Transcripts For CSPAN3 Bill 20240705

And i know that for bigots, especially those who style themselves as antizionists, israels Independence Day is a day to redouble their efforts to make sure it is israels last Independence Day. So let me be 100 clear as i start this speech and as we open this summit today there are challenges in israel and there will be challenges and Difficult Conversations to come. But the adl will never waver in its support of a democratic jewish state. [applause] is really is nothing short of a miracle, and i will never apologize for being a lifelong crowd zionists. Crowd zionists. I cannot help but think about that first Independence Day, when it was proclaimed that there was the first jewish nation into millennia. Many of us heard that scratchy recording and many of us have traveled to that little building in tel aviv to see where it happened. Over the past two months, we have heard a lot about israels declaration of independence as israelis have passionately argued about the future of their own democracy. What is little appreciated is what wit into getting to that final draft. Watch went into getting into that final draft. Should god be mentioned or intentionally left out . Shouldnt reference the United Nations, the showa should it reference the United Nations or the holocaust . What does the document say about the borders of this new state or nonjews who would live there . Apparently there were four drafts written by four different people and it was the Prime Minister himself who had to take hours out from planning a new government and fighting an imminent war literally the day before Independence Day, he was there editing and finessing and finalizing a draft that all of the parties could sign. That a group of jews got together to argue about that may be the most jewish thing in the world. For the people of the book, words clearly metal. Yet, as important as these words are, and they are, what made the state of israel was not the words in that document or the florio graffiti of the ceremony. It was the hard for a graffiti of the ceremony. It was the hard work that came after. The work to defeat invading armies and let you build a mighty military. The work to welcome at shelter hundreds of thousands of indigents, impoverished, exhausted juice desperate to escape the camps of europe. Or those driven out of arab lands they had called home for centuries. The work of making the desert bloom. And then building a veritable silicon valley. Theodore heard so, hertzel, the father of zionism said it was no dream. It was that said that if you will it it is no dream. It was that will to seize the hard work that gave us this occasion. And this is really an important reminder for all of us today. It is a model and it is why, frankly, you are here. Because when it comes to yielding our own future, it means that we cannot just talk about antisemitism and we cannot just it were tweet about it more tweet about it. We have to fight hit antisemitism and do the hard work of battling it everywhere across the political spectrum and around the world. And that is what the adl is doing every single day. Here at home, and around the world. The hard work that you all do in your communities, with us and for us all. And the challenge we face is bigger and it is growing. The landmark poll of American Attitudes towards jews found that one in five americans, 20 , believe in six or more antisemitic tropes about jews. People who have extensive Antisemitic Attitudes. 20 of the population, 60 million people. It is the highest level we have seen in more than 30 years. That is were some. Worrisome. 3 of americans believed all 11 tropes that were presented to them. 3 . That number might sound small, 3 . But that is 8 million people. Who believe every vicious, vile think that they hear about jews. 8 million people, let me put that in some perspective for you. That is more than the number of jews in this country. But that settling for a minute. Let that settle in for a minute. It should come as no surprise that hateful beliefs feel hateful actions. As i think many of you know, you can track Antisemitic Attitudes in america, and we have been doing it longer than anyone else. In 2022, we tracked 3697 antijewish acts. Not just the highest number that we have ever seen in more than four decades of doing this work, it was 36 more than 2020, which, itself, was a historic high. It is the third time in five years we have reached a new high watermark. It is more than 500 greater than the total you go. The alarm bells should be going off. Breaking down these numbers really exposes how dramatically this threat has metastasized. Antisemitic vandalism increased envelope a whopping 51 . The south 26 . More than half of those assaults targeted visibly orthodox jews. Now we find that the dramatic increase in touch jewish incidents is not due to any single ideology or any one group become more accepting of antisemitism or another, is because every ideology is becoming more comfortable with antijewish hate. And i think that too often we see these elements targeting our most sacred and vulnerable spaces. Antisemitic incidents in k12 schools were up 49 . On college canvases, 41 . Campuses, 1 . The alarm bells should be going off. The hostage situation in colleyville last year was perhaps the most hairy harrowing example of the threat. It was only through the courage of the rabbi who utilize training he got from the adl and other groups that keep and the other congregants were able to escape unharmed. And i am so proud that rabbi charlie is not a special advisor to the adl and you will hear more from him later today here at the National Leadership summit. [applause] but it is more than an isolated incident at a synagogue in suburban dallas. Everywhere we look, we see some of our biggest stars in music and sports from the halls of limiter schools to the halls of congress across all of our social media platforms and all of these gaming environments, antisemitism has been mainstreamed like never before. And so i am here to tell you today that we are pushing back. We are doing the work. At the adl, we go with the antisemitism is and we confronted without apology. In 2022, Brooklyn New York was the epicenter of antisemitic assaults with 52 distinct attacks, and antijewish assault every week. In brooklyn. Brooklyn. What you might consider the capital of judaism in america, placed that birth so much of you dish culture birth so much of yiddish culture. And the brazen attacks on the committee committees are despicable. Our orthodox brothers and sisters are under threat concert. They deserve support from everyone. To see this community singled out by institutions like the New York Times, arguing the most important paper in the world, one that i read every day, to see the paper consistently depicts the Orthodox Community as clannish or you seek their power to manipulate events and so on is the kind of antisemitism that we know all too well and that we should not become so complacent as to accept. Let me be clear. This is not a question for me about the quality of their education, or what their curriculum is. There are real questions to be asked and answered to make sure that the students get the education they need to be successful in the Global Economy in which we live. But when the paper of record frames these people and suggesting that this group is different, it is ok to be afraid of them, not ok. We have implored the New York Times behindthescenes, we have spoken out publicly. This framing encourages more antisemitism. And we have been building our relationships with the community. In