“I don’t believe in cancel culture” – ADL CEO fumes at suggestion he was ‘shaking down’ Musk for money

The Musk vs ADL (and the censorship industrial complex) battle escalated further this morning with the X/Twitter owner highlighting a new article from Newsweek saying that “ADL Has Lost Its Way”:

(Article by Tyler Durden republished from ZeroHedge.com)

Good article https://t.co/8cRi66IQvR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 6, 2023

“The ADL taught me that nastygrams from Jew haters were just the price we pay for liberty, worthy of being filed and forgotten,” writes Ron Coleman in the op-ed.

“This is not Weimar Germany; it is America. We have a First Amendment, we have civil rights, we have a working democracy.

That is part of the good we have done.

“But” Coleman explains, “the ADL no longer believes this…”

“It has become part of a great online censorship machine that is being exposed day after day as an anti-free speech enterprise.”

The following clip suggests just that…

In this hidden camera clip, I (Kyle Undercover) CAUGHT the ADL discussing how they attempt to influence Elon Musk to pick and chose who they want to be banned from HIS platform. #ADL#elonmusk#X#Twitter#banned#platformpic.twitter.com/xK3MeIql7L

— A??????M???™® (@Aspiemama_107) September 2, 2023

As Coleman concludes:

“The ADL’s efforts to censor Twitter confirms what we have known for years: Not only is today’s ADL not doing the world some good. It is doing something much worse. How much longer will we be allowed to say so?”

Greenblatt then appeared on CNBC this morning to respond to Musk’s threats.

He got his initial talking points in without much push back from the anchors:

• rising anti-semitism everywhere,
• Musk allowing “hardened anti-semites” back on the platform,
• Greenblatt seemed to walk back his views on free-speech (“hate speech is the price of free speech”),
• and said that he didn’t think Musk was anti-semitic or Twitter as a platform was anti-semitic,
• but ended by framing the victim narrative: “let’s be clear here, this is the wealthiest man in the world running one of the most powerful media platforms on the planet… and we’re a non-profit, here in New York, so I think figuring out who has the power in this relationship… is pretty clear to me.”

But then things turned just a little more contemptuous as Andrew Ross Sorkin dropped a bombshell and asked the ADL CEO:

“Were you seeking to have some kind of either role at Twitter or any kind of donations made or other things?”

“No…” Greenblatt exclaimed.

“I only say that because there have been folks who’ve looked at these situations and felt they were being shaken down,” Sorkin said.

To which Greenblatt immediately played a ‘card’:

“Look, I think, let me be honest about that. I think it is [a] sort of anti-Semitic trope to suggest when Jewish people express a degree of outrage over antisemitism, that somehow that’s a shakedown because Jews are greedy. That sounds to me… I’m not saying you believe that…”

Sorkin swiftly interrupted to defend himself…

“I’m Jewish, so I’m not even trying to…” Sorkin said. 

“I’m just saying that that occasionally you hear the critique among not-for-profits in certain cases that are involved in certain causes that talk to companies and you hear it from leaders who say, ‘I feel like…'”

Greenblatt then dropped the biggest load of bullshit yet:

“I hear that, but my view on all of this, we talked about this before on the show… I don’t believe in cancel culture, I believe in counsel culture… What we’ve tried to do over the years with Twitter, with YouTube, with Facebook and all of its platforms, with Reddit, with Discord, I can go on and on, is to work with them, to make those platforms better,” Greenblatt said.

“Better” by who’s defintion? “Better” by having voices silenced that do not fit the establishment narrative (and that have nothing at all to do with anti-semitism)?

“I’m trying to understand what led to this – whatever is happening here. That was why I asked that question,” Sorkin asked.

“Well, I think Elon’s a complicated person, I can’t explain what prompted those tweets,” Greenblatt said, adding that “Jewish people are vulnerable” and that Twitter should not be “amplifying or intensifying anti-Jewish hate.”

Watch the full interview below:

Michael Shellenberger was quick to point out the ADL CEO’s propaganda…

You claim, “Anti-Jewish acts have reached… the highest number we’ve seen in 40 years of tracking it,” but your tracking is garbage & you know it. Experts have debunked you for decades. You’re spreading disinformation and demanding people be censored for it. Shame on you & @ADLhttps://t.co/TZqLvcz4of

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) September 6, 2023

And here is @MarioNawful debunking some of Greenblatt’s lies:

1) He claimed that Elon brought and amplified anti-semitism and hate speech back to the platform.

This is NOT TRUE. The ? Safety team shared that an independent assessment by Sprinklr found that hate speech impressions on ? “to be 0.003% compared to Twitter’s estimate of 0.012%.”

2) Greenblatt claimed ADL is NOT publicly or privately talking to advertisers.

BUT shortly after, said, “It is true we did call for a pause back in November, after the acquisition and since then” and in a previous interview he stated “if it remains a hellscape the advertisers won’t take part in [Twitter]”

3) Greenblatt said the ADL is a SMALL non-profit in NY.

