CAIR Welcomes NEA Action on ADL: Teachers Union Ends Partnership

The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) has wel­comed the deci­sion by the Nation­al Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion to sev­er ties with the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL). On 8 July 2025, CAIR report­ed that the Nation­al Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Assem­bly vot­ed to stop using ADL mate­ri­als in pub­lic schools due to what it calls the orga­ni­za­tion’s anti-Pales­tin­ian extrem­ism and attacks on Black Lives Mat­ter and South African anti-apartheid move­ments. The CAIR press release begins:

The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), the nation’s largest Mus­lim civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion, today wel­comed a vote by the gen­er­al assem­bly of the Nation­al Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NEA) to stop using mate­ri­als pro­vid­ed by the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL) due to con­cerns over its anti-Pales­tin­ian bias, mis­use of anti­semitism to silence advo­ca­cy for human rights, and its his­to­ry of oppos­ing racial equal­i­ty move­ments for the Black com­mu­ni­ty, among oth­er issues. Ear­li­er this week, the NEA’s 7,000-member Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Assem­bly vot­ed to cut all ties with the ADL, cit­ing the ADL’s his­to­ry of anti-Pales­tin­ian extrem­ism and dis­cour­ag­ing anti-racist orga­niz­ing, includ­ing attack­ing the South Africa anti-apartheid move­ment and the Black Lives Mat­ter movements.

           Read more: https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-welcomes-national-education-association-vote-to-cut-ties-with-adl-over-anti-palestinian-anti-black-concerns/

Key Points

• The NEA’s 7,000-member Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Assem­bly vot­ed to end all part­ner­ships with the ADL, cit­ing anti-Pales­tin­ian extrem­ism and oppo­si­tion to Black movements
• CAIR con­demned ADL direc­tor Jonathan Green­blatt for report­ed­ly com­par­ing pro-Pales­tin­ian stu­dent pro­test­ers to ISIS and Al-Qae­da dur­ing speech­es to Repub­li­can attor­neys general
• The ADL has been accused of launch­ing dis­hon­est attacks on diverse com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing Black Amer­i­cans, Arab Amer­i­cans, and Mus­lim Amer­i­cans sup­port­ing Pales­tin­ian rights
• The orga­ni­za­tion alleged­ly pres­sured col­leges to silence stu­dents peace­ful­ly advo­cat­ing for Pales­tin­ian free­dom and down­played hate crimes against Palestinian-Americans

US Muslim Brotherhood & Anti-Defamation League: Political Tensions and Ideological Clashes

The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) describes itself as “a grass­roots civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy group and as “Amer­i­ca’s largest Islam­ic civ­il lib­er­ties group.” CAIR was found­ed in 1994 by three offi­cers of the Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Pales­tine, part of the U.S. Hamas infra­struc­ture at that time.  Doc­u­ments dis­cov­ered in the course of the ter­ror­ism tri­al of the Holy Land Foun­da­tion con­firmed that the founders and cur­rent lead­ers of CAIR were part of the Pales­tine Com­mit­tee of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and that CAIR itself is part of the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

The US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and its affil­i­at­ed orga­ni­za­tions have posi­tioned them­selves as active par­tic­i­pants in Amer­i­can polit­i­cal dis­course on Israel and Pales­tine, fre­quent­ly clash­ing ide­o­log­i­cal­ly with Jew­ish advo­ca­cy groups such as the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL). Recent con­gres­sion­al advo­ca­cy efforts high­light deep­en­ing rifts, with some Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-linked lead­ers open­ly dis­cour­ag­ing trust in US Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions and fram­ing the two-state solu­tion as a betray­al of Pales­tin­ian rights. These groups have also expand­ed their polit­i­cal influ­ence oper­a­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC, often through net­works that com­bine grass­roots activism with high-lev­el polit­i­cal engagement.

Inter­nal dis­putes with­in the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, such as the pub­lic row between USCMO and EMGAGE, reveal ongo­ing strug­gles to present a uni­fied front while nav­i­gat­ing com­plex alliances and advo­ca­cy pri­or­i­ties, Accord­ing to research pub­lished by the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Research Cen­ter, the US Mus­lim Brotherhood’s influ­ence is exer­cised through a net­work of orga­ni­za­tions that main­tain both overt and covert rela­tion­ships, while adapt­ing their strate­gies to the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal con­text. This net­work has sought to shape pub­lic opin­ion and pol­i­cy on issues such as Pales­tine, some­times through alliances with oth­er activist groups and at oth­er times by direct­ly chal­leng­ing main­stream Jew­ish organizations.

Exter­nal References:

1. The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Amer­i­ca: The Dynam­ics of a Movement

2. The Hamas Net­works in Amer­i­ca: A Short History

3. The Role of the ADL: Past and Present

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.