fact, just last week, i will ship one of my proudest moments as the ceo of adu when we opened an office in borough park in the heart of brooklyn. [applause] why did we do that . Because we go where the antisemitism is. We do the work. And in the middle east, we worked in the United Arab Emirates for years to review and recommend and root out and i jewish bias from school textbooks, improving the discourse and working to prevent a new generation from being exposed to h old antijewish tropes in their education. Now, as you heard yesterday, from dr. Allie, we are working to cure people to people activities thats for understanding not just on the Arabian Peninsula but across the middle east, north africa, Southeast Asia to europe and beyond. I was in abu dhabi earlier this year to announce the opening of the Menorah Center for regional coexistence, chair by a friend of ours. It is an ngo that will build a relationship and create programming with universities to promote understanding and encourage peace. I hear that some might not like the fact that we are working with the United Arab Emirates. Their democracy, if you are, the government seems very different than ours. And it is. Some might push back. But the idea that we are not going to progress until, again, we are going to where the problem is. We will work with the uae and others because we do the work. And going to antisemitism is means going not just to the middle east, to where the antisemitism is means not just going to the middle east but to College Campuses here. On college cap on College Campuses, jewish students are besieged by antizionism that is vile, confrontational antijewish hate. To underscore what i set last year at this congress, conference, antizionism is antisemitism. And when many people were applying to colleges of my generation, the thought never crossed our mind to ask is this a place where i can be saved as a jewish student, and i could tell you it is now at the top of every jewish students mind. And every parents mind. I see this as a jewish parent. With a child who applied to college this year. This was literally consideration, right here, in america. It is at the top of the adls mind and the top of our agenda. In addition to putting pressure on University Officials who, way too often, give these activists a free pass, i am proud that we are partnering with an organization that will give jewish students the resources they need to feel safe, including two working to make sure that de i training in colleges teaches campus leaders and administrators and the students themselves about antisemitism, just as they teach about other prejudices affecting other marginalized communities. [applause] and we are doing this work because we go with the antisemitism is. Again, we do the work. And that is also why the adl is increasingly focused on corporate america. For years, the adl has been at the forefront of pushing big tech to stop eating antisemites and extremists of all types, which these companies do either by not policing their platforms adequately, or by writing algorithms that actively push the most incendiary views. Sometimes they do both. And as advances in Artificial Intelligence like chat gpt are being rolled out and embedded in the source code of so many applications in our digital society, we are redoubling our efforts to make sure that this is an innovation that does not benefit extremists. But it is not just a product and a platform that companies are launching that gets our attention. It is the policies and processes they are adopting and how they run their businesses. And it is something that is happening across all sectors of the economy. Indeed, over the last few years, the bds movement has jumped like a flu or a virus from the College Campuses into Corporate Board rooms. Like when ben and jerrys announced that they would not sell ice cream to the west bank, essentially exiting israel. Or when agencies like morningstar adopted policies that would make doing business with the jewish state a black mark on the cubbies profile. How do these things happen . Because a set of activists are trying to exploit the esg movement as a trojan horse for an antizionist agenda. We can have an argument over whether esg investment principles are important for corporate governance. I believe they are. But what is indisputable and inarguable is that no one should be using esg to push antisemitism. That is why the adl joined forces with another organization last year, the leading Jewish Valuesbased Investment Firm in the world. The group doing the work to make sure that jewish communities at the table and that antisemites dont hijack it and subvert Shareholder Activism for their own purposes. They have a strong track record in promoting socially responsible investing with Jewish Values and since joining the adl, their team has continued to work hard behindthescenes to get ahead of the movement. And as part of our efforts, oncampus and in corporate america, we are also taking a hard look at the diversity, equity and inclusion for di programs, and at all of these institutions. We deeply believe in the merits and value of diversity, equity [no audio] with organizations that represent every marginalized group from morgans mormons to muslims. Api, lgbtq and anyone who is targeted or victimized for that their identity. Look at our Jewish Security alliance operating in new york and new jersey, its incredibly important as a new configuration, which formalizes existing relationships, streamlines information sharing, and bolsters the safety of the entire community by bringing adl, you ja, local federations, the Community Security service, all of us working together to protect our institutions and individuals. [applause] you we will also look at our new embed program. Which places staff from other ngos like vlad and the Asian American Foundation Within adl centers on extremism to share our strategies and train them in our tactics, so that together we can monitor the threat that affects us all, and make all committees safer as a result. We go where the need is. We do the work. And frankly, so do you. It is why you are here today. It is why you chose to come to this summit, to spend several days in washington dc. To talk to the people who make decisions when it comes to funding our priorities. And we know, i deeply appreciate the fact that your voices matter. In large part it is really because of what you do that congress has stepped up in recent years to steadily fund nonprofit security grants. Dollars from dhs which allow nonprofit institutions, houses of worship, faithbased centers. Building defenses to keep themselves safe. The latest round of funding was 305 million and we will need your help to make sure this funding remains robust for years to come. Before i close, and you get onto the incredibly Exciting Program that lies ahead, i would like to go back to where i started. Israels fifth Independence Day. Last week was a moment of celebration and complexity. All of us have watched the protests play out night after night, week after week on the streets of tel aviv, haifa and jerusalem, all over the jewish state. I would like to pause and say that it is Something Special that we dont appreciate, hundreds of thousands of israelis marching every week in a nonviolent manner not burning but raising israeli flags. Celebrating their country, even as they protested. To put that in some perspective, when you look at these numbers, literally night after night they had total representation that exceeded 10 of the non the Jewish Population of the country. More than 10 . Almost 40 million americans marching