NOT TRUE. The ADL is an influential organization with over 100 years of history, and according to the ADL’s 2021 tax filings, the organization’s total revenue was $101 million with a balance sheet of $238 million.

They ALSO received millions of dollars of indirect government funding via grants to groups in which the ADL has special interests.

4) Greenblatt says the ADL works WITH other social media platforms, including Facebook.

We saw in the Politico article that Elon Musk posted that the ADL indirectly CONTROLS what can be posted on Facebook.  

Doesn’t seem like the meeting with X CEO Linda Yaccarino went as well as Greenblatt is making it out to be.

As InformationLiberation.com’s Chris Menahan detailed earlier, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Tuesday responded to Twitter/X owner Elon Musk’s criticism of their aggressive pro-censorship ad boycott campaigns by accusing him of “engaging with a highly toxic antisemitic campaign” which will incite violence against Jewish people.

From Haaretz, “ADL Hits Back at Elon Musk for Engaging With ‘Highly Toxic Antisemitic Campaign’ “:

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Tuesday issued his first public comments after an antisemitic social media campaign spearheaded by X chairman Elon Musk targeted his organization.

“It is profoundly disturbing that Elon Musk spent the weekend engaging with a highly toxic antisemitic campaign on his platform – a campaign started by an unrepentant bigot that then was heavily promoted by individuals such as white supremacist Nick Fuentes, Christian nationalist Andrew Torba, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and others,” Greenblatt said.

Musk had defended himself against allegations of antisemitism, all while he and several of his prominent far-right supporters accused the ADL of fomenting antisemitism in an act of explicit victim-blaming. Musk further threatened to take legal action against the Jewish anti-discrimination organization, accusing it of being behind the company’s $22 billion drop in value after advertisers fled en masse over the proliferation of hate speech on the platform following his takeover.

Greenblatt noted that the campaign “manifested in the real world when masked men marched in Florida on Saturday brazenly waving flags adorned with swastikas and chanting ‘Ban the ADL.’ “

“But to be clear, the real issue is neither ADL nor the threat of a frivolous lawsuit. This urgent matter is the safety of the Jewish people in the face of increasing, intensifying antisemitism,” he continued.

The ADL CEO charged Musk with engaging with and elevating these antisemites at a time of unprecedented spikes in antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions and private residential communities.

“And so, this behavior is not just alarming nor reckless. It is flat out dangerous and deeply irresponsible. We need responsible leaders to lead, to stop inflaming hatred and to step back from the brink before it’s too late,” Greenblatt added.

Musk can probably add this inflammatory rhetoric to his lawsuit against the ADL.

Without a doubt, the time when the most “unprecedented spikes in antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions” occurred was in 2017 after Trump’s election when over 245 bomb threats were called into Jewish community centers throughout America.

The ADL used the threats to harangue President Trump for “emboldening anti-Semites” and legislation was passed as a result of lobbying from the ADL to increase funding and security grants to Jewish groups.

(2/2)
• Doubling budget for @StateDept Antisemitism Envoy
• Doubling @DHSgov terrorism prevention grants
• Doubling non-profit security grants
• Funding new grants to better prevent and respond to hate crimes
• Fully funding new Holocaust education programs

— ADL (@ADL) December 22, 2020

It turned out nearly all of the JCC bomb threats were carried out by “18 year old” Israeli-American Michael Ron David Kadar, who was found to have a bitcoin wallet worth millions of shekels (a few copycat threats were called in by African-American Juan Thompson).

Zero photographs of Kadar’s face were ever released.

Kadar was found guilty in Israel in June 2018 for the bomb threats and sentenced to ten years in prison.

In 2019, evidence was dug up by geneticist Franklin Stahl, Ph.D., a member of the National Academy of Science, suggesting that Kadar’s Israeli mother, Dr. Tamar Kadar, who is a chemical weapons researcher at the Mossad-operated Israeli Institute for Biological Research, may have been the real culprit behind the calls.

Stahl reported that Kadar, who evidence indicates was actually 27 years old and not 18 years old at the time of his arrest, was nothing more than a fall guy.

Additionally, Kadar appears to have been freed from prison by Israel and allowed to travel back to America only to be arrested and jailed on a weapons charge in Illinois.

Kadar’s story completely fell off the map shortly after it was uncritically reported in 2017 and the ADL refused to remove his hoax calls from their list of “anti-Semitic incidents” for 2017.

The ADL never apologized to Trump or his supporters for smearing them for supposedly inciting these (hoax) bomb threats and never offered to give back the money they got from Congress due to hyping the threats.

“The new information does not change our view that the bomb threats against Jewish institutions were anti-Semitic and harmful to the communities targeted,” the ADL said in a press release after Kadar’s arrest.

“No matter who placed the calls or why the calls were placed, the outcome was the same: they instilled fear and disrupted communities across the country.”

This battle – between Musk and the activist censors – is far from over.

Read more at: ZeroHedge.com