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Elon Musk is amplifying a self-declared antisemite’s call to ban the ADL from X
(JTA) — Elon Musk is engaging with white nationalists and antisemites who want to ban the Anti-Defamation League from Twitter, the influential social media platform he now calls “X.”
Musk on Saturday asked his followers whether he should poll the platform about a hashtag, #BanTheADL, embraced in recent days by white nationalists and others on the far right.
Musk had earlier “liked” the tweet launching the hashtag by Keith Woods, an Irish white nationalist and self-described “raging antisemite.”
“The ADL’s favourite tactic is financially blackmailing social media companies into removing free speech on their platforms,” Woods said in his Aug. 31 tweet. “Why should they have a platform on X to hold @elonmusk to ransom? It’s time to #BanTheADL.”
Musk liked two subsequent tweets by Woods, who touted Musk’s support to his followers. The hashtag was widely embraced on twitter by the far right, including by Andrew Torba, a Christian nationalist who refuses to speak with Jewish reporters and who founded Gab, a social media site, as a redoubt for the far right after Twitter started banning extremists. The shooter who killed 11 Jews at prayer in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 broadcast hours plans on Gab before the attack.
Woods’ tweet came after a day after Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO spoke with Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, about users trafficking in hate on the platform. The ADL has tracked massive spikes in racist, antisemitic and homophobic content and harassment since Musk bought then platform last year and restored extremist accounts banned under the previous management.
Greenblatt sounded positive about his conversation with Yaccarino, named to the job earlier this year after Musk ostensibly promised to cede leadership to a professional.
“I had a very frank + productive conversation with @LindayaX yesterday about @X, what works and what doesn’t, and where it needs to go to address hate effectively on the platform,” Greenblatt tweeted on Aug. 30. “I appreciated her reaching out and I’m hopeful the service will improve. @ADL will be vigilant and give her and @ElonMusk credit if the service gets better… and reserve the right to call them out until it does.”
In its response, the ADL attacked those who launched the campaign but did not mention Musk or his encouragement of the campaign.
“ADL is unsurprised yet undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization,” said a statement emailed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“This onslaught comes following our participation in the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington, where ADL proudly marched shoulder-to-shoulder with African-American leaders and those from other minority communities,” the statement said. “It also follows a meeting with the leadership of X, formerly known as Twitter, that clearly upset these hateful groups. Such insidious efforts don’t daunt us. Instead, they drive us to be unflinching in our commitment to fight hate in all its forms and ensure the safety of Jewish communities and other marginalized groups.”
The ADL has criticized Musk but also has sought to accommodate some of his requests, including issuing a condemnation last month of an Apartheid-era fight song calling to kill white farmers. Musk, who is a native South African, claimed the song supports anti-white hate. In May, Musk clashed with the ADL after it took him to task for echoing antisemitic tropes in his attack on George Soros, the liberal Jewish megadonor and hedge funder.
Musk, who claims to be a “free speech absolutist” has banned and made legal threats against journalists and others whose questions, tweets and statements upset him, with a focus on those, like the ADL, that track hate on the platform. In July, he sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate for its reports on Twitter.
Musk’s poll question on Saturday, “Perhaps we should run a poll on this?” quoted an endorsement of the trend by a Dutch right-winger. In exchanges in the replies, which are overwhelmingly positive, Musk said the century-old Jewish civil rights group has been “hijacked by the woke mind virus” and says it would be funny if it were sued for defamation.
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The post Elon Musk is amplifying a self-declared antisemite’s call to ban the ADL from X appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op
DF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
i24 News – The Israeli military eliminated 250 Hezbollah terrorists including 21 commanders in four days of ground combat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday.
IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon have uncovered vast caches of weapons and munitions in civilian residences, showing how central embedding within civilian population is to Hezbollah’s mode of warfare.
Meanwhile, heavy strikes targeting the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in southern Beirut were ongoing, Lebanese media reported.
The post 250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says
Illustrative. Hodeidah, Yemen, July 20, 2024. Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
Airstrikes were launched on Friday at several parts of Yemen including its capital Sanaa and Hodeidah airport, Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthi movement controlling much of Yemen, and residents said.
Strikes also targeted the south of Dhamar city and the southeast of al-Bayda province, the channel added.
Residents said that the attack on al-Bayda province targeted several Houthi military outposts.
Al Masirah TV reported that the strikes had been carried out by the United States and British forces, but a British government source said Britain was not involved.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel‘s war with Hamas.
The attacks have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes and disrupted global trade as ship owners reroute vessels away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to sail the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.
Following the airstrikes, a Houthi spokesman called the attack “a desperate attempt,” adding that “Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in confronting the enemies.”
The post Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem
Illustrative. Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – An Israeli Air Force fighter jet conducted a rare strike in Tulkarem in the West Bank on Thursday night, targeting top Hamas terrorist Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.
The Palestinian Authority reported at least 18 fatalities in the strike, with a local security source telling Agence France-Presse it was the deadliest in Judea and Samaria since the Second Intifada.
Ayyth Radwan, the head of Islamic Jihad’s Tulkarem branch, was also reportedly killed.
Oufi was planning a terrorist attack “in the immediate time frame,” according to the Israel Defense Forces, and directed the thwarted car bombing last month near Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
There were no casualties in the incident, which Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, called a “great miracle.”
The IDF said Oufi was involved in smuggling weapons to terrorists who perpetrated several recent attacks against Israelis, including some that resulted in injuries to civilians.
He also “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks,” added the military.
The post IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem first appeared on Algemeiner.com.