every week, in equivalency, and joyful patriotic displays. Of love for america. Can you imagine that for a moment . This could only happen in a democracy where people can march without worry of being arrested as we see in turkey or fear of being murdered by the authorities as we saw in iran. Sickly part, these protests do not represent the failure of zionism. This is not the crisis of zionism. This is nothing less than the triumph of zionism. The triumph of a modern Jewish Democratic state. [applause] while i take tremendous joy in seeing that play out, the issues they are protesting about are deeply deeply serious. In recent months, the adl has taken a strong public position about the need for compromise. Were calling for compromise because there are real and legitimate concerns, needs at hand to strengthened israeli democracy. For example, the country would benefit from a more prone pluralistic Supreme Court where all ethnicities are represented. [applause] a more equitable Public Service where all of the nominations of jews served on the front line or on the homefront, Everyone Needs to serve to support the jewish state. [applause] a more open society where choose are accepted and embraced irrespective of how or whether they worshiped or the countries from which their ancestors fled. [applause] and a Civil Society where nonjews enjoy the same rights and fulfill the same responsibilities as their jewish neighbors. [applause] if we learned anything, by watching israel in this first 75 years, its that democracy is not a spectator sport. We learned that lesson here as well. Nor is it a foregone conclusion. We cannot take it for granted. You must do the work. I come back to that. Doing the work to preserve the privileges that you enjoy. That goes for israel and it goes for right here in the United States. Again, it is why you are here, to learn about issues facing the community and our society. It is why youre going to capitol hill tomorrow to tell our elected representatives that the Jewish Community must be seen and heard at must be protected. And it is why when you go home and you go back to your communities day after day week after week, month after month, year after year, you do the work it might be difficult, it might sometimes be thankless, but that is how democracies function it is how we bring people together so that we can move forward. As declared in that declaration of independence 75 years ago, with that as an inspiration, we will do the work here this week and in the months and years to come. Happy birthday israel. Thanks to all of you. Have a great National Leadership summit. [applause] please welcome the Vice President of the adls center for technology and society, and our special guest seen in corresponded dummy osullivan. Cnn correspondent. Hello everyone. I am the Vice President heading this the center for technology and society, and i am elated to welcome our guest in conversation. At its core, the center for technology and societys mission is to add to add the proliferation of antiset antisemitism and all forms of hate interest matt hunt and harassment online. Part of why he is here today is because in his work as a correspondent he does groundbreaking work on the effects of online misinformation. He has done a lot of work looking at conspiracy theories, how they translate offline and take route online, and how they take hold and how they threaten. So we want to start by grabbing the conversation a little bit in the stark reality of where we are today. We already note that we have been here talk you about the rise of antisemitism right here in the United States. But we know that antisemitic conspiracy theories spreading online have a realworld effect and spawn violent behavior offline. You can just look at pittsburgh and buffalo, mass shooters were exposed to antisemitic conspiracy rhetoric online. Before engaging in that activity offline. In our center for tech and society, we also do an annual survey about how jews are hate and harassment online at the numbers are not encouraging and getting worse. We know at adl that hate and harassment and antisemitism they normalized online, making users take the everyday experience really problematic it does not only ostracize the people most at risk, but it also is a dangerous situation where we could find ourselves marching towards violence in the real world. Yes i believe the online world is the real world now. So, in addition to all of this unsettling reality, we now have proliferation of Artificial Intelligence tools that are becoming more and more accessible to everybody, including things like check ppt, deepfakes, chat gpt, deepfakes and other media. The world is only in the world is only just now starting to grapple with what that means. That is why you are invited today to unpack some of these issues, make sense of some of them and think about the direction that this might be headed. And also talk about some of the things we can do about it. Please help me welcome our next guest. Lets dive in, in a lot of your reporting which i have watched over the years you get into these conspiracy theories, not just online would you do great work in but you also talk to people in the socalled real world who fall into these types of theories. Lets hear a little bit about what you are seeing, how to these narratives latch on and manifest online. Before we get into what happens when they get from online to offline. One thing we underestimate in talking about people who get sucked into rabbit holes in conspiracy theories is the role of community and that community plays in this. I just spoke to qanon people and antivax moms and when you get to the heart of the issue they talk a lot about how they had gone through a trauma or felt alone or looking for answers and they find these answers through conspiracy theories online because conspiracy theories can offer easy answers to hard questions and it can give people a sense that they understand something. Over time from speaking to people that is what we have seen but it manifests in all different ways and it can be on tiktok or facebook, or facebook groups. But we have seen particularly since after january 6 when a Major Players in this space but deplatformed people are now going to other alternative platforms. Where there is very little moderation. How are we seeing some of these narratives evolve in recent years from the prejanuary 6 world to where we are now . I think 2020 was a watershed moment if we think about conspiracy theories, people spent so much time alone. So much time in front of their screens and mobile phones looking for answers and a time of angst. You think about that year, we saw it happen on january 6, between that and the distressed of the vaccine, and then distrust and democracy, that is continuing to evolve. From speaking to a lot of people who believe the election was stolen, a lot of folks genuinely believe that and they believe it because some of their political leaders are telling them but they are seeing evidence quote unquote every day out of context of course. False. But that gives them this perception that yes indeed we dont have democracy. Speaking of evidence as you point out, a common phrase online is do your own research. It sounds ok, that is not a bad piece of advice. Do your own research. Before social media that might have meant go to your local library and really dig in and look at different sources and now today do your own research has been coopted as a talking point to so doubt into anything you might be learning from actual experts or reliable sources. How do you think about that . When they say do your