American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Encyclopedia
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) states that it is the largest Arab American
grassroots civil rights
organization in the United States. According to its web page it is open to people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and has over 40 chapters in 24 states and members in all 50 states. It notes that three million Americans trace their roots to an Arab
country. The ADC seeks to “empower Arab Americans, defend the civil rights of all people, promote Arab cultural heritage
, promote civic participation, encourage a balanced US policy in the Middle East and support freedom and development in the Arab World.” ADC has a number of programs to combat discrimination and bias against Arab-Americans, including stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims
. The ADC is a member of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
(LCCR) and has a seat on its executive committee.
ADC was founded in 1980 by James Abourezk
, the first Arab-American United States Senator. The current president of ADC is Sara Najjar-Wilson. The Advisory Board includes Muhammad Ali
, Queen Noor of Jordan, Casey Kasem
, United States House of Representatives
members John Conyers
, Darrell Issa
and Nick Joe Rahall, former member Paul Findley
, Archbishop Philip Saliba and others.
, defamation and hate crimes and provides assistance in selected litigation. Since September 11, ADC attorneys have addressed hundreds of cases against airlines and employers for discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and national origin and against the United States government for discriminatory detentions of Arabs and Muslims without probable cause .
ADC's Communications Department challenges defamation, stereotyping
and bias in films, television and news reporting. Its Media Monitoring Team responds to such incidents. ADC spokespersons are considered an authoritative voice on Arab-American affairs and appear regularly on major national and international media
outlets and consult on a wide range of documentaries and educational programs.
The Government Affairs department works with the United States Congress
, the White House
, the United States Department of State
and Department of Justice
, as well as other government agencies to promote the interests of the community. US citizen members of ADC can contribute to the NAAA-ADC Political Action Committee
(PAC) to support political candidates for federal office.
ADC’s Organizing Department mobilizes the local chapters efforts and directs ADC’s national campaigns. ADC convenes an annual Convention. Convention speakers have included government officials like Department of Homeland Security civil rights officer Daniel W. Sutherland and then-United States Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell
The ADC Research Institute (ADCRI), founded in 1981, is a Section 501(c)(3) educational organization that sponsors research studies, seminars, conferences and publications about the discrimination faced by Arab Americans as well as promotes a better understanding of Arab cultural heritage. ADC's “Reaching the Teachers” campaign provides lesson plans, background articles, fact sheets, bibliographies and other resources to educators. ADC's intern program for undergraduate, graduate and law students trains Arab-American leaders. The institute offers a bibliography of anti-Arab bias. In 2008 the Institute issued a lengthy report on hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans.
initially was motivated by unfair stereotyping of Arabs in media, anti-Arabism in general and the Abscam
sting where Federal Bureau of Investigation
("FBI") agents posed as Arabs. He brought together more than 60 Arab leaders from around the nation who agreed to form the committee. Abourezk has stated: "When we started up people used to ask us why we started. Now they ask us for our opinion on things.”
After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982
, ADC began organizing demonstrations and marches. The war greatly increased Arab American’s willingness to speak out in general, as well as groups’ use of the term “Arab American” to self-identify.
In 1985 ADC offices suffered a series of violent attacks. On August 16, a bomb exploded in the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee office in Boston
, severely injuring two police officers. On October 29 an arson fire damaged the ADC office in Washington, D.C. On October 11, the day after the ending of the Achille Lauro
incident where a Jewish American died, Alex Odeh
, ADC’s west-coast regional director, was killed in a bombing as he opened the door to his office. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) suspected Jewish Defense League
and Jewish Defense Organization
members. Although Jewish Defense League leader Irv Rubin
, who lived in Southern California, made some controversial statements about the bombing, the investigation focused on Robert Manning and his wife Rochelle who fled to Israel
. They eventually were prosecuted on another bombing charge and Manning is serving a life sentence on that charge. In 2007, the FBI revealed they had received information from a deceased informant, believed to be former Jewish Defense League member Earl Krugel
who had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for 2001 plots to bomb a Southern California mosque and office of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa
, who is Arab-American. It is believed that Irv Rubin
, who committed suicide in 2002 in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons
in Los Angeles while awaiting trial on the same charges, revealed to Krugel the names of those responsible for Odeh’s death and that Krugel shared those with the FBI before he was murdered in prison in 2005. The bombers are believed to be Manning and two individuals now living in Israel. ADC continues to honor Odeh’s memory and call for prosecution of his killers. The FBI has failed to arrest anyone in the Odeh bombing case.
