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Acknowledging ‘reputational risk,’ ADL chief defends partnership with undemocratic United Arab Emirates
(JTA) — The announcement was akin to several that Jewish groups have made in recent years: a new partnership with an Arab nation would advance coexistence in the Middle East.
Except that the group announcing the new alliance last week was the Anti-Defamation League, which devotes itself to fighting for human and civil rights. And the country it’s partnering with is the United Arab Emirates, an autocracy that, say the U.S. government and civil rights advocates alike, is guilty of a wide range of such abuses.
The new Manara Regional Center For Coexistence, based in Abu Dhabi, will “engage young leaders across the Middle East and North Africa, empowering them to build ties with peers and foster a shared commitment to coexistence,” according to a tweet by ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who traveled to the UAE for the center’s launch.
The ADL partners with a wide array of organizations in the United States and beyond to achieve its mission. But Greenblatt told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he recognized that working with the UAE could be complicated.
“There’s always execution risk,” Greenblatt said. “There can be, if things go south, a kind of reputational risk. You know, there are specific internal issues of UAE that we can’t control for.”
Those issues, according to the State Department, include placing “serious restrictions on free expression and media” and engaging in “substantial” repression of human rights groups, LGBTQ residents and international critics. Its latest human rights review includes “credible reports” of arbitrary arrest and detention, the jailing of political prisoners and a lengthy listing of other reported restrictions and abuses in the country.
Human rights advocates say the UAE prohibits free speech, banishes political parties, does not have a free media and tolerates slavery-like conditions for some of the large immigrant workforce it houses, which comprises the vast majority of its residents.
And Freedom House, a democracy watchdog, scores the UAE 18 out of 100 on its freedom metric (“not free”) – including ratings of 5 out of 40 for political rights and 13 out of 60 for civil liberties. It has called a UAE press law “one of the most restrictive press laws in the Arab world [which] regulates all aspects of the media and prohibits criticism of the government.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, right, confers with Ali Al Naumi, the chairman of the Manara Regional Center For Coexistence, in Abu Dhabi, March 14, 2023. (UAE Embassy to Washington Twitter feed)
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who heads T’ruah, a liberal rabbinic human rights group that has collaborated with the ADL in the past, said she was “flabbergasted” by the partnership and that she did not understand how the ADL could advance its mission in an autocracy.
“I just don’t really see how any civil rights organization or any organization that claims to be a civil rights organization can justify partnering with a government that is completely autocratic,” she said.
An official at Human Rights Watch, which has criticized the UAE for an “alarming campaign of repression and censorship against dissidents,” among other abuses, also said the ADL’s mission seemed inconsistent with the values of a repressive regime. (The ADL and Human Rights Watch disagree over Israel, an issue that has caused the ADL to clash with human rights or civil rights groups. Human Rights Watch has said Israeli authorities are guilty of the crime of apartheid, an accusation the ADL has called inaccurate and offensive.)
“The UAE’s rights record should be especially concerning for organizations who profess to ‘protect democracy and ensure a just and inclusive society for all,’” said Michael Page, the deputy director of the group’s Middle East and North Africa division, quoting the ADL’s mission statement. “This UAE record includes detaining scores of activists, academics, and lawyers serving lengthy sentences, severely restricting independent civil society, and maintaining a restrictive labor governance system that leaves millions of migrant workers vulnerable to abuse.”
The UAE has also drawn criticism from labor rights groups, which accuse it of turning a blind eye to abuses of its migrant laborers, who comprise as much as 90% of the workforce. The International Trade Union Confederation accuses the country of allowing “modern day slavery.” Reported conditions include letting employers confiscate passports; having laborers work off prohibitive fees that allowed them into the country; and making the laborers live and work in squalor.
An ADL spokesperson said that the group is “unaware of any issues related to the building” housing the Manara Center and referred questions on the issue to the UAE Embassy in Washington, D.C., which did not respond to a request for comment.
Greenblatt said the ADL was bringing its decades of experience in promoting civil rights and democracy to the region.
“The UAE, again, let’s just say the country has a different tradition than the United States in terms of its governance, in terms of its law, in terms of its practices,” he said. “The ADL, which is a part of that civic fabric of America, is going to have the opportunity to initiate work here in the Emirates and in the Gulf more broadly.”
He said such a prospect “is incredibly exciting, if we can bring to bear some of what we’ve learned the hard way over 110 years.”
The partnership reflects the sometimes strange bedfellows created by the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE and three other Arab countries in 2020. Since the deals, a string of initiatives to invigorate business ties and Jewish life in the Arab countries have launched, and Dubai, the UAE’s most populous city, has become a vacation destination for Israelis.
Greenblatt said ADL’s venture would help address a neglected component of the accords: people-to-people encounters.
“It is worth trying to find ways to bring together the people of the region — Muslims and Christians and Jews of different ethnicities and nationalities — in pursuit of the greater good,” he said.
Jacobs, of T’ruah, said that outlook was naive. “It’s not like there’s slight differences” between the United States and the UAE,” she said.