own research, when you work for cnn or News Organization they have Fact Checking and a process but now anybody can find anything they want online, how do you think about that . Do your own research and do your own narrative . I think the Biggest Challenges we have in society today, i spoke recently to a mother who her 14 somethingyearold son is very far down the rabbit hole. She would talk about how she would try to help him in the past where things get cherry picked and so sometimes he would bring her these conspiracies, some of them were antisemitic or antigovernment and she would try to help him and say look heres the full context of what we are looking at. Then the challenge of course with social media and the fact this ecosystem of conspiracy theories is so big, that the conspiracy theorists can always find another piece of evidence to say what about this and what about this. Of course some distrust in media and experts and institutions, it just compounds this issue. That is one thing and i think we saw that around the election because there are so many videos that have been taken out of context. Election officials who were just doing their jobs or people watching videos and saying things etc. , there is so much of this in a tidal wave of misinformation. Ive spoken to people, to believers of this stuff and i have told them why may be something as false and they say what about this one and this one. It is never ending. You throw enough at the wall and something is going to stick. And to get to the point of one of the reasons we are trying so hard in center for technology and society is to look at larger systemic issues and what are some of the ground rules and policies around this because if you are just trying to take down content of everything thats not accurate that is an uphill battle you are never going to win. I do want to talk a bit about the mainstream platforms versus fringe platforms. One thing we focus on is how do you push the most extreme voices back to the fringes, that used to feel like a logical path but now as our colleagues tell you the amount of things happening on fringe platforms migrate back to mainstream and there is an interplay between. Is there such a thing is dont worry about that it is just a fringe platform they are all just talking to each other or do you see this starting to interplay with the mainstream . We spoke a lot about how facebook and twitter and youtube and tiktok, what were they doing. There was a lot of discussion about why do you have this on your platform or allow this person to post x, y, and z. Platforms took a lot of action all at once after january 6 and kicked off some hate figures and conspiracy theorists, but that is not a longterm solution for society because what we have seen is these people, we call them fringe or alternative platforms but there are millions of americans, tens of millions of people around the world, you can go on to telegram and theres groups devoted to qanon and other violent conspiracy theories. There are hundreds of thousands of members. So in some ways, i dont have the right answers, what is the right approach. Deplatform prominent figures and then their followers move onto fringe platforms and then that could drag those followers down further and further into more hateful and violent rhetoric. I dont have the solution. Im not going to say i have solutions either but we did put out a study with one of our fellows recently about the effects of deplatforming and while again as i mentioned we are looking for more Holistic Solutions to create a healthier online ecosystem, we have found that deplatforming the most problematic figures, while it does move some people back to the fringe, it also makes them lose their way of being able to monetize their content. A people dont realize a lot of the loudest voices dragging people down some of these hateful rabbit holes, they are doing it because they are able to build their audience and monetize and profit off of it. Deplatforming in and of itself of major figures does have some positive effect in that respect. But we do not have a perfect solution. We are working on it. Now the genie is out of the bottle and there were some revelations some cue in on type figures and people spouting absolute bs leading up to the election with hundreds of thousands of followers and looking back now i think even people on the platforms would say yes that was a bit of malpractice on our part that we did not do more to crack down on this because what we had was these people who came to notoriety or infamy and thats where they started their buildup. That is where they got their first core following and a lot of people followed them to other platforms. I will say as someone who worked at facebook for a while, i fundamentally believe that allowing the loudest most prominent voices, there seems to be sometime special treatment for those with bigger platforms. Because the company themselves makes money off of those with the biggest platform and i am glad that some people realize since january 6 the that is not a bad practice but that is one thing we are pushing for. To not treat someone just because they have the biggest platform with white gloves. In fact they can be more dangerous by inspiring more people. [applause] before we get to the scariest part which is chat gpt. I have one question before we get into the scarier future ahead, this might give tips to some people in the room, how do you at cnn think about some of the things you are reporting on. Are you giving more oxygen to a hateful actor, or if you are retweeting or amplifying a message that at the core is about hate and harassment and extremism . How do you think about that as a reporter how to handle some of that content . That is an issue we run into every day. Its being a journalist on this beast is a little different, then saying this is a story we should not do. Because it might be a good story or interesting, but we have to consider the ramifications. It is always a judgment call i dont think we always get it right i think we have been learning a lot qanon for instance, i have been following its evolution for years. But ive never mentioned this in a story until about 2020 because my editors and i were in the mindset that we were be giving this a platform etc. But then of course we saw in the final months of 2020 and into 20 and and 2021 how it materialized into a Real Movement so i would even say i was too cautious in not talking about it earlier and shining a light on it. It is really difficult. Ultimately no matter what you do youre going to be playing into the conspiracy theorists hands, i think we take the view that we have to cover these things. Thats why so much of the reporting we do is trying to focus on the victims. On the families, the people and families who have loved ones who get sucked on these rabbit holes. We talk a lot about the responsibility of social media platforms but the point i made at the top of this was one thing that has struck me timing time and time again is the idea of community. That of course is a much bigger issue to deal with and people dont get out as much as they did before they are spending more time alone on their phones. That kind of phenomena, you cant underestimate ive been covering a group for a while that they believe jfk is still alive. He is not. [laughter] its a bizarre silly Conspiracy Theory but once you scratch under it there are antisemitic like tons and eight undertones and bloodlines etc. That is a crazy belief but if you want to see how great a time this community of believers are having, they meet up and go to events and think they