During the 1991 Gulf War
against Saddam Hussein
, ADC president James Abourezk expressed concern that Arab Americans would be targeted, revealing that a violent anti-Arab telephone message had been left on an ADC answering machine. ADC documented that more than 100 hate crimes against Arab-Americans were committed from August 1990 through March 1991, including arson
against a Detroit restaurant and the planting of a bomb in a San Diego mosque
.
In 1993 ADC and the American Civil Liberties Union
settled a law suit against Pan American World Airways
for their detention of a man of Iranian descent during the 1991 Gulf War. The groups and individual shared in the $110,000 settlement.
In 1993 ADC protested the characterization of Arabs and the song lyrics in the 1992 Disney film, Aladdin
. In response, the lyrics – "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home” – were changed to unoffensive ones for the 1993 video release. Due to this incident, Entertainment Weekly
listed Aladdin as one of the most controversial films in history.
In 1993 twelve civil rights groups led by the ADC and the National Lawyers Guild
filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles alleging that the “pro-Israel” Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) had spied on their political activities and shared information with police. They demanded ADL release its surveillance information and end its investigations, as well as be ordered to pay punitive damages
. They also sued the police and sheriffs' departments of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Then communications director Hussein Ibish
stated that ADL was gathering information "systematically in a program whose clear intent was to undermine civil rights and Arab-American organizations." In 1999 ADL and the groups reached an agreement whereby ADL purged certain personal information held on the plaintiffs and agreed to pay $175,000 for the plaintiffs' legal fees and contribute $25,000 toward a community relations fund to advance good relations among Arabs, Jews and others.
In 1996 the US Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
, which increased the regulation of fund raising that might benefit alleged terrorists and made it easier to bar or deport those with suspected terrorist affiliations. It also passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
allowing deportation of immigrants for minor offenses, even those committed decades ago, and even if individuals had American spouses and/or children. It also allowed secret classified evidence and denial of bond for those under threat of deportation. ADC began campaigns to contest these laws and even dilute or overturn them through legal action. One law suit by Arabs claiming they were targeted for deportation because of affiliations with an unpopular political group, in violation of their First
and Fifth Amendment
, reached the Supreme Court, in Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee . While the ruling cast doubt on the role of secret evidence, many observers interpreted it as restricting First Amendment rights of all non-citizens, including legal immigrants.
, signed by 68 members of congress, calling for economic sanctions against the people of Iraq
to be lifted. ADC’s press release noted that the United Nations estimated that over one million civilians, mostly children, had died from malnutrition
and disease due to the embargo
.
In July 2001 ADC announced the creation of a “Right of Return”
Taskforce supporting Palestinian refugees “right to return to their original homes, have their property restored to them and receive compensation for any losses incurred as a result of displacement or dispossession
.” ADC asserted this was basic to international human rights
and recognized as applying to the Palestinian refugees by many United Nations
resolutions, most notably, UN Resolution 194. The taskforce’s goal was to raise public awareness of the right and its importance in creating Middle East peace and to coordinate advocacy efforts. In 2004 ADC signed on to a letter affirming the Palestinian Right of Return
in response to President George W. Bush
’s declaration of support for the policies of Prime Minister of Israel
, Ariel Sharon
which effectively denied that right.
After the September 11 attacks, ADC concerned itself with “an unprecedented backlash in the form of hate crimes, discrimination and various civil liberties violations” against the Arab American community, as well as against Muslims. It also addressed the October 2001 passage of the Patriot Act which increased federal law enforcement surveillance
abilities, eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the U.S, expanded regulation of financial transactions and enhanced law enforcement abilities to detain and deport immigrants merely suspected of some relation to terrorists. Under the Act law enforcement immediately targeted mainly Arab-Americans and South Asians, including “massive secret detentions
,” selective enforcement
through “voluntary” interviews, deportation of Middle Eastern men and further restrictions on immigration by Arabs and Muslims.