“They’re not stupid,” she said of the UAE’s rulers. “They know what international law is.”
A number of other Jewish and civil rights groups that have partnered with the ADL, including the American Jewish Committee and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, did not return requests for comment.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said he welcomes the chance for Jewish organizations to bring their values into unfamiliar territory. He likened criticism of the ADL to the flak he got a few years ago when he met the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who has been accused of intensifying the kingdom’s already dour record of human rights abuses. Bin Salman was subsequently accused of ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“People would say, well, how could we even meet with such a person? The answer is, how can you try to build a more, I would say, pluralistic, and a more respectful community,” he said in an interview. “And we don’t just do that in places that are already very friendly. I think that’s our challenge wherever we are and, you know, Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL have made that a very pervasive mission. It’s an important one.”
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The post Acknowledging ‘reputational risk,’ ADL chief defends partnership with undemocratic United Arab Emirates appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Russians Retreat as Al Qaeda-Linked Jihadists, Tuareg Separatists Kill Mali’s Defense Minister, Capture Key Town
A Malian soldier stands in position with his weapon during an attack on Mali’s main military base Kati outside the capital Bamako, Mali, April 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
The military junta in Mali came under attack this past weekend in multiple locations across the expansive desert nation, resulting in the death of Defense Minister Sadio Camara and the seizure of Kidal, a key town in the African country’s eastern region.
The strikes resulted from an alliance between Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM,) an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group fighting to establish a state governed by strict Islamic Shariah law, and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg rebel separatist militia which seeks to form an independent nation in Mali’s northeast.
Local sources told France 24 that the groups had seized control of Kidal, a reported FLA stronghold, on Monday. This victory followed the retreat of Russia’s Africa Corps, the mercenary organization the Malian government had contracted at a monthly rate of $10 million to provide security.
Fox News Digital reported reviewing video of Russian mercenary casualties and Russian vehicles fleeing Kidal. An FLA spokesperson told the Associated Press that Russia’s Africa Corps had withdrawn and that a “white” agreement had been made.
Other locations hit by attacks included Kati, Gao, Sévaré, and Mopti.
JNIM took credit for bombings at Mali’s primary airport in Bamako.’
Meanwhile, JNIM is the suspect of a car bomb planted outside Camara’s home which exploded on Saturday, killing Mali’s top military leader and three other family members.
The attacks tell “every Malian, every regional capital, and every foreign partner that JNIM can operate at will inside the supposedly secure heart of the state,” Justyna Gudzowska, executive director of The Sentry, an investigative and policy group, told Reuters.
Mali’s military junta, which has ruled since August 2020, on Monday announced injuries sustained by two of its other leaders, Gen. Oumar Diarra, who serves as chief of the armed forces’ general staff, and Gen. Modibo Koné, director of the National Security Agency.
Yvan Guichaoua, a Sahel specialist at the German research center BICC, told Reuters that the attacks intended to “decapitate” the government.
A spokesperson for the US State Department said that the United States “strongly condemns” the terrorist attack in Mali.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims, their families, and all those affected,” the spokesperson added to Fox News Digital. “We stand with the Malian people and government in the face of this violence. The United States remains committed to supporting efforts to advance peace, stability, and security across Mali and the region.”
A statement from the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is “deeply concerned by reports of attacks in several locations across Mali. He strongly condemns these acts of violence, expresses solidarity with the Malian people, and stresses the need to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Germany, told Germany’s DW that the strikes were the biggest he had seen in the country in years.
“Remarkably, there has been a coordination between jihadists and Tuareg rebels, which have nothing in common, but they have a joint enemy,” Laessing said. “They staged together an attack in 2012 and took over northern Mali. Then later they fell out. The jihadists got rid of the Tuaregs. So, it’s remarkable that they made a comeback.”
According to a statement from Russia’s foreign ministry posted to Telegram, 250 militants struck the Bamako Senou International Airport and the military base nearby.
“The Malian Armed Forces repelled the attack and are currently taking further steps to eliminate the militia that may have been, reportedly, trained by Western security agencies,” the foreign ministry said. “Russia is deeply concerned about these developments. This terrorist activity poses a direct threat to the stability of friendly Mali and could have the most serious consequences for the entire region.”
Laessing also spoke to the Associated Press, calling the attack a major blow to Russia.
“The [Russian] mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities,” he said. “They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants.”
“The fact that the Malian military intelligence has not been able to detect that these attacks were about to take place is a major failure for them,” Nina Wilen, director for the Africa Program at Egmont Institute for International Relations, told DW, saying the attacks revealed how “strong JNIM has become over the past year.”
She noted that Camara had been a key figure in establishing relations with Russia, making him a symbolic figure to target and send a message opposing the presence of Russian troops.
Islamist activity in the Sahel of Western Africa has risen in recent years, causing analysts to label the region the most lethal place on the planet for terrorist deaths, with JNIM leading the body count.
The trend has caught the attention of Washington, DC.