are in the know about something that everyone else does not understand, their families dont get it they have found this group and there on the same page. I think that is really the issue. If you want to start tackling this how do we give people an alternative form of community . That is part of what drew me into this. I used to Work Overseas embedded in communities that were susceptible to extremist messaging and it was always the same thing. People were looking for a way to belong to something. Any intervention that we might have on social media has to have this whole society approach. Now if we have not scared you well enough, lets talk about what is coming next. Weve all heard so much news about chat gpt and deepfakes and when i was teaching at cornell and spoke to my students, you showed how much work goes into dissecting a video before you use it to prove that the video itself is real. So we as a society are just starting to grapple with Artificial Intelligence tools that could be used also for positive intervention. Maybe there is a way artificial tools can truly find antisemitic conspiracy theories and hate and extremist online in a more effective way. But my question to you is how are you thinking about this next wave of tools and what it might mean for these issues . I think just before the holidays chat gpt really kicked off and scared a lot of us. With the developments weve seen it is incredible, whether it is creating fake audio, video, or images. And now chat gpt. With the image generation especially, when trump was brought into new york and arraigned someone in real time, i think everybody was waiting for official images and the photographers had not been let in, in the meantime as people were waiting for images to emerge. People were using new ai tools to imagine what was happening in the courtroom and putting trump, showing him fighting and all the stuff. It was incredibly real looking and the fact you can create this stuff really easily, really quickly, i think as a newsroom we are trying to get ahead of that and be proactive and how do we think about vetting this is of course something we are hopefully going to try to stay ahead of. And then with fake audio, i get a story where i tortured my parents and i called them using my ai audio voice, my dad fell for it my mom did not. Think about it like the degree to which an audiotape has played a role in election campaigns. Access hollywood for instance. How easy it would be to manufacture a fake tape and also the fact that this technology now exists gives people the opportunity to have plausible deniability and say i did not say that that was a deepfake. I am so sad we dont have more time but that is part of why what we do here is also to try to work with some of these companies as early on as possible to help them understand how these tools can be manipulated in all of these terrible ways. I wish we had more time to unpack it all and i hope we scared everyone with this, you for joining us. Think you very much. [applause] please welcome to the stage Global Leadership cochair. Good morning everyone. Are you away, stretched . Thank you for joining us here today for the second day. I am blown away by this Mornings Program and next up i would like to introduce bill kristol founding director of defending democracy together. Bill has long been recognized as a leading participant in an analyst of american politics, his organization defending democracy together is an educational and Advocacy Organization dedicated to defending americas liberal democratic norms, principles and institutions. Please welcome bill kristol. I like that music. It is good to be with you all. Its good to be with adl again after three years of not meeting in person. It has been many years since i have been at different meetings and conferences and back when i was in the white house 30 years ago i worked closely with adl on issues so it is a pleasure to be here and i commend you for the good work you all continue to do. There is so much to say about the current moment and i just have a few minutes which is good so i will just make three brief points to think about the challenges we face. I will talk a minute about agency a fancy word for responsibility. Leadership and then contingency. Agency. It is very important and there are many reasons we face the challenges we face. History, culture, technology, social media the iphone. Politicians, polarization, you name it. I think it is very important to hold people responsible for their actions and not to get so lost or entranced by the complexities of these historical and sociological explanations that we lose sight of the fact that people are responsible for what they do. That is a core principle of any Decent Society it is the core principle of law, i think it is a core principle we all try to teach our kids and live up to interpersonal and our own lives both public and private. You cant have a Decent Society of people do not accept this principle of agency or responsibility. We tend to forget that a little. We tend to explain, what is the french saying, to understand everything is to forgive everything. We understand so much that we dont talk about victims. How do people get led into this . There is some truth to that people do get led into things by malevolent leaders by social media and all kinds of things but you cant excuse those people. We need to hold people accountable and i think we need to hold them accountable, i dont think we need to have inquisitions or mobs go after them for something foolish they said or something they said that as a legitimate policy position that is taken by someone who is an illegitimate faux mentor of hate, that is not necessarily that persons fault. I think the principles of no inciting violence, no dehumanization, no discrimination. The original idea of the meeting, those are important principles to uphold. I would just urge people, a little too much explaining and a little too little Holding People whether they are famous or not famous, whether they are 75 years old or 25 years old, holding them accountable for their actions. A lot of people criticize [applause] a lot of people criticize Justice Roberts for prosecuting 1000 insurrectionists on january 6, when they have not decided whether to prosecute former President Trump or other senior people who are responsible in some sense for inciting those people. Many of whom were duped you might say by Tucker Carlsen or others, on social media. Into being insurrectionists. But i do think it is very important, i hope everyone gets punished all the way up and down the line if they did something illegal. If they did something wrong. We cant punish people always for things that are wrong, storming the capital is wrong, it is illegal and dangerous. But these punishments had a good effect. Why was not there violence . Why was there thankfully, a little less violence than was expected in november the when there was closely contested races in arizona with election deniers and trim coming to new york for the indictment a month ago . I think people are a little deterred by the fact that people who are like them who believed what they were being told by former president or social media or a major Cable News Network are paying a price for that. There is a reason the rule of law needs to have behind it a threat of just an punishment for your actions. Lets hold people accountable at the top and the bottom. [applause] but lets get to the people at the top too. I think one other problem i have with some of this discussion about the Current Situation is the focus is so much on the mob, on the people who