In December 2001 ADC met with US Department of Justice representatives to express concerns about the Patriot Act. It was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter from a number of civil liberties and other organizations asking members of the U.S. Congress to oppose the leaked draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003
holding it contained "a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional
rights." Also known as “Patriot Act II,” it was not passed into law. In 2002 ADC joined a coalition of Muslim groups to sue then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
and the Immigration and Naturalization Service
for arrests and detention of immigrant men trying to register with federal authorities.
In 2003 when then University of South Florida
professor Sami Al-Arian
was indicted on terrorism-related charges ADC issued a press release stating that a “pattern of profiling and targeting the community is of deep concern to ADC and we will continue to monitor the situation.” Speaking on CNN
, then- communications director Hussein Ibish stated: "Until we have some reason based in fact to think otherwise, I think that the presumption has to be that this is a political witch-hunt, a vendetta, and a kind of very, very ugly post-9/11 McCarthyism." In December, 2005, after Al-Arian was acquitted of eight charges, and the jury deadlocked on nine others, ADC stated that in the verdict was seen as a “major defeat” for some of the most controversial elements of the Patriot Act. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist
" organization. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and ordered deported following his prison term.
In 2003 ADC was a co-plaintiff with the American Civil Liberties Union
and other groups in the first major legal challenge to Section 215 of the Patriot Act that expands federal agents’ power to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of citizens and permanent residents. They charged it violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as rights to freedom of speech and association. After a nationwide campaign to reform the Patriot Act, in 2006 the plaintiffs withdrew the suit, citing improvements to the law.
In 2004 ADC demanded that Webster's Third New International Dictionary remove from its definition of anti-Semitism
"opposition to Zionism
" and "sympathy for the opponents of Israel". ADC then-communications director Hussein Ibish wrote that the extended definition trivialized the “very concept of anti-Semitism” and “smears and impugns the motives of all those who support the human and political rights of Palestinians.” A Merriam-Webster company spokesman stated that the older definition was not supported by current usage and probably would be dropped with publication of a new unabridged version by 2010.
In the weeks before the 2004 presidential elections a San Francisco-based ADC official wrote about federal law enforcement’s "October Plan," including home intrusions and work site visits on Middle Easterners and South Asians to seek information about a possible pre-election terrorist attack. Because counter terrorism officials admitted they had no specific intelligence about such a plan, the official asserted that the plan was a “makeover of other racially and politically motivated Bush administration initiatives, appears timed to elevate fear in the United States in the days before the presidential election.”
During Israel’s 2006 invasion and bombing of Lebanon ADC filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice
and Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld
failed to fulfill constitutional obligations to protect US citizens under attack in Lebanon. The lawsuit asked the federal court to compel the officials to request a cease fire and to stop all U.S. military support to Israel during the evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon
. ADC President Hon. Mary Rose Oakar
charged that "the Bush Administration has encouraged the violence by sending an urgent shipment of bombs to Israel giving that country the green light to continue in its indiscriminant bombing of Lebanon."
ADC protested a March 2008 Iowa
comment on radio by Republican
Congressman
Steve King
who said that if Barack Obama
was elected president, “then the radical Islamists and their supporters will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror
." He also raised questions about Obama’s middle name “Hussein,” reiterating similar comments in an Associated Press interview. ADC called for Congress to censure King.
In July 2008 ADC signed on to a letter to Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chairs the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
, expressing concerns that Arabs and Muslims were not consulted before, and their views mischaracterized in, a May committee report titled, "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat." Lieberman assured the groups he does intend to consult with them on security issues.
In November 2008 Benjamin Emanuel, the father of U.S. president Barack Obama
's new Chief of Staff appointee Rahm Emanuel
was quoted by a Hebrew language
daily as saying, "Obviously, he will influence the President to be pro-Israel. Why shouldn't he do it? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floor of the White House." ADC called on Rahm Emanuel to repudiate his father's comment, saying it viewed "this characterization of an Arab as an unacceptable smear." On November 13, 2008 Rahm Emanuel issued a statement doing so. An Emanuel spokesman said Emanuel offered to meet with Arab-American community representatives in the future."
