The leader of the nation’s foremost Jewish advocacy group blasted what he called the “silence and slander” of many Americans in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.
The leader of the nation’s foremost Jewish advocacy group blasted what he called the “silence and slander” of many Americans in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.
Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, made those comments at the “Combating Hate and Bias” conference at Duke University, which focused on rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia in American culture and politics.
Greenblatt described the gruesome torture and murders of some of the 1,300 Israeli civilians, children, and elders killed that day, many of them recorded on video by members of Hamas, which the U.S. recognizes as a terrorist group.
“What we witnessed was beyond words, beyond imagination,” he said. “We literally don’t have the language to describe what happened Oct. 7, with such scale and such velocity and such rage.”
He added: “These were not acts of war. These were acts of murder and terror.”
Greenblatt’s comments come as tensions on U.S. campuses in support of Palestinians and Israelis have roiled U.S. campuses. Reports of hate crimes against both Jews and Muslims have increased, the Associated Press has reported.
“We’ve seen a surge in acts of harassment, acts of vandalism and acts of violence, targeting Jewish individuals and institutions,” he said.
Greenblatt called for pro-Palestinian protestors on college campuses to suffer consequences for harassing and threatening Jewish students. He said Hamas is, at its core, antisemitic, and praising it, as some student protestors have done, isn’t free speech, it’s incitement.