believe these conspiracy theories, on the people who are incited by demagogues, by these prejudices and bigotry and even hatred. Of all the people out there which the demagogues take advantage of. But this is a huge country, things change we have a lot of technological and cultural change we have a lot of anxieties and resentments and there will always be prejudice and the potential for real hatred and real cruelty and real violence. But what makes it possible i think is the demagogues who exploit that and they should be held most accountable for whats happening. And heres the point i want to make secondly, it is the rationalize hers in the excuses and the enablers of the demagogues who also have to be held accountable. When i was young i read a book by eric hoffer who was a big figure way back when in the 50s and 60s and 70s, a very shrewd analyst of totalitarianism and what had happened in the soviet union and nazi germany etc. It was called the will to believe. It was an issue when i was young in political philosophy circles, how did people believe what turned out to be extremely dangerous and damaging, horrible really, in the communist future or nazi claims . The believers are a problem. But they dont actually form a majority of most societies. They usually are pretty strong or weak depending on the situation, a minority. The people who make the true believers dangerous in their beliefs powerful are the enablers. The people who should know better and you do know better in a certain respect. But who go along and who rationalizations, excuses and justifications for the beliefs of the true believers. They might not be true believers themselves but they explain, they are a little wrong about a few things they overthink things but the party of which they are a part has to govern because they do it for other things, we cant criticize them too much because we have to be an alliance with them. We have seen that in spades in the last six or seven years on the right. We see it in the past on the left with communist and fellow travelers 30 to 50 years ago. It is not only a thing of the right or left i think the current problem is the problem on the right. But it is those enablers that make poppel possible the damage that is done. I will be honest it is the republican elected officials who have not had the courage to stand up to the demagogues and to trump and others who make possible the power of trump and the others. If trump had been president for four years without having a whole party capitulate him he would have been a one term president and done some damage and some good things as well but mostly damage, but that would be at. He would be gone. Why is he still so powerful . It is because the whole party when his direction and why did younger politicians decide the way of the future was to be a follower of his . And go even further than him . Because he had already turned the party in that direction. If you turn the party in that direction takes away agency from all the people who chose to go along. These are grown up elected politicians that could haves it up. [applause] some of them are right or wrong are some of them might not have lost and in losing they would have made a point. Mccarthy ran for president in 1967 and he lost but he made a point about the vietnam war and he changed the course of history over the next few years. Winning in the short term is not the most important thing an awful lot of elected officials thought it was and a lot lot of prominent newspapers and magazines also thought they had to go along with their allies. They deserve a little more blame than they normally get for the behavior that they have made possible. It is a problem on the right, it is a problem on the left too, it is the administrators that go along with a few kids are activists on campus who want to watch an antisemitic campaign or Something Like that. Of course the main people we have to hold accountable are the people pushing it but the people who dont stand up to it are the people who acknowledge it and excuse it, those people are often more powerful and they have a lot of responsibility too. Lets hold people accountable, let us hold leaders accountable. Final point about all of our efforts, people ask me how do we know if we are going to win or not . Should we be pessimistic or optimistic . Whats the line . Its better to be pessimistic then when something good happens you are pleasantly surprised. If something bad happens you can say seat . I had it right . But its not actually a laughing matter. The truth is we dont know. History is contingent in contingency is underestimated in our day and age we all want explanations for things, social science should be like Natural Science and physics. It does not work that way. My late uncle who is a very distinguished thinker about things jewish and israel and many other issues, he was at the ajc for 40 years, once famously had wrote books about the holocaust and how it was possible in german history and german culture and all these deep causes, but all those causes were crucial and at the end of the day hitlers was crucial too. He was an incredibly skillful demagogue and his followers made possible horrible things and his line was no hitlers no holocaust. It is a good reminder the contingency of history. We dont know where exactly the challenges will come in my view. We know they will come in all kinds of areas, and politics, in the educational system, in the Business World and Civil Society. We all need to confront those challenges wherever we have some ability to do so. Lets not overthink the future, lets not say this is the moment thats going to matter this is the turning point or not the turning point. I spent a lot of time in washington thinking this was a big moment and the big moment is not the moment you expected or the key battle, it is not necessarily the battle that gets the most build up it turns out to be some other battle that people has not paid as much close attention to. You need to fight bigotry and hatred and incitement to violence wherever we see it and we need to fight it when it is exerted against other groups as well as against jews because we do know from history that it does not stay with one group and it does not stay with the jews. It is not confined to the jews and it does not begin with the jews but it does get to the jews so for reasons interested in the Jewish Community but more importantly for the interest of our society as a whole in the world we need to fight wherever we can against these forces. I will close with this, one of my favorite favorite quotations to tocqueville a french thinker that came to america, he talks about the challenges of the modern world and we can be sure if we can succeed in meeting those challenges but he writes but we should have that salutary fear of the future. I have always like that because people who dont fear the future you would be crazy not to fear the future. Lets have a salutary fear of the future that makes one watchful and combative. Not that soft and idle terror that wears hearts down, let us be watchful not complacent. Watchful and combative thats what the adl has been for so many years. And that is what, i think by being here today it suggests that that is what the adl will continue to do good luck and thank you. [applause] please welcome to the stage adl special advisor sarah camden. Thank you so much for those inspiring words about preserving democracy and fighting hate and the role each of you can play in that effort. It is a privilege to be with all of you here this morning. Todays panel is on protests, pressures and policies assessing