September 27, 2021 The recent blockbuster series of five articles from The Wall Street Journal exposing Facebook’s complicity in spreading toxic content underscores that it is far past time to recognize the harm caused by Facebook. Yet the company and other social media platforms continue to enjoy free rein despite playing outsized and destabilizing roles in determining what content is served up to billions of individuals worldwide. The “Facebook Files” were based on…

September 05, 2021 The Proud Boys are a right-wing extremist group with a violent agenda. That has never been more evident than over the course of the summer of 2021, when the Proud Boys and their associates reportedly engaged in violence at eight separate events. That violence, often against counter-protesters, has included fighting with fists, as is traditional for the Proud Boys, but paintball guns have also become a popular weapon. Proud Boys have also allegedly attacked journalists in…

September 02, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3The number of hate crimes in the United States rose to the highest level in 12 years, propelled by increasing assaults targeting Black and Asian victims, the FBI reported Monday. White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for the Taliban, a worrying development for US officials grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism. More than 70 State Department officials sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State…

August 26, 2021 Thabat News Agency, an Al Qaeda-linked weekly publication, mocks Time Magazine's December 2001 cover which proclaimed that 2001 was "the last days of the Taliban." Days after the U.S. troops began withdrawing from Afghanistan, the resurgent Taliban claimed territory in provinces across the country. Hundreds of provincial governors surrendered without a fight after the Taliban assured them that they would not execute leaders in areas where they encountered no resistance. …

August 12, 2021 Members of the Proud Boys gather in Philadelphia The Proud Boys claim to “venerate the housewife.” And while the right-wing extremist group insists this is meant to convey respect for women who take on “traditional” gender roles, a closer look at the Proud Boys’ rhetoric and actions, especially in online spaces, reveals the troubling layers of this statement, and the group’s true attitude towards women – which closely parallels the…

August 10, 2021 July 2021: The statue of Confederate leader Robert E. Lee, a putative impetus for the Unite the Right Rally, was quietly removed from its pedestal in Charlottesville. Image credit: Rev Seth Wispelwey Four years ago, on August 12, 2017, hundreds of far-right extremists descended on Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from the city’s center. “Unite the Right” was the largest and most violent public assembly of white…

August 06, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 ADL and Hillel International announced they are working together to play a stronger role in fighting antisemitism on campus. Antisemitic content is proving to be a persistent problem across social media as major platforms fail to protect Jewish targets, according to a new report that gives Facebook and many others low grades. ADL criticized remarks from US Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) as a problematic “dog whistle” when she alleged…

August 02, 2021 Photo credit: Walmart On August 3, 2019, white supremacist Patrick Crusius murdered 23 individuals and injured 23 more at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history. Two years later, animosity towards Latino-Americans and immigrants remains at dangerous levels. Crusius traveled roughly 10 hours to reach the El Paso Walmart, and posted a manifesto highlighting his premeditated and purposeful targeting of Latinos,…

July 29, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3PayPal is partnering with ADL to investigate how extremist and hate movements in the U.S. take advantage of financial platforms to fund their criminal activities. A swastika was found carved into an elevator at the State Department, prompting President Biden to speak out. Unilever’s CEO wrote a letter to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in which they made clear the company will continue to do business in Israel despite its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s…

July 27, 2021 On July 19, 2021, terror group Al Qaeda released a propaganda video entitled “America Burns.” The video, which reprises the content of an article by the same name published in April 2021 in Al Qaeda’s One Ummah magazine, runs just under 15 minutes and is available with both Arabic and English subtitles. This video was uploaded to Filelocker, an online filesharing service frequently utilized by extremists, and shared widely across Al Qaeda media platforms,…

July 27, 2021 New IFB pastors (left to right) Joe Jones, Steven Anderson, Roger Jimenez, Aaron Thompson, Bruce Mejia, and Jonathan Shelley at the 2021 Red Hot Preaching Conference in Sacramento, CA. (source: Facebook) The New Independent Fundamental Baptist (New IFB) movement held its sixth annual Red Hot Preaching Conference on July 15–18, 2021. The conference, hosted by Pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, CA, showcased the vitriolic anti-LGBTQ+ and…

July 23, 2021 In recent months, Tucker Carlson introduced the “Great Replacement” theory into mainstream discourse. Once relegated to white supremacist forums and manifestos, the “Great Replacement” is a conspiracy theory that argues white citizens of Western countries are being replaced by non-white immigrants. Adherents believe this demographic shift will eventually result in the extinction of the white race. Discussions of the impact of the “Great Replacement…

July 18, 2021 By Sharon Nazarian This week marks yet another anniversary of what could accurately be described as the most significant violent antisemitic attack against a Jewish Community outside of the Middle East since the Holocaust — the 1994 bombing of the Argentina Jewish community’s main institutional structure, the AMIA building, which caused the deaths of 85 people and injured more than 300.   The fact that no individuals have been…

July 16, 2021 On July 15, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that it had indicted two California men, Ian Benjamin Rogers and Jarrod Copeland, on charges related to an alleged plot to destroy the Democratic party headquarters in Sacramento with incendiary devices. According to communications between the two men, they were animated by grievance over Donald Trump’s loss of the 2020 election, and planned to conduct their attack after President Biden’s inauguration on…

July 09, 2021 By David Andrew Weinberg On June 30th, Egypt’s government launched the region’s largest book fair, under the patronage of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and inaugurated by Egypt’s prime minister with seven of his cabinet ministers in attendance. Despite the issue being flagged in the past, it is disappointing that a broad array of antisemitic books continue to be exhibited among the materials hosted at Egypt’s state-run book fair this year, including…

July 09, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Police say scores of members of a white supremacist group marched in Philadelphia over the weekend, clashing with pedestrians and setting off what were believed to be smoke bombs at one point. The group of 11 militiamen who ended up in an hours-long standoff with police in Massachusetts on Saturday morning espouses a conspiracy-based, anti-government agenda that combines sovereign-citizen beliefs with those of the Moorish Science Temple. A rabbi is…

1. Nicholas Fuentes is a white supremacist leader, organizer and podcaster who seeks to forge a white nationalist alternative to the mainstream GOP. Nicholas Fuentes first gained widespread notoriety in 2017 when he left Boston University after he reported receiving “threats” tied to his attendance at the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the aftermath of Charlottesville, Fuentes found a niche within the alt-right movement…

July 08, 2021 Screengrab from a booklet posted on website of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University From June 18-23, 2021, the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at the Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University held a conference entitled “Challenging Apartheid in Palestine: Reclaiming the Narrative, Formulating a Vision,” which featured dozens of prominent anti-Israel academics and activists from across the world. CIGA is…

July 06, 2021 Lil Nas X performs onstage at the BET Awards 2021 in Los Angeles on June 27, 2021. Photo credit: Getty Images   After the BET Awards—an annual awards ceremony which celebrates the achievements of Black artists and entertainers—aired on June 27, 2021, Nation of Islam (NOI) members were among those who voiced criticisms of the event, responding with their familiar anti-LGBTQ, antisemitic and conspiratorial rhetoric. Their accusations were directed at both the…