Anti-Defamation League Spying

When I heard about the spy operations of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), I didn’t think much of it at first. That is until I received a letter earlier this month from the San Francisco Police Department informing me that files under my name were confiscated from the home of a police officer recruited by the ADL.

In targeting Arabs and Muslims indiscriminately and without any reasonable cause, the ADL has shown itself to be a paranoid organization bent on creating enemies to justify its own existence. Many of us who are on the ADL list have long worked to alleviate the mistrust that exists between Muslims and Jews, and have worked hand in hand with them on common causes, including the ADL-sponsored “A World of Difference” campaign. Personally, I feel stabbed in the back. This is an organization dedicated to fighting discrimination?

It is ironic that the ADL would be spying and keeping files on Arabs and Muslims whom it deems to be hostile or dangerous. Surely the organization is old enough to remember a time when similar lists and files were kept on Jews who were considered to be dangerous as well. It seems that instead of building bridges between Jews and Muslims, the ADL is more interested in tearing them down and building walls.

SHAHED AMANULLAH

Muslim Public Affairs Council

Los Angeles