around today. I want to remind you that on september 16 of last year a 22yearold woman of kurdish iranian heritage died in iran after being detained by the iranian regimes infamous morality police. It sparked widespread protests with thousands upon thousands of people pouring into the streets across the country chanting woman, life, freedom. Of course irans aggression within its own borders did not come as news to adl which for decades has been advocating for International Actions against the regimes maligned actions. These include the Islamic Republics Human Rights Violations against minorities and vulnerable communities within its borders. It is aggression across the middle east, threats posed by the Nuclear Weapons program, its direct and indirect confrontations with israel, its sponsorship of terrorists. Civil war and instability. And its threats to jewish communities, dissidents and others around the globe. To help us better understand the state of iran today i am honored to be joined by two leading experts, a founding director of alliance for rights of all minorities and a cochair of adls task force on middle east minorities, and a senior fellow for defense of democracies where he focuses on Iranian Security and political issues. Please join me in welcoming our guests to the stage. [applause] then i would like to begin with you this morning and talk a little about the roots of the actions of iran. We know that iran is a sponsor of terrorism, we note the work they have done to sponsor antisemitism and holocaust denial. And distortion. As someone who has watched this for years, can you tell us what is actually the root of all of this . Thank you for that kind introduction it is a pleasure to share the stage with both of you. Thank you adl for organizing a timely and important panel. The same thing that is true in washington is true in tehran which is personnels policy. If you want to understand the rogue regime of the Islamic Republic you have to understand the men that founded, created and have been at the helm of the government of the Islamic Republic for the past 43 years. In this interest the fedor and found founding father of the republic on the issues we have now known the Islamic Republic to be leading in. In antiwesternism, antiamericanism, antiisraeli, antisemitism, antizionism. Quite literally talking about these things, preexile, post exiled and then when he was back at the helm in 1979 and 1980 he helped fashion a form of government or state power, state resources, could be put behind those ideologies. When we talk about, some of you have been listening to the comments on the cyber and tech space, they talk about how this may move into the media space and elsewhere, the challenge of the Islamic Republic is that it is using state resources. A government apparatus to push those ideologies forward. We almost what the ideologies are, it is quite dangerous when a government puts its money where its mouth is and you see the price of that across the battlefields of the middle east, within israel and most recently the people of ukraine or the Islamic Republic is helping underwrite pollutants war of imperial aggression. There is an old saying about the Islamic Republic is the iranian people are the longest suffering victims there. They are the longest suffering victims of that oppression and that oppression has been exported because of this governments desire to make their fight global. Can i ask you to follow up. When you talk about the money going into this effort, what are we talking about here . What percentage of the money they have is going towards an external policy . I need not give you a line item but i can tell you something better, qualitative rather than quantitative. There is a reason that since 2009 you have had protests in iran, that chant not gaza, not lebanon my life or iran. A protest since 2017 and 2018 where you have protesters talking about iran bailing out of the assad regime saying forget syria and think about us is what it translates to. The iranian people are tired of the government of the Islamic Republic consistently choosing bombs over butter and thats why you have that Society Chasm that has resulted in so many boom and bust cycles of protests. It is not just about the number, the number is being felt. A very important point, i want to turn to you to talk about the context here. You have been watching for the last 44 years the changes taking place in iran since the revolution. What is so different about what happened last year and what continues to happen and how do you see the role of the dais bora diaspora playing into this . Let me begin by sharing what iran is really experiencing today. Today is may 1. It is an International Day for workers and laborers and as we speak there are dozens perhaps hundreds of protests taking place across the country and counting. On one hand we are not hearing about the magnitude of protests, the same way we heard in september in the aftermath of the murder of that woman in subsequent months. But the protest movement has continued in iran and it has taken different shapes and forms. Iranians are very innovative people and they have found various ways to engage in acts of civil disobedience. Strikes of laborers and economic withholdings of businesses is the way we are going to see increasingly, and one of the best ways that the total of the society, not just women who are risking their lives and getting blinded and shot in the eye and their bodies, should not be taking all the burden of the protest. There are methods of civil disobedience like strikes and economic pressures on the government, not paying bills perhaps, are other ways that are being explored. Also there is a reality inside iran. If i had to use one word to describe todays fate of the Islamic Republic i would call it a bankruptcy. It is a state that is bankrupt because it has no legitimacy within its own people and they are no longer recognized as a representative government. In terms of resources, there is 60 level of poverty in the country. People are hungry and suffering and they are not going to stay quiet. In terms of intellectual capacity of the country, at least 30 of those with College Educations are likely to leave the country because the environment is not hospitable for their interests. Because of a variety of persecutions and there is no opportunity for them to stay there. In terms of the environment finally, the country literally is about to sink. The ground beneath iranian peoples feet is literally about to sink. There was a recent confidential document that was hacked and shared with the international community, it is making its rounds within media and what it shows is because of this mismanagement of the environment and the unnecessary management of the water and use of the Water Resources in the country, the state of the earth has deteriorated to such an extent that at least 360 cities there is a possibility of the ground literally collapsing beneath them. This is a reality that iranians are waking up to. They are hungry, they are poor, there is no hope for them and now they have to deal these environmental challenges. The situation is not good. Because the situation is not good in the facade of the reformist, conservative vest, traditionalist, purples and blues and all the marketing ploys they have to present themselves as the fixers of the revolution, all of that is gone and iranians have reached a point of no return and we have to acknowledge it for what that is. That is interesting so as we are watching this protest, it is not the first time we have seen protest in iran but what youre saying