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CNN: My union, the NEA, has voted to cut ties with the so-called “ADL” [1]

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Date: 2025-07-10

Let me be perfectly clear, as Barack Obama would say. I’m proud to be a dues-paying, card-carrying member of the National Education Association every day of every week. I’m a member of the Student Education Association of Massachusetts at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. SEAM is the student wing of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. The MTA is the Massachusetts affiliate of the NEA.

But this week, my pride in being an NEA member goes up to 11. It’s one louder. The NEA has voted to cut all ties with the so-called “ADL.” I call them the “PDL,” (which I pronounce, “piddle.”) The “Pro-Defamation League.”

CNN “reports”: [my emphasis]:

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, has endorsed a proposal to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights group focused on combatting antisemitism, according to an NEA spokesperson. The proposal, titled New Business Item 39, was preliminarily adopted by union delegates at the 2025 Representative Assembly, which took place in Portland, Oregon, on July 5. […] The NEA represents approximately three million educators across the United States and has affiliate organizations in every state and in more than 14,000 communities nationwide.

Of course, if it were really true that the ADL is “a civil rights group focused on combatting antisemitism,” my fellow social unionists in the NEA would not have voted to cut all ties with them.

The ADL, in its official response, clarified matters. “We will not be cowed for supporting Israel,” the ADL said.

So that’s what this is about. It’s not about “combatting antisemitism.” It’s about “supporting Israel.” Not the same thing at all, of course. Not by a country mile.

And of course, it’s not even about “supporting Israel,” if that means “wanting all human beings who live in Israel to be ok.” If that’s what “supporting Israel” is, my “support for Israel” goes up to 11. It’s one louder. I have cousins who live in Israel. I want them to be ok. Let me be perfectly clear about that, as Barack Obama would say.

But that’s not what the ADL means by “supporting Israel.” What the ADL means by “supporting Israel” is “supporting Pharaoh Bibi’s endless war agenda in the United States, by denouncing anyone who doesn’t support Pharaoh Bibi’s endless war agenda in the United States as an antisemite.”

J Street “supports Israel.” You’ll notice that the NEA didn’t just vote to cut all ties with J Street. J Street doesn’t run around denouncing people as antisemites for refusing to support Pharaoh Bibi’s endless war agenda in Washington. On the contrary. J Street tries to protect Members of Congress who oppose Pharaoh Bibi’s endless war agenda. J Street supports efforts in Congress to restrict offensive U.S. military assistance to Israel in order to enforce U.S. laws, such as Article I of the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and the Leahy Laws. I don’t think the NEA will be voting to cut ties with J Street anytime soon.

I concede a very personal interest in this matter. When I “wore a younger man’s clothes,” the ADL illegally spied on me, along with many other peace-loving, patriotic Americans. It’s a matter of public record. The ADL settled the lawsuit brought by the ADC on behalf of peace-loving, patriotic Americans like me and the ADL was forced to disgorge the files it had illegally gathered on peace-loving, patriotic Americans like me.

Please raise your glass tonight (in moderation, if it’s not a mocktail) for the members of the NEA who voted to cut all ties with the so-called “ADL.” Herbert Marcuse talked about “the long march through the institutions.” Herbert Marcuse would be smiling.

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