December 07, 2017 Updated: December 18, 2017 Editor's Note: Christian Picciolini and ADL's work battling extremism was featured on Sunday, Dec. 17 on 60 Minutes on CBS. As the one-time leader of one of the most infamous white supremacist groups in America, Christian Picciolini was once so immersed in the hate movement that his name appeared prominently in an ADL report on neo-Nazi activity in Illinois. Picciolini had swastika and racist tattoos on his arms and led a small empire…

December 01, 2017 Thursday’s acquittal of undocumented immigrant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate in the 2015 murder of Kathryn (Kate) Steinle has sparked an outcry from white supremacists and other extremists. Zarate claims he unintentionally killed Steinle when a stolen gun he was carrying went off accidentally. While a San Francisco jury agreed with this assessment, right-wing extremists are framing the acquittal as a symptom of multiculturalism, blaming Jews and non-whites for the…

November 29, 2017 This backgrounder is based on information from Hope Not Hate, an organization based in London: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/ Origins of Britain First Britain First (BF) is a far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant group founded in 2011 by former members of the British National Party (BNP), a far-right political party with ties to neo-Nazis.  The group is estimated to have about a thousand members. Britain First was founded by Jim Dowson and Paul Golding in…

November 29, 2017 President Donald Trump retweeted three violent, anti-Muslim videos Wednesday. It is just the latest illustration of how the president bolsters and amplifies the messages of extremists and other purveyors of hate. Trump retweeted the videos from the account of Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a far right extremist anti-Muslim group with ties to the British National Party, a racist, anti-minority neo-Fascist group. Such extremist propaganda is one of…

November 27, 2017 By Mark Pitcavage, Senior Research Fellow for the Center on Extremism Many subjects are difficult to report on, but extremist and fringe movements are particularly difficult landscapes for journalists to navigate, strewn with rough terrain and the occasional landmine. As someone who has monitored right-wing extremism for more than two decades, I’ve had the pleasure of reading many fine works of journalism on extremist-related subjects, but I’ve also seen…

November 17, 2017 Since it began losing territory in Iraq and Syria last year, the Islamic State has shifted its propaganda away from rapturous rhetoric describing sweeping conquests across the region to more muted language urging its followers not to lose hope, and to embrace its last best chance for relevance: lone wolf attacks in the West. Islamic State’s reputation as a notorious terrorist organization is one of the few things that remains after the territorial losses…

November 16, 2017 A few days before the 22nd anniversary of the Million Man March/Holy Day of Atonement, NOI’s leader, Louis Farrakhan tweeted: “Black People: We should be more convinced that it is time for us to separate and build a nation of our own.” Farrakhan’s pronouncement, which was echoed in his anniversary speech, “Separation or Death,” was retweeted nearly 2.9K times, a number that included alt-right leaders Richard Spencer and Mike Enoch, as…

November 10, 2017 A year ago, when the Anti-Defamation League convened its first major summit on anti-Semitism in New York City, all of the signs pointed to a distinct resurgence of the world’s oldest hatred. Jewish journalists had endured withering assaults on social media. Anti-Semitism was a serious and growing concern on college campuses. And hatred of Jews was once again entering the public conversation as Americans witnessed one of the most divisive presidential elections in…

November 07, 2017 November 2, 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a letter signed in 1917 by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour expressing his country's support for the establishment of a national Jewish home in Palestine. While the UK and Israel celebrated the anniversary of this Declaration, which has become a symbol of international recognition of the Jewish right to self-determination, Palestinians and others have used the occasion to protest, and demand an…

by: Kenneth Jacobson October 20, 2017 On October 19 at Lincoln Center in New York City, an important and inspiring conference took place hosted by the George W. Bush Institute. The conference addressed the issue of “The Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World.” It was an honor for ADL to have been invited to attend this event. (I was among a small select group of our leaders, including ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, to have been in the audience that day). The presence of…

October 20, 2017 Three Texas men are currently in jail in Alachua County, Florida on charges of attempted homicide for their roles in an altercation following Richard Spencer’s speech at the University of Florida in Gainesville yesterday. The three men allegedly yelled, “Heil Hitler,” while driving by a group standing near a bus stop, leading to an altercation in which one of them, Tyler Tenbrink, reportedly fired a gun. All three men, William Fears, Colton Fears, and…

October 20, 2017 Recently, a video game designer was working on a multiplayer first-person shooter game at a small studio. Others in the company were building battle maps, weapons, and different avatars — but she was the only person to raise her hand and say, "What are we doing to make sure that folks who are playing this game online aren't being totally awful to each other?" She decided to create community guidelines, looking at lists of hateful words to determine which words could…

October 19, 2017 Andrew Anglin, a neo-Nazi who runs The Daily Stormer website, is encouraging supporters who can’t get into Richard Spencer’s speech at the University of Florida to target Jewish and black religious and cultural institutions. In a piece posted to his website, Anglin encouraged his followers to go to Spencer’s speech dressed in regular clothes and to cover up any racist tattoos. He suggested that they not wear khakis and polo shirts, which is widely…