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X marks the spot where Elon Musk’s gesture is being debated, derided, defended and disputed

Hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, many Jewish groups sounded the alarm when Elon Musk appeared to twice deliver a Nazi salute at the Presidential Parade.

But the Jewish group most famous for fighting antisemitism had a different take.

“It seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” the Anti-Defamation League wrote Monday in a statement on Musk’s own social media platform X, referring to Musk’s outstretched-arm movement that came as he was thanking his supporters.

The ADL added, “In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning.”

Musk replied, “Thanks guys,” adding a laughing emoji.

Others were less grateful for the ADL’s response. A range of groups on the left have long opposed the ADL for what they say is an improper focus on policing pro-Palestinian speech and advocating for Israel—and they criticized the group’s reaction to Musk’s gesture. But they were joined by others who have aligned in the past with the ADL, including the pro-Israel group Zioness, which said it “vehemently disagreed with ADL’s take on Elon Musk’s behavior today.”

“When we see what is clearly a Nazi salute—without apology or clarification—we must unequivocally call it out. Orgs committed to fighting antisemitism must do so no matter where on the political spectrum it comes from,” the New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive group that has collaborated with the ADL, wrote on X. “If we can’t, we’re not ready for what’s coming.”

At a time when the ADL itself has documented historic levels of antisemitism, how did it decide to give the world’s richest man the benefit of the doubt? The group declined to say on Tuesday.

An ADL spokesperson said CEO Jonathan Greenblatt was unavailable for comment, saying he was at the global economic summit in Davos, Switzerland. Greenblatt is scheduled to speak on a Thursday panel at the forum entitled “Confronting Antisemitism amid Polarization,” alongside teachers union leader Randi Weingarten and former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, both of whom are Jewish. On X, he refrained from commenting on Musk even as he posted to thank multiple airlines for resuming flights to Israel.

The ADL also declined to elaborate on its statement or explain how it was crafted in response to inquiries from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But in its symbolic pardon of a billionaire who had enthusiastically bankrolled Trump’s campaign, it appeared to contradict its own definition of a Nazi salute, which states that the gesture “consists of raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down.”

The statement also raised questions among many about how the ADL plans to fight antisemitism during the second Trump administration—when a growing number of people in the president’s inner circle, including Musk, have track records that include rhetoric and actions the ADL usually condemns. Shortly after defending Musk, the group condemned Trump’s decision to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters, a group that included members of far-right extremist groups, and also praised his newly sworn-in secretary of state, Marco Rubio.

Into the void created by the ADL’s statement, Jewish and non-Jewish figures alike are deciding how meaningful Musk’s salute really is. The ADL’s own former director, Abraham Foxman, wrote on X that he considered Musk’s actions “very disconcerting,” writing, “Elon Musk may be the world’s richest man but that does not excuse his thanking the Trump supporters with a Heil Hitler Nazi salute.”

Foxman declined to comment to JTA on how the organization he helmed for decades responded to Musk. “The situation is too serious to engage in Jewish internal debates at this time,” Foxman said.

And Deborah Lipstadt, who served as the Biden administration’s special envoy combating global antisemitism until this week, downplayed the incident.

“I believe we have much, much bigger things to worry about regarding contemporary antisemitism than this particular issue,” Lipstadt told JTA, saying she was referring both to Musk’s salute and the ADL’s response. (Lipstadt separately told The Forward she accepted the ADL’s reading of the gesture as “awkward.”) The U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum did not respond to a request for comment on Musk’s gesture.

Others, including many progressives, were quick to denounce Musk, the ADL, or both.

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and a high-ranking member of the new Trump administration, gave an unambiguous Nazi salute at a post-inauguration Trump rally,” the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, a progressive group, wrote in a fundraising email topped with an image of Musk’s gesture. “We need to be prepared to call out and fight back against hate and extremism wherever we see it.”

One of the most widely shared condemnations came from Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent progressive voices in Washington.

“Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity,” she wrote in response to the ADL. “People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now. You work for them.”

That, in turn, drew backlash from a range of voices chiding Ocasio-Cortez, who is not Jewish, for discounting the voice of a prominent Jewish group.

