Research & Analysis

Throughout 2024, the ADL Center on Extremism documented the tactics deployed by extremists and purveyors of hate to promote false narratives, as well as the harmful impact of conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation on communities including Jews, immigrants and other marginalized groups. Predicting how extremists may weaponize false narratives requires an understanding of the strategies that allow them to spread most effectively. Here, we highlight three key mis-…

While much of the world welcomed the prospect of a pause in hostilities and the release of hostages following news of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in mid-January, leading voices in the U.S. anti-Zionist movement responded by doubling down on extreme and inflammatory positions and support for violent action. In online statements and at on-the-ground rallies in the days following the deal — which was announced on January 15, 2025, and officially began with a multiphase…

On January 22, 2025, a 17-year-old student opened fire inside the cafeteria at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooter killed one student and injured another before taking his own life.  Preliminary research by the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) found the shooter, who was Black, was fueled by violent misanthropic views, anti-Black hate and hateful extremist beliefs including inceldom and antisemitism. He subscribed to broad accelerationist beliefs, which hold…

On January 13, 2025, the United States Department of State designated the Terrorgram Collective and three of its foreign leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), formally including Terrorgram among other international terrorist groups.   Terrorgram is a decentralized network of white supremacist, neo-Nazi and accelerationist groups and individuals connected primarily through the encrypted social networking app Telegram, with the collective goal of promoting stochastic…

As devastating wildfires continue to decimate sections of Los Angeles, California, extremists and conspiracy theorists are spreading familiar falsehoods, blaming the blaze on common scapegoats such as diversity initiatives, Jews and nefarious government “false flags.” Fires that began in the Pacific Palisades area on January 7, 2025, are now part of a broader set of blazes across the city. Officials believe the fires were caused primarily by drought conditions, high winds and the…

The deadly New Year’s attack in New Orleans, Louisiana, left a city reeling and social media awash in hateful lies and conspiracy theories about immigrants, Israel and a government cover-up.   In the early morning of January 1, 2025, 42-year-old Houston, Texas resident Shamsud-Din Jabbar, drove his car into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, killing at least fourteen people and injuring dozens more before he was shot and killed by police. While law enforcement is still…

Unity of Fields (UoF), formerly Palestine Action U.S., is a radical far-left, anti-Zionist “direct action network” that engages in calls for violence against those it considers supportive of Israel or Zionism, or “complicit” in Israel’s alleged actions, and promotes aggressive, targeted protests and the defacement of property belonging to Jewish and non-Jewish organizations and individuals. In May 2025, Unity of Fields appeared to justify the…

January 2, 2025, Update: In the month since this article was originally published, at least two more Islamist-related terror incidents have occurred in the United States, including the deadly vehicular attack in New Orleans, Louisiana, on New Year’s Day 2025, which killed 14 people and wounded dozens more. The New Orleans incident was the deadliest Islamist terror attack in the United States since the 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which killed 49 people. Islamist…

Welcome to extremely™, a weekly newsletter from the ADL Center on Extremism and your go-to resource for emerging trends and developments in extremism and hate. In This Week's NewsletterA Devastating 1967 Mistake and an Enduring Antisemitic Lie    The attack on the U.S.S. Liberty was devastating. On June 8, 1967, Israeli planes and patrol boats struck the American intelligence-gathering vessel at the height of the Six-Day War, mistaking it in the chaos of the high-intensity…

Anti-Zionist group Samidoun, sanctioned by the U.S. in October 2024 for its role as a “sham charity” operating as an international fundraising arm of the U.S. government-designated terror organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has long played a role in the anti-Israel movement on U.S. campuses. The group, which the U.S. considers to be a front for the PFLP in countries where it is declared a terrorist organization, has been featured as a “pro…

False and misleading narratives about the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election are spreading widely among extremists and purveyors of hate and conspiracy theories. While some of the most common mis- and disinformation narratives circulating today were also prominent during the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms, others are newer — inspired by current events in America and around the world. These narratives are also being deployed using a range of strategies and tactics…

After Israeli military forces killed Hamas leader and October 7 architect Yahya Sinwar in Gaza on October 16, 2024, U.S. anti-Israel activists quickly responded with praise and veneration for the terrorist who masterminded the deaths of approximately 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and the abduction of some 250 people just over one year ago. Student groups, including numerous chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), were among the loudest voices memorializing Sinwar with…

Right-wing extremists have been exploiting the devastation surrounding Hurricane Helene — a storm that has so far claimed the lives of at least 230 people in the southeast U.S. — and now Hurricane Milton, to advance antisemitic or anti-Israel conspiracy theories that federal disaster assistance has been slow or inadequate because they believe the U.S. is sending funds and personnel to Israel instead. Extremist groups have a history of participating in disaster relief efforts to…

On the grim anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terror massacre in southern Israel, when thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages, anti-Israel student group demonstrations on U.S. campuses again featured extreme pro-terror messages that glorified the attack and sought to disrupt campus life. Some events were marked by vandalism, intimidation and harassment. On a day when Jewish people around the world were mourning the deadliest day for Jews since…