On January 25 and 28, 2010, ADC and like-minded organizations lobbied the United States Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, respectively, in an effort to reverse the Transportation Security Administration's new policy of profiling air travelers by country of origin. The ADC joined more than 25 other organizations in signing a letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano protesting the policy, arguing that ethnic and racial profiling has proven ineffective and runs counter to express commitments by DHS.
In June 2011, the ADC held a "Townhall Meeting
" regarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
movement against Israel
, calling it "a just and legal movement that has proved to be effective in showing not only support for the Palestinian people, but also in putting pressure on businesses, governments, educational institutions, and others, in re-thinking support for the Occupation of Palestine."
criticizes the grassroots leadership of some regional chapters who promote a hard-line stance, including rejecting Israel’s right to exist. These chapters have organized what ADL called “anti-Israel” rallies and, in California, worked with the Free Palestine Alliance, A.N.S.W.E.R.
and Al-Awda (Palestinian right of return
) activist groups which the Anti-Defamation League alleges support terrorism. David Bernstein
and Gerald M. Steinberg
have described ADC as "anti-Israel."
Arab American
An Arab American is a United States citizen or resident of Arab ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage or identity, who identifies themselves as Arab. Arab Americans trace ancestry to any of the various waves of immigrants of the countries comprising the Arab World...
grassroots civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
organization in the United States. According to its web page it is open to people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and has over 40 chapters in 24 states and members in all 50 states. It notes that three million Americans trace their roots to an Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
country. The ADC seeks to “empower Arab Americans, defend the civil rights of all people, promote Arab cultural heritage
Cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...
, promote civic participation, encourage a balanced US policy in the Middle East and support freedom and development in the Arab World.” ADC has a number of programs to combat discrimination and bias against Arab-Americans, including stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims have been presented in various forms by the mass media in Western culture and American culture. Stereotypical representations of Arabs are often manifested in a society's media, literature, theater and other creative expressions...
. The ADC is a member of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights , formerly called The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, is an umbrella group of American civil rights interest groups.-Organizational history:...
(LCCR) and has a seat on its executive committee.
ADC was founded in 1980 by James Abourezk
James Abourezk
James George Abourezk is a former Democratic United States Representative and United States Senator, and was the first Arab-American to serve in the United States Senate. He represented South Dakota in the U.S...
, the first Arab-American United States Senator. The current president of ADC is Sara Najjar-Wilson. The Advisory Board includes Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
, Queen Noor of Jordan, Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem
Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem is an American radio personality and voice actor who is best known for being the host of the nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show American Top 40, and for voicing Shaggy in the popular Saturday morning cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo.Kasem, along with Don Bustany and...
, United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
members John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
, Darrell Issa
Darrell Issa
Darrell Edward Issa is the U.S. Representative for , and previously the 48th, serving since 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party. He was formerly a CEO of Directed Electronics, the Vista, California-based manufacturer of automobile security and convenience products...
and Nick Joe Rahall, former member Paul Findley
Paul Findley
Paul Findley is a former United States Representative from Illinois, representing its 20th District. A Republican, he was first elected in 1961. Findley lost his seat in 1982 to current United States Senator Dick Durbin. Findley attended Illinois College and is a member of Phi Alpha Literary Society...
, Archbishop Philip Saliba and others.
Organization
ADC's Legal Department offers counseling in cases of discriminationDiscrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
, defamation and hate crimes and provides assistance in selected litigation. Since September 11, ADC attorneys have addressed hundreds of cases against airlines and employers for discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and national origin and against the United States government for discriminatory detentions of Arabs and Muslims without probable cause .
ADC's Communications Department challenges defamation, stereotyping
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
and bias in films, television and news reporting. Its Media Monitoring Team responds to such incidents. ADC spokespersons are considered an authoritative voice on Arab-American affairs and appear regularly on major national and international media
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
outlets and consult on a wide range of documentaries and educational programs.
The Government Affairs department works with the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
and Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
, as well as other government agencies to promote the interests of the community. US citizen members of ADC can contribute to the NAAA-ADC Political Action Committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
(PAC) to support political candidates for federal office.
