Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has been a ubiquitous presence on cable news since the Hamas terror assault of Oct. 7, warning of the alarming spike in anti-Semitism the world over that followed the assault and Israel’s subsequent warfare in Gaza.

Greenblatt joined The Interview this week to talk about the work of the ADL, which is the oldest anti-discrimination team in the USA, the upward push of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate in the USA, and media coverage of the current warfare. He additionally addressed his rocky relationship with Elon Musk, President Joe Biden’s polling hunch, as well as his claim that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.

Greenblatt addressed Musk’s apparent embrace of an anti-Semitic conspiracy conception final week, which fueled the flight of blue chip advertisers from his platform X, previously Twitter.

“We live in perilous instances,” Greenblatt stated. “And that’s why it used to be so deeply complicated and dangerous when the owner of X validated an awful anti-Semitic conspiracy conception to his 160 million followers or so.”

Greenblatt said he spoke privately with Musk on Friday, simply days after that put up. The identical day, Musk introduced that phrases equivalent to “decolonization” or “from the river to the sea” can be banned from X, claiming they “suggest genocide.”

Mediaite asked Greenblatt in regards to the criticism he faced for applauding Musk’s “leadership in fighting hate” over the announcement. One critic, New Yorker creator Isaac Chotiner, wrote on X: “The most distinguished organization fighting anti-Semitism in The us will commend your ‘management in combating hate’ 24 hours after you advocate vile neo-Nazi anti-Semitism…if you take a strong stand towards critics of Israel.”

“Completely baseless and improper,” Greenblatt spoke back, noting he at first condemned Musk’s embody of the anti-Semitic conspiracy concept, and would applaud Musk and other tech leaders once they “get it right.”

“I don’t think one negates the opposite. I don’t want to provide the incorrect influence. I’m not saying, ‘Oh, he’s off the hook as a result of he mentioned this on Friday’ or ‘Oh, he’ll always be unhealthy as a result of he stated this on Wednesday.’ It’s my job to call it as I see it,” Greenblatt said.

He also defined his outspoken criticisms of the media’s coverage of the warfare. Final month, he called out MSNBC throughout an look on Morning Joe, accusing the community of parroting Hamas propaganda. On The Interview, Greenblatt defended the hosts of Morning Joe however mentioned others on the community, and even commentators on CNN, have been “type of lauding Hamas for what they complete.”

As proof of that claim, Greenblatt pointed to a comment from a CNN journalist reporting from Tel Aviv.

Throughout a live report from CNN World anchor Becky Anderson final month, she described the advances through Hamas combatants into Israel as significant: “I spoke to the IDF spokesman prior on who said the IDF remains to be working to stable and protect 20 communities around that Gaza border, which, you know, I echo your phrases, it can’t be understated or underscores just how superb this incursion through Hamas militants were.”

Greenblatt objected to that framing in the next segment, scolding CNN and Anderson for her language: “You want to tell Becky Anderson to stop the use of phrases like ‘outstanding’, to describe the terror organization of Hamas. Cease announcing they made ‘great positive factors’, ‘astonishing features.’”

Greenblatt instructed Mediaite he has spoken to main media shops about how they’re covering the warfare. “I believe issues have gotten a lot better when you consider that I made these feedback,” he said.

“Let’s well known that within the fog of war it’s never essentially straightforward,” he said. “Reporting will also be exhausting.”

Greenblatt also addressed Biden’s sinking poll numbers among Democrats and specifically youthful voters due to the fact that Oct. 7.

“I’d say that, number one, the pictures from Gaza are wrenching. They’re heartbreaking. They’re heartbreaking. I mean, every Palestinian lifestyles, every civilian who gets killed is a tragedy,” he stated.

“Taking into account how younger people intake data and making an allowance for what a humanitarian disaster it’s in Gaza,” he said, “I’m now not shocked that people are deeply upset about it. I’m deeply upset about it. In case you are a living, breathing, sentient particular person and you’re now not upset about it, I feel you’ve received to seem within the replicate.”

Mediaite also pressed Greenblatt on his declare that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. In a recent look on CNN, Greenblatt mentioned: “There’s no argument anymore that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, that’s as plain as day.”

That declare is a controversial one, even throughout the ADL, and critics say it’s used to silence Israel’s critics with the aid of casting them as bigots. As many have stated based on Greenblatt, there are many Palestinians, Israelis and Jews alike who’re anti-Zionist however infrequently anti-Semitic.

Yair Rosenberg wrote just lately in The Atlantic that it’s “absurd to expect Palestinians to embody Zionism, which they skilled because the displacement of their people and the dispossession of their place of birth. Likewise, principled secular anti-nationalists who oppose all sectarian and ethnic states, extremely-Orthodox Jews who reject a return to the Jewish hometown sooner than the arrival of the Messiah, and Jewish progressives who center of attention on Israel’s sins as a result of they are particularly upset through how the united states appears to behave of their name are additionally now not anti-Semites.”

Watch Greenblatt’s response to these criticisms above, and subscribe to The Interview on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

The submit ADL Chief Jonathan Greenblatt Defends Praise of Elon Musk and Criticizes Media in Vast-Ranging Interview first seemed on Mediaite.