Anti-Defamation League Activities

From my personal experience, I put more credibility in your report “San Francisco Probes Private Spy Network” (Feb. 26) than I do in (ADL regional director) David Lehrer’s letter (Feb. 28). It is just a few years ago that the Anti-Defamation League campaigned to deny the Templeton Prize to Muhammad Imanuallah Khan of the Muslim World Congress. I have also been involved in interfaith work in which we attempted to bring together Christians, Jews and Muslims and the ADL has intervened to pressure the Jewish community to drop out of the meetings. So I just don’t see the ADL as an organization that seeks to “protect the safety and security of individuals of all religious, ethnic, racial and national groups.”

And, I am disturbed when an organization like the ADL writes to you that it compiles the breadth of information that Lehrer discusses, with the huge degree of contacts, and without responsibility to anybody to share the sources. Is the ADL the press, is it a lobby, or is it a police organization? Or is it masquerading under the First Amendment, and, in fact, a pseudo-police organization that tramples the rights of others?

ABDULKADER

Director, The Practical Islamic Center

Rancho Palos Verdes