The ADL released its Campus' antisemitism report card on Apr. 11, ranking how colleges with the highest populations of Jewish students are handling pro-Palestinian activists on their campuses. OSU in Columbus received a “D,” meaning a deficient approach.

According to the Nation's Jan. 31, 2024, article, "The Anti-Defamation League: Israel’s attack dog in the US posing as a Civil Rights Group, the ADL has long operated as an intelligence organization targeting Israel’s critics. So why does the media still treat it as a credible source?"

When ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt was confronted with a choice between supporting a crackdown on criticism of Israel and protecting civil liberties, he repeatedly chose the former, putting him in conflict with his own civil rights office, which expressed alarm over governmental efforts to interfere with speech critical of Israel.

The ADL has a long history of trying to smear and silence those who criticize the Israeli government's human rights abuses against Palestinians. Last November, two ADL board members threatened to quit over Jonathan Greenblatt's support of Elon Musk’s proposal to ban the phrase “from the river to the sea” on Twitter/X, according to a new report by Rolling Stone.

Last October, Greenblatt wrote 200 university and college administrators urging them to investigate Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the largest Palestine solidarity campus organization in the country, for possibly violating the law by providing material support to Hamas.

ADL failed to produce any evidence that SJP ever provided material support to Hamas. The American Civil Liberties Union condemned ADL smear tactics and called the higher academic institutions to reject ADL's claim as baseless, intended only to punish SJP students for exercising their rights to free speech. Subsequently, several colleges and universities banned SJP on its campuses across the country.

Maybe Greenblatt can take heed from Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who after Florida governor Ronda Desantis disbanded SJP in his home state of Florida said, " Free speech means nothing if it is just about protecting the speech we agree on. Free speeches are really about protecting the speech we disagree with the most."

Perhaps Greenblatt himself should first comply with US laws by registering his organization as a foreign lobbying group. ADL can't protect civil liberties and get legitimacy and then support the Israeli Apartheid's policies and its persecution of Palestinians who are living under its military occupation. After all, the ADL can't have it both ways.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelance writer and retired USA veteran who lives in Westerville, Ohio. He could be reached at: [email protected]