problematic to see Israel scapegoated as the cause of the riots raging across the United Kingdom involving far-right elements. This is happening across social media. The claims have no basis and contribute to the increasing anxiety among the Jews in the…
Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed on July 31, 2024 in Tehran, led the so-called politburo of Hamas, a US-designated Islamist terror organization dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Hamas’ founding covenant issued in 1988, which echoes the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion charging Jews with an international conspiracy to gain control of the world, is…
Hillel International, the premier Jewish on-campus organization that supports Jewish life at hundreds of colleges across the United States and abroad, has been one of the most frequent targets of anti-Israel activists and other antisemites in recent months, totaling more than a hundred incidents in the U.S. since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Jewish students and Hillel staff members have received threatening emails and phone calls; Hillel buildings have been vandalized and…
Antisemites across the political spectrum gathered in Somerset, KY on June 30, 2024 for a “JP” (Jewish Problem) Conference that promoted anti-Jewish hate.
Introduction Anti-Zionist group Samidoun (derived from the Arabic word for “steadfast”) is a self-described solidarity network for Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons. In October 2024, the U.S. and Canadian governments sanctioned Samidoun as a "sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for The Popular Front for The Liberation of Palestine" (PFLP), a designated terror group in the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Israel, and Japan. On October 15, 2024, the U.S…
An analysis by the ADL Center on Extremism identified five influencers on X whose engagement spiked in the days and weeks after Hamas’s attack on Israel, with content that included virulent anti-Zionism alongside antisemitic tropes, disinformation and other forms of hateful or harmful rhetoric. In the six months following October 7, 2023, the combined audience engagement on X for these five influencers—Jackson Hinkle, Lucas Gage, Jake Shields, Sam Parker and CensoredMen&mdash…
On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump suffered minor injuries when an individual fired multiple shots at the former president shortly after Trump took the stage during a campaign rally in Butler, PA. The attack killed one rally attendee and injuring three, including the former President. The shooter has been identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, PA. While the motivation for the attack remains unknown, federal law enforcement are treating the incident as an assassination…
Across the country in recent months, many anti-Israel activists have been engaged in strategic “escalation” to further their cause. These actions have included increasingly aggressive and targeted protests, property destruction and defacement, physical takeovers of institutions deemed to be “complicit” in alleged Israeli military actions, and even multiple cases of ideologically motivated arson attacks. For the most part, the tactics themselves — such as…
While the anti-Israel encampments have largely been dismantled, their architects appear determined to capitalize on what they see as their most successful organizing tactic in a decade. “Summer school” is now in session, led locally and nationally by pro-Palestinian individuals and groups. These ”schools” — currently scheduled to run from June through August — are designed to educate and train student and community activists. Some are only open to…
Since October 7, extremists and conspiracy theorists have promoted mis- and disinformation narratives about the reality of Hamas’s unprecedented, multi-pronged attack on Israel, attempting to deny or minimize the tragedy and shift the blame towards victims, a majority of whom were innocent civilians. These misleading or false claims — many of which have proliferated on mainstream social media platforms — manipulate and distort the facts of the mass assault, invalidate the…
Extremists and online trolls are using Suno, an increasingly influential Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) music creation tool, to make songs promoting hate speech, racist stereotypes, calls for violence and extremist rhetoric. The tool, created by Suno AI, became popular in 2023 after the company announced a partnership with Microsoft. Today, many users employ the tool for innocuous purposes. However, the ADL Center on Extremism has discovered a vast library of disturbing songs…
While the days of lockdowns and social distancing are behind us, anti-vaccine narratives remain prevalent on social media, and extremists continue to exploit these sentiments to recruit new members, raise money and mainstream their beliefs. Many extremists view anti-vaxxers as a massive pool of potential fresh recruits and followers primed for the “red pill.” While the mainstreaming of once-fringe anti-vaccine beliefs poses obvious risks to public health,…
As the “People’s Conference for Palestine” got underway in Detroit, MI on May 24, the packed audience cheered as Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) organizer and conference MC Mohammed Nabulsi opened by offering “salutations to our people in Palestine and to our noble, steadfast Resistance.” Nabulsi garnered further enthusiastic applause when he urged “eternal glory to our martyrs” and called to “liberate every inch of Palestine, from the Jordan…
Nakba Day commemorations across the United States, already charged events, were compounded this year by a sharp rise in anti-Israel activity tied to the Israel-Hamas war that was triggered by the October 7 mass terror attacks. Nakba Day (“catastrophe” in Arabic) is commemorated annually on May 15 by Palestinians and their supporters worldwide to mourn the events related to the creation of the State of Israel, including its impact on Palestinians, and to advocate for the…