“Across the Sahel in West Africa and in East Africa, terrorist groups are expanding, embedding, and operating with increasing capability,” US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said during a hearing last week on terrorism in Africa. “ISIS affiliates and al-Qaeda-linked groups are growing, controlling territory, and exploiting weak governance.”
“In region after region, terrorist groups are outpacing the ability of local governments to respond,” Cruz added. “The failures threaten our interest globally and endanger the American homeland. The threat is rapidly growing and demands attention.”
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US soldier charged for threatening to ‘kill every single Jew’ inside of a synagogue
(JTA) — A soldier stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana was arrested last week after he told users on the popular messaging platform Discord that he planned to conduct a mass shooting at a synagogue.
Jakob Marcoulier, 22, was arrested last Thursday and charged with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce after the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip in February that he had made threats toward synagogues, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the western district of Louisiana.
According to court documents, the FBI obtained audio from Discord in which Marcoulier allegedly said, “After this deployment if the Jews still have reign over our government, I am going to walk into a synagogue with my AK, with a 75-round drum mag, and all of my extra mags, with my level four plates, and my haka helmet that’s three plus, and I am going to kill every single Jew I know inside of that synagogue. And that’s my goal in life.”
During the communications, Marcoulier told the other users, “You guys will never do anything about but I will. I just have to finish this, I have to go back overseas and do what I have to do. And then you’ll see me in the news. I promise you.”
He also allegedly said that he would “kill these motherf—kers in order to make sure the white youth is f—king secured.”
It was not immediately clear when Marcoulier made the comments, but the United States and Israel jointly attacked Iran on Feb. 28 following a buildup of U.S. troops in the Middle East.
The Iran war has put Jewish institutions across the country and the around the world on high alert, with attacks on synagogues including arsons in Europe and a synagogue ramming in suburban Detroit last month.
“Threats against synagogues and Jewish Americans are threats to the religious freedom promised to every single one of us, and this Office and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting those freedoms,” United States Attorney Zachary A. Keller said in a statement.
The post US soldier charged for threatening to ‘kill every single Jew’ inside of a synagogue appeared first on The Forward.
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J.D. Salinger asked publishers to remove references to his Jewish heritage, newly surfaced letters reveal
(JTA) — Acclaimed author J.D. Salinger asked his publisher to remove references to his Jewish heritage in the book jacket of “The Catcher in the Rye,” newly surfaced letters from 1951 reveal.
The request came in a letter from Salinger, a notoriously private man, and his editor, John Woodburn at publisher Little, Brown and Co. The correspondence, which took place in early 1951, predates the first publication of “The Catcher in the Rye,” Salinger’s hit coming-of-age novel.
“I don’t know that I’d like to have that Jewish-Irish business slapped on the jacket,” Salinger wrote. “Surely if it’s catchy, that is.”
The letter has come to light because Peter Harrington Rare Books, a bookseller based in London, has listed it as part of a package for sale in the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which begins on Thursday.
“The Catcher in the Rye,” a contemporary classic following the life of angsty boarding school student Holden Caulfield, is one of the best-selling books of all time.
Caulfield’s character is of Irish heritage, like Salinger’s mother. But Salinger was the son of Sol, a cheese salesman (whose wares might have been kosher) and the grandson of a rabbi on his father’s side. His mother, Marie Jillich, went by Miriam to appease her in-laws who disapproved of the mixed marriage. He learned his mother’s real name only around the time of his bar mitzvah.
To Woodburn, Salinger wrote that he worried about being pigeonholed as a Jewish-Irish writer if the book broadcast that information.
“My Jewish-Irishness isn’t quite so bizarre, as, say, [James] Thurber’s eyesight,” Salinger wrote, referring to the American author and cartoonist, who was legally blind by that time. “But nonetheless, second-rate reviewers would probably find the information just provocative enough to use and misuse over and over again, and I’d end up being expected to wear a Star of David and a Shamrock on the back of my sweatshirt. So, please, let’s be careful.”
Salinger’s other famous works include the 1948 short story “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish,” which follows the Irish Catholic-Jewish Glass family, who also make appearances in “Franny and Zooey.”
The letters, previously unpublished, were acquired from a private collector and will be on view at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory from Thursday to May 3.
The bookseller is also currently offering a first edition of the script of West Side Story, inscribed by all four writers of the play, book, and music: Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim. Peter Harrington has also sold a rare, first printed edition of “De Bello Judaico” by Josephus Flavius, the first-century Roman-Jewish historian.
The triad of letters is currently offered at a set price of $47,500 and includes two typed letters by Salinger, with his signature, and a carbon copy of Woodburn’s reply. It also includes a reference to one of Salinger’s “lost stories,” a prequel to “Catcher in the Rye” that was not to be published until 50 years after his death.
Salinger died in 2010 at the age of 91. The “lost story,” “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,” was set to be published in 2060, but in 2013, it was pirated and leaked online.
The post J.D. Salinger asked publishers to remove references to his Jewish heritage, newly surfaced letters reveal appeared first on The Forward.