ADC’s Organizing Department mobilizes the local chapters efforts and directs ADC’s national campaigns. ADC convenes an annual Convention. Convention speakers have included government officials like Department of Homeland Security civil rights officer Daniel W. Sutherland and then-United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Colin L. Powell
The ADC Research Institute (ADCRI), founded in 1981, is a Section 501(c)(3) educational organization that sponsors research studies, seminars, conferences and publications about the discrimination faced by Arab Americans as well as promotes a better understanding of Arab cultural heritage. ADC's “Reaching the Teachers” campaign provides lesson plans, background articles, fact sheets, bibliographies and other resources to educators. ADC's intern program for undergraduate, graduate and law students trains Arab-American leaders. The institute offers a bibliography of anti-Arab bias. In 2008 the Institute issued a lengthy report on hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans.
1980s and 1990s
During the 1970s American Arabs’ concerns about negative media images promoted as a result of the Israeli-Arab conflict and Arab countries’ defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war grew. Founder James AbourezkJames Abourezk
James George Abourezk is a former Democratic United States Representative and United States Senator, and was the first Arab-American to serve in the United States Senate. He represented South Dakota in the U.S...
initially was motivated by unfair stereotyping of Arabs in media, anti-Arabism in general and the Abscam
Abscam
Abscam was a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation run from the FBI's Hauppauge, Long Island, office in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
sting where Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
("FBI") agents posed as Arabs. He brought together more than 60 Arab leaders from around the nation who agreed to form the committee. Abourezk has stated: "When we started up people used to ask us why we started. Now they ask us for our opinion on things.”
After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982
1982 Lebanon War
The 1982 Lebanon War , , called Operation Peace for Galilee by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon...
, ADC began organizing demonstrations and marches. The war greatly increased Arab American’s willingness to speak out in general, as well as groups’ use of the term “Arab American” to self-identify.
In 1985 ADC offices suffered a series of violent attacks. On August 16, a bomb exploded in the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee office in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, severely injuring two police officers. On October 29 an arson fire damaged the ADC office in Washington, D.C. On October 11, the day after the ending of the Achille Lauro
MS Achille Lauro
MS Achille Lauro was a cruise ship based in Naples, Italy. Built between 1939 and 1947 as MS Willem Ruys, a passenger liner for the Rotterdamsche Lloyd. It is most remembered for its 1985 hijacking...
incident where a Jewish American died, Alex Odeh
Alex Odeh
Alex Odeh was an Arab-American anti-discrimination activist who was killed in a bombing as he opened the door of his office at 1905 East 17th Street, Santa Ana, California...
, ADC’s west-coast regional director, was killed in a bombing as he opened the door to his office. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) suspected Jewish Defense League
Jewish Defense League
The Jewish Defense League is a Jewish organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"...
and Jewish Defense Organization
Jewish Defense Organization
The Jewish Defense Organization is a militant Jewish organization in the United States.-Background and ideology:The JDO was founded in the early 1980s by Mordechai Levy after a violent feud with the Jewish Defense League's former leader Irv Rubin, who was killed or committed suicide in jail in 2002...
members. Although Jewish Defense League leader Irv Rubin
Irv Rubin
Irving D. Rubin was chairman of the Jewish Defense League from 1985 to 2002. He allegedly committed suicide in jail when awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to bomb private and government property....
, who lived in Southern California, made some controversial statements about the bombing, the investigation focused on Robert Manning and his wife Rochelle who fled to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. They eventually were prosecuted on another bombing charge and Manning is serving a life sentence on that charge. In 2007, the FBI revealed they had received information from a deceased informant, believed to be former Jewish Defense League member Earl Krugel
Earl Krugel
Earl Leslie Krugel was the West Coast coordinator of the Jewish Defense League. In 2005, he was sentenced to prison on charges of terrorism after he confessed plotting, with the group's leader Irv Rubin, to blow up the office of Arab-American congressman Darrell Issa and the King Fahd mosque in...
who had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for 2001 plots to bomb a Southern California mosque and office of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa
Darrell Issa
Darrell Edward Issa is the U.S. Representative for , and previously the 48th, serving since 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party. He was formerly a CEO of Directed Electronics, the Vista, California-based manufacturer of automobile security and convenience products...