Zioness, which stated its “vehement” disagreement with the ADL, also accused Ocasio-Cortez of engaging in “exploitation of this moment to openly attack the most identifiable Jewish organization in America.” But it also said, “There is no such thing as an accidental Nazi salute.”

Some people encouraged each other to flood the ADL’s own antisemitic incident reporting system with reports of Musk’s gesture. Jewish actor and former “Unorthodox” podcast co-host Josh Malina, a frequent tweeter, remarked that he would “report the ADL to the ADL,” adding, “Shame on you, ADL.”

IfNotNow, a progressive Jewish group that has been a prominent voice accusing Israel of genocide, said it was “appalled that the Anti-Defamation League—which purports to be the leading organization fighting antisemitism—glossed over Musk’s Nazi gesture, admonishing those of us who were aghast at the Hitler salute to give Musk ‘the benefit of the doubt’—even as the ADL assumes the worst intentions of those in the movement for Palestinian human rights.”

The group added that the ADL’s statement “marks the completion of the ADL’s transition from a civil rights organization to a willing partner in the neo-fascist governing coalition.”

This is far from Musk’s first brush with accusations of antisemitism. Recently, he has promoted the German far-right AfD party, whose politicians have downplayed the Holocaust, along with anti-immigrant figures and causes in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, he endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory shared on X as “the actual truth,” prompting many advertisers to flee the platform. He later mounted a rehabilitation effort, visiting Auschwitz (where he opined that X could have saved Jews from the Holocaust) and advocating on behalf of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

In recent months he has also praised a Tucker Carlson X interview with a Holocaust denier (though later deleted his endorsement of the video) and invited avowed antisemites, including Nick Fuentes, back onto the platform after they were banned by the site’s previous owners.

Fuentes, for his part, expressed confusion about the ADL’s post, writing, “Is there something else going on?” He did not elaborate on what he was thinking.

But some pro-Israel and conservative influencers rushed to Musk’s defense, accusing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives of hypocrisy for not loudly condemning Nazi sympathizers and salutes at pro-Palestinian protests.

“TODAY, because Musk’s gesture looked like a Nazi salute, TODAY was the day they finally decided that Nazi salutes are BAD,” pro-Israel activist Jordyn Tilchen wrote on Instagram, in one representative post. Yet Tilchen also noted that “Musk should make a statement” about his gesture, “because there are far right extremists on neo-Nazi Telegram channels RIGHT NOW who believe it was” a Nazi salute.

Also defending Musk was Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, who made a name for herself by condemning university presidents for their response to antisemitism. Stefanik took part of her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday to deny Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy’s charge that Musk had performed “two Heil Hitler salutes.”

“No, Elon Musk did not do those salutes,” Stefanik responded. “The American people are smart. They see through it. They support Elon Musk. We are proud to be the country of such successful entrepreneurs.”

Musk, for his part, pinned a video of his speech with the salute to the top of his X page. He also mocked his critics without explicitly clarifying the salute’s intent, writing on X, “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.” He called a Wikipedia page mentioning his salute “an extension of legacy media propaganda.”

Greenblatt himself has a long and tangled history with Musk, who threatened to sue the ADL when the group pledged to track hate speech on the site formerly known as Twitter after Musk first purchased it. The two appeared to make up after Oct. 7, when Musk began openly supporting Israel, visited Auschwitz and pledged to curtail anti-Zionist speech on X.

Greenblatt praised such measures even as many corporations were fleeing the platform over a spike in antisemitic content. In November 2023 he told JTA, “I will call out Elon Musk and X, like every other platform, when they get it wrong. And I will credit Elon Musk and X and every other platform when they get it right.”

The post X marks the spot where Elon Musk’s gesture is being debated, derided, defended and disputed appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”

He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.

Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.

But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.

He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”

He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.

He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.

He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.

He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”

Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.

“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.

SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY

Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.

Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.

Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.

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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.

A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.

Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.

On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.

WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”

“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.

“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.

JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel

Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.

The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.

While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.

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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot

Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.

“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”

Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.

“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.

Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.

She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.

The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”

Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”

The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.

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