ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt speaking at the organization’s Never is Now conference in New York City, Nov. 17, 2016. Photo courtesy of the ADL. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in an April 28 appearance on MSNBC that white supremacy needs to be recognized as “a global terror threat.”
Greenblatt – who was at Poway, where the shooting occurred at the Chabad of Poway on April 27, killing one person and injuring three others – said that the 19-year-old shooter who is allegedly responsible for the act “socialized” and “optimized” his white nationalist views on social media.
“Technology companies and Silicon Valley in general have a particular responsibility to play to ensure that this kind of rhetoric, which previously couldn’t see the light of day, stops spreading on their platforms,” Greenblatt said. “They literally have been exploited by extremists, and it is time for us to interrupt that and end it now.”
Greenblatt proceeded to call on politicians at the national level to stop emboldening white nationalist extremists with their rhetoric on “immigrants, to talk about minorities, to talk about policy.”
“We need to recognize that white supremacy is a global terror threat,” Greenblatt said, “and the administration, like prior administrations, has devoted a lot of resources in dealing with the threat of Islamist jihadist violence, and that is indeed a problem… but make no mistake, there’s a through line from Charlottesville to Pittsburgh, to Christchurch, now here in San Diego County.”
Greenblatt called on the Department of Homeland Security to dedicate more of its resources toward dealing with right-wing extremism.
The full appearance can be seen below:
Greenblatt appeared on MSNBC again later in the day.
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