, who is Arab-American. It is believed that Irv Rubin
Irv Rubin
Irving D. Rubin was chairman of the Jewish Defense League from 1985 to 2002. He allegedly committed suicide in jail when awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to bomb private and government property....
, who committed suicide in 2002 in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons
Federal Bureau of Prisons
The Federal Bureau of Prisons is a federal law enforcement agency subdivision of the United States Department of Justice and is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. The system also handles prisoners who committed acts considered felonies under the District of Columbia's...
in Los Angeles while awaiting trial on the same charges, revealed to Krugel the names of those responsible for Odeh’s death and that Krugel shared those with the FBI before he was murdered in prison in 2005. The bombers are believed to be Manning and two individuals now living in Israel. ADC continues to honor Odeh’s memory and call for prosecution of his killers. The FBI has failed to arrest anyone in the Odeh bombing case.
During the 1991 Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
against Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, ADC president James Abourezk expressed concern that Arab Americans would be targeted, revealing that a violent anti-Arab telephone message had been left on an ADC answering machine. ADC documented that more than 100 hate crimes against Arab-Americans were committed from August 1990 through March 1991, including arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
against a Detroit restaurant and the planting of a bomb in a San Diego mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
.
In 1993 ADC and the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
settled a law suit against Pan American World Airways
Pan American World Airways
Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991...
for their detention of a man of Iranian descent during the 1991 Gulf War. The groups and individual shared in the $110,000 settlement.
In 1993 ADC protested the characterization of Arabs and the song lyrics in the 1992 Disney film, Aladdin
Aladdin
Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , and one of the most famous, although it was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland ....
. In response, the lyrics – "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home” – were changed to unoffensive ones for the 1993 video release. Due to this incident, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
listed Aladdin as one of the most controversial films in history.
In 1993 twelve civil rights groups led by the ADC and the National Lawyers Guild
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles alleging that the “pro-Israel” Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
(ADL) had spied on their political activities and shared information with police. They demanded ADL release its surveillance information and end its investigations, as well as be ordered to pay punitive damages
Punitive damages
Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit...
. They also sued the police and sheriffs' departments of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Then communications director Hussein Ibish
Hussein Ibish
Hussein Yusuf Kamal Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1963. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is active in advocacy for Arab causes in the United States...
stated that ADL was gathering information "systematically in a program whose clear intent was to undermine civil rights and Arab-American organizations." In 1999 ADL and the groups reached an agreement whereby ADL purged certain personal information held on the plaintiffs and agreed to pay $175,000 for the plaintiffs' legal fees and contribute $25,000 toward a community relations fund to advance good relations among Arabs, Jews and others.
In 1996 the US Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, is an act of Congress signed into law on April 24, 1996...
, which increased the regulation of fund raising that might benefit alleged terrorists and made it easier to bar or deport those with suspected terrorist affiliations. It also passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Division C of vastly changed the immigration laws of the United States.This act states that if an immigrant has been unlawfully present in the United States for 180 days but less than 365 days...
allowing deportation of immigrants for minor offenses, even those committed decades ago, and even if individuals had American spouses and/or children. It also allowed secret classified evidence and denial of bond for those under threat of deportation. ADC began campaigns to contest these laws and even dilute or overturn them through legal action. One law suit by Arabs claiming they were targeted for deportation because of affiliations with an unpopular political group, in violation of their First
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
and Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
, reached the Supreme Court, in Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee . While the ruling cast doubt on the role of secret evidence, many observers interpreted it as restricting First Amendment rights of all non-citizens, including legal immigrants.
2000 to present
In 2000 ADC supported a congressional letter to President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, signed by 68 members of congress, calling for economic sanctions against the people of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
to be lifted. ADC’s press release noted that the United Nations estimated that over one million civilians, mostly children, had died from malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
and disease due to the embargo
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
.
In July 2001 ADC announced the creation of a “Right of Return”
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel...
