A bill supported by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) threatens to censor critics of Israel.

Free speech advocates on Friday expressed concerns that a new bipartisan bill in the US Congress would force social media companies to censor criticism of Israel on their platforms.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Don Bacon (R-NE) introduced the bill, called the Stop Terrorists Online and Hold Tech Accountable (STOP HATE) Act, at a press conference on Wednesday, along with Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a front for the Israel lobby in Washington.

If adopted, the bill would require social media companies to cooperate with the federal government to implement content moderation policies that restrict speech by groups designated as "terrorist." These companies would be required to submit regular reports to the US Attorney General. Companies that fail to comply would be fined $5 million for each day they refuse to comply.

Lawmakers justified the move by citing recent examples of overt anti-Semitism and calls for violence on social media.

"We have seen an increase in anti-Semitic misinformation and hate online in America and around the world," Gottheimer said. "After the shooting outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., anti-Zionist extremists used social media to call for more violence, posting messages like 'All Zionists burn.' Even artificial intelligence platforms like Grok have posted deeply disturbing content praising Adolf Hitler and Nazism."

"We want to be in a country that clearly states that anti-Semitism or any kind of racism is unacceptable, unacceptable, and unacceptable online, and that we have zero tolerance for it," Bacon said.

However, other statements by the lawmakers make clear that their definition of "antisemitism" goes far beyond expressions of hatred or calls for violence against Jews. As Matthew Beattie writes for the liberal magazine Reason: "Antisemitism was precisely the idea Bacon had in mind, and he made it clear that it included the criticisms of the State of Israel in his book."

At the press conference, Bacon explicitly referred to the recent protests against Israel's starvation policy in Gaza.

"I saw protests here over the last couple of days, and they were hateful, right? They were... you could see the anti-Semitism in their comments and how they treated some of the Jewish members of Congress. I saw it myself," he said.

Bacon did not specify which comments he was referring to. However, Beattie noted that: “Protesters stormed the Congressional cafeteria on July 1st to demand food aid for Gaza, and interrupted Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL)—who called for the ‘starvation’ of Palestinians—during a hearing on campus anti-Semitism last week.” Bacon also suggested that simply voicing opposition to pro-Israel members of Congress, including himself, constitutes anti-Semitism.

"I even saw an article today. It was about me, but talking about the need to oppose pro-Zionist members of Congress, right?" said Bacon, who is known not to be Jewish. "It's all over our social media, and it's unacceptable."

Meanwhile, Gottheimer said the policy is not limited to combating terrorism, but also includes stopping "a widespread disinformation campaign that affects us daily."

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, a critic of government efforts to regulate "disinformation," noted that the bill conflicts with the right's supposed commitment to free speech.

"There has been a near-universal consensus on the right for the past decade that censorship by big tech companies is a great evil, especially if it is exercised by the US government at its behest and at its behest," he said on the social media site X. "But that all changed when it came to censorship for Israel."

For its part, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, in a statement issued Friday, described the "Stop Hate" law as part of "the ongoing efforts by lawmakers to silence, censor, and restrict freedom of expression in this country at the behest of Israel."

The organization warned that the bill would give the government, in coordination with pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League, "absolute powers to monitor private social media companies, attack lawful expression, and impose fines of up to $5 million per day if companies fail to silence and censor users."

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time Gottheimer and Bacon have introduced the "Stop Hate" Act. A similar version, introduced in 2023, was defeated in committee.

In introducing this version of the bill, Gottheimer and Bacon were more explicit in their call for government regulation of the media, calling on the Justice Department to require Al Jazeera and its Qatari government-sponsored subsidiary, AJ+, to register as foreign agents.

The two congressmen were also at the forefront of calls for the US government to ban TikTok, which Gottheimer said the Chinese Communist Party uses to "promote anti-Israel and pro-Hamas videos in the United States." They also introduced legislation criminalizing efforts to boycott Israeli products.

It's worth noting that Greenblatt (chairman of the Anti-Defamation League), who spoke alongside lawmakers on Wednesday, explicitly stated that "anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism." Despite being criticized for this position, including by members of the ADL itself, he has continued to reinforce his position.

In a disgraceful exchange during the 2024 outbreak of pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Greenblatt suggested that students wearing the keffiyeh—commonly worn by Palestinians and their supporters—were doing the equivalent of wearing a Nazi swastika.

Most recently, Greenblatt endorsed the warrantless abduction by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, whom he accused—along with other pro-Palestinian protesters—of being agents of foreign governments, likening him to terrorist groups in the Middle East.

The lawmakers' press release Wednesday on the Stop Hate Act cites the Anti-Defamation League's 2024 Social Media Scorecard as evidence that "the five major social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X—routinely fail to take action on reports of anti-Semitic hate."

This scorecard page includes a quote from Greenblatt, who said, “Social media platforms continue to fall far short of policing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content.”

It should be noted that after October 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League changed its methodology for classifying anti-Semitic incidents to include not only hate speech or threats directed against Jews, but also language expressing "opposition to Zionism."

The proposed "Stop Hate" Act comes at a time when American public opinion has dramatically shifted against Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza. According to a CNN/SSRS poll released last Friday, only 23% of Americans say Israel's actions are completely justified, a 27-point drop from a poll conducted in October 2023, shortly after the October 7 attacks. Another 27% now say these actions are only partially justified, and 22% say they are not justified at all. In October 2023, only 8% said Israel's actions were not justified at all.

In recent weeks, Israeli leaders have publicly called for the mass displacement of two million Palestinians to make way for Jewish settlers. Meanwhile, at least 115 Palestinians—including more than 80 children—have reportedly died of starvation due to Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip. More than 1,000 aid seekers have also been killed, often by Israeli soldiers, at relief sites jointly run by the United States and Israel.

“The First Amendment is supposed to be a cornerstone of American democracy—our shield against government censorship and overreach,” said Abdul Ayoub, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). “When members of Congress and state legislators begin compromising our freedoms to accommodate the demands of a foreign government, we lose what makes this country free. We must reject any legislation that threatens our freedom of speech, our conscience, and our right to dissent.”

The largest teachers union in the United States announced the termination of its partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), citing concerns about the group's pro-Israel stance and its approach to defining anti-Semitism.

The resolution was passed on Sunday, July 6, at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly in Portland, Oregon, by a majority vote of its 7,000 delegates. The resolution states that the NEA "will not use, endorse, or disseminate ADL materials, such as its curriculum materials or statistics," and "will not participate in ADL programs or disseminate its professional development offerings."