Taskforce supporting Palestinian refugees “right to return to their original homes, have their property restored to them and receive compensation for any losses incurred as a result of displacement or dispossession
Eviction
How you doing???? Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...
.” ADC asserted this was basic to international human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and recognized as applying to the Palestinian refugees by many United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
resolutions, most notably, UN Resolution 194. The taskforce’s goal was to raise public awareness of the right and its importance in creating Middle East peace and to coordinate advocacy efforts. In 2004 ADC signed on to a letter affirming the Palestinian Right of Return
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel...
in response to President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
’s declaration of support for the policies of Prime Minister of Israel
Prime Minister of Israel
The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
, Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
which effectively denied that right.
After the September 11 attacks, ADC concerned itself with “an unprecedented backlash in the form of hate crimes, discrimination and various civil liberties violations” against the Arab American community, as well as against Muslims. It also addressed the October 2001 passage of the Patriot Act which increased federal law enforcement surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
abilities, eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the U.S, expanded regulation of financial transactions and enhanced law enforcement abilities to detain and deport immigrants merely suspected of some relation to terrorists. Under the Act law enforcement immediately targeted mainly Arab-Americans and South Asians, including “massive secret detentions
Detentions following the September 11 attacks
Soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States Government began detaining people who fit the profile of the suspected hijackers: mostly male, Arabic or Muslim noncitizens...
,” selective enforcement
Selective enforcement
Selective enforcement is the ability that executors of the law have to arbitrarily select choice individuals as being outside of the law...
through “voluntary” interviews, deportation of Middle Eastern men and further restrictions on immigration by Arabs and Muslims.
In December 2001 ADC met with US Department of Justice representatives to express concerns about the Patriot Act. It was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter from a number of civil liberties and other organizations asking members of the U.S. Congress to oppose the leaked draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003
Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003
The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 was draft legislation written by United States Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration, under the tenure of United States Attorney General John Ashcroft. The Center for Public Integrity obtained a copy of the draft marked...
holding it contained "a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
rights." Also known as “Patriot Act II,” it was not passed into law. In 2002 ADC joined a coalition of Muslim groups to sue then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri and a U.S...
and the Immigration and Naturalization Service
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...
for arrests and detention of immigrant men trying to register with federal authorities.
In 2003 when then University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
professor Sami Al-Arian
Sami Al-Arian
Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian , is a former resident of Temple Terrace, Florida, now living in Northern Virginia, who is a Muslim activist, and former University of South Florida professor of computer engineering...
was indicted on terrorism-related charges ADC issued a press release stating that a “pattern of profiling and targeting the community is of deep concern to ADC and we will continue to monitor the situation.” Speaking on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, then- communications director Hussein Ibish stated: "Until we have some reason based in fact to think otherwise, I think that the presumption has to be that this is a political witch-hunt, a vendetta, and a kind of very, very ugly post-9/11 McCarthyism." In December, 2005, after Al-Arian was acquitted of eight charges, and the jury deadlocked on nine others, ADC stated that in the verdict was seen as a “major defeat” for some of the most controversial elements of the Patriot Act. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist
Specially Designated Terrorist
A Specially Designated Terrorist is any person who is determined by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to be a specially designated terrorist under notices or regulations issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control ....
" organization. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and ordered deported following his prison term.
In 2003 ADC was a co-plaintiff with the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
and other groups in the first major legal challenge to Section 215 of the Patriot Act that expands federal agents’ power to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of citizens and permanent residents. They charged it violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as rights to freedom of speech and association. After a nationwide campaign to reform the Patriot Act, in 2006 the plaintiffs withdrew the suit, citing improvements to the law.
In 2004 ADC demanded that Webster's Third New International Dictionary remove from its definition of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
"opposition to Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
" and "sympathy for the opponents of Israel". ADC then-communications director Hussein Ibish wrote that the extended definition trivialized the “very concept of anti-Semitism” and “smears and impugns the motives of all those who support the human and political rights of Palestinians.” A Merriam-Webster company spokesman stated that the older definition was not supported by current usage and probably would be dropped with publication of a new unabridged version by 2010.
In the weeks before the 2004 presidential elections a San Francisco-based ADC official wrote about federal law enforcement’s "October Plan," including home intrusions and work site visits on Middle Easterners and South Asians to seek information about a possible pre-election terrorist attack. Because counter terrorism officials admitted they had no specific intelligence about such a plan, the official asserted that the plan was a “makeover of other racially and politically motivated Bush administration initiatives, appears timed to elevate fear in the United States in the days before the presidential election.”
During Israel’s 2006 invasion and bombing of Lebanon ADC filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
and Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
failed to fulfill constitutional obligations to protect US citizens under attack in Lebanon. The lawsuit asked the federal court to compel the officials to request a cease fire and to stop all U.S. military support to Israel during the evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
. ADC President Hon. Mary Rose Oakar
Mary Rose Oakar
Mary Rose Oakar is an American Democratic politician and former member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio, the first Democratic woman elected to the United States Congress from that state....
charged that "the Bush Administration has encouraged the violence by sending an urgent shipment of bombs to Israel giving that country the green light to continue in its indiscriminant bombing of Lebanon."
ADC protested a March 2008 Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
comment on radio by Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Congressman
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Steve King
Steve King
Steven Arnold "Steve" King is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party.The district is located in the western part of the state and includes Sioux City and Council Bluffs....
who said that if Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
was elected president, “then the radical Islamists and their supporters will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
." He also raised questions about Obama’s middle name “Hussein,” reiterating similar comments in an Associated Press interview. ADC called for Congress to censure King.
In July 2008 ADC signed on to a letter to Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chairs the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and...
, expressing concerns that Arabs and Muslims were not consulted before, and their views mischaracterized in, a May committee report titled, "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat." Lieberman assured the groups he does intend to consult with them on security issues.
In November 2008 Benjamin Emanuel, the father of U.S. president Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's new Chief of Staff appointee Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel is an American politician and the 55th and current Mayor of Chicago. He was formerly White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama...
was quoted by a Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
daily as saying, "Obviously, he will influence the President to be pro-Israel. Why shouldn't he do it? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floor of the White House." ADC called on Rahm Emanuel to repudiate his father's comment, saying it viewed "this characterization of an Arab as an unacceptable smear." On November 13, 2008 Rahm Emanuel issued a statement doing so. An Emanuel spokesman said Emanuel offered to meet with Arab-American community representatives in the future."
On January 25 and 28, 2010, ADC and like-minded organizations lobbied the United States Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, respectively, in an effort to reverse the Transportation Security Administration's new policy of profiling air travelers by country of origin. The ADC joined more than 25 other organizations in signing a letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano protesting the policy, arguing that ethnic and racial profiling has proven ineffective and runs counter to express commitments by DHS.
In June 2011, the ADC held a "Townhall Meeting
Town hall meeting
A town hall meeting is an American English term given to an informal public meeting. Everybody in a town community is invited to attend, not always to voice their opinions, but to hear the responses from public figures and elected officials about shared subjects of interest. Attendees rarely voted...
" regarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions refers to a campaign first initiated on 9 July 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause ".....
movement against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, calling it "a just and legal movement that has proved to be effective in showing not only support for the Palestinian people, but also in putting pressure on businesses, governments, educational institutions, and others, in re-thinking support for the Occupation of Palestine."
Criticism
The Anti-Defamation LeagueAnti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
criticizes the grassroots leadership of some regional chapters who promote a hard-line stance, including rejecting Israel’s right to exist. These chapters have organized what ADL called “anti-Israel” rallies and, in California, worked with the Free Palestine Alliance, A.N.S.W.E.R.
A.N.S.W.E.R.
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism , also known as International A.N.S.W.E.R. and the ANSWER Coalition, is a United States-based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations...
and Al-Awda (Palestinian right of return
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel...
) activist groups which the Anti-Defamation League alleges support terrorism. David Bernstein
David Bernstein (law professor)
David E. Bernstein is Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, where he has been teaching since 1995....
and Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg is an Israeli academic and political scientist.-Biography:Gerald M. Steinberg obtained his doctorate in government from Cornell University, in 1981. M.A. Government Department, Cornell University, 1978. M.Sc. Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, 1975. B.A...
have described ADC as "anti-Israel."