is this time is different. You think it has sticking power . It has sticking power. But it has to be echoed on the outside. We cannot expect the protest movement to remain in the original form of people in the streets. Although there is a report recently that demonstrates that the protest movement is picking up again. Nonetheless as a human rights activist, as someone who knows the risks that is put upon the iranians when they go out in the streets and they risk getting shot and blinded, arrested, raped, etc. I think we need to shift the focus and acknowledge that acts of civil disobedience will be good enough. Will be acts of protest. Every time a woman walks around the streets of iran without her hijab, she is protesting. At grace for great risk to herself. It is not because iran has suddenly become a free country, know the threats are still there. But the bravery is commendable. I think this is an important point you are making. One we are beginning to see translated into the way things are being reported about iran. There is a question in my mind, i want to ask you a followup, is the American Press looking at this the way they need to be because the way you are describing it is far more acute than the way you are hearing people write about the protests. The American Media really was asleep for 44 years. And did not really look at the atrocities that were taking place in iran in the streets and iranian prisons. The fact that overnight iranian women lost their rights, and all the feminist movements, they were able to ignore that atrocity and acknowledge it as like a cultural footprint a footnote that they did not really care about. I am grateful that since the murder there has been more attention to human rights issues but it is not enough. The media needs to learn to be adaptable and continue to focus on what activists are doing and how the movement is taking shape. One example is we hear about the poisoning of the schoolgirls, across the country. This started to happen about a year ago and the media was asleep and not paying attention. This behavior is exactly what the taliban did to dissuade girls from participating in getting an education. Now they are doing this because the protest movement was so robust and so jawdropping among the schoolgirls who would lift up their hijabs and show the middle finger to pictures in the classroom and take selfies of themselves bravely. They would do that and because they have done that they are trying to threaten the girls and their families and teach them a lesson so they would not participate in such acts. Because the prices so high, the media needs to focus on the shifting of the revolution. They need to shift their attention and talk about the strikes that are taking place in the entire industry in the sugar companies, the Petrochemical Industries these are all engines of the revolution. These are all engines of the protest and just to end, as much as the media has to do their job i think we as an audience have to do our jobs. When we see stories coming out of iran, we should click. Because those clicks matter, they tell the editors that there is an audience, an appetite for this. We cannot ignore this. We cannot let this happen. And sit idly by, we need to Pay Attention and interact with it. Thank you for that. [applause] one of the things you and i were talking about in the green room is the grand shift of strategy. That iran has demonstrated in terms of geopolitics. I would love for you to talk about what we ought to be paying attention to from the perspective of the people who are protesting. Put yourself in a policy position. Tellers tell us what is taking place in regard to this new way of being, suddenly iran is reaching out to their adversaries both the king of saudi arabia and United Arab Emirates. This is not the old playbook this is a new playbook. Why are they doing this, why is the significant, and why it should Americans Care . We could go on for hours about this one point but in my view it is somewhat consistent with the larger arc of the Islamic Republics regional strategy foreign and security policy. When these people say death to israel and america that they mean it. But there are some tenements to the Islamic Republic to getting this policy off the ground and some of those impediments quite literally in terms of the geography betweens iran and israel is the heartland of the middle east. In the south and in the north, the Islamic Republic has basically punctured those states, iraq, syria, lebanon and operates a land bridge to transfer money and ammunitions to terror groups like Lebanese Hezbollah hamas what have you. This is their terror highway if you will. That there millet malicious control even the drugs on these highways. We can get to that later. With the likes of the southern tier, saudi arabia, the Islamic Republic understood these would be the front lines of any conflict and any military ties historically between the gcc countries and the u. S. , and its proposition or its bargain to these countries has long been a knife and a handshake. The handshake is smiling diplomacy and the goal of the Islamic Republic in the short to mediumterm to what these countries, by supporting terror groups in weakening these capitals, what it is trying to do is force the states to accommodate the Islamic Republics vision to absorb the escalation that the Islamic Republics proxies throw at it. To continue to remain testing ground for some of the weapons and ideologies that the Islamic Republic exports. For example in yemen, for eight plus years against the government of that country they are in possession of some of the most diverse capable precision strike Unmanned Aerial Systems like drones, cruise missiles and Ballistic Missiles of any iranian proxy in the middle east. This will forever be deal or no deal, a pressure tool that toronto has against the likes of the uae or some of the other countries that were within striking distance. Some of you may remember the current and former Prime Ministers plane had to be diverted several times when traveling in this area due to the fact that the arc of some of these weapons could hit civilian air traffic. Ultimately the Islamic Republics goal with the uae and saudis to force them into a policy of begrudging accommodation and the Islamic Republics message is basically america does not have your back. Accommodate me if you want to survive and get out of my way of what im trying to do visavis the israelis. One of the most damaging things in the short term about the Islamic Republic warming diplomatic ties with the likes of saudi arabia is that it is creating a buffer Bumper Sticker which is that toronto beat jerusalem. In this sense it is trying very hard to politically put a dent in the abraham accords, something which i think is needed on steroids in the region. What is america supposed to do . Step one is do no harm. It would have to be to acknowledge what their interests is an repair of the relationships that the Islamic Republic is trying to get you to create lots of unforced in this world if you believe that lesser chinese involvement in the persian gulf is good then you would want to try to repair relationships with saudi arabia and understand where the chinese are most active, less active and press on those levers. Ultimately this is going to be about prioritizing what kind of american policy you want to have in the middle east. Saudi potential drift footsie with the Islamic Republic did not happen overnight. It happened due to the problems, the politics created around this and the policies that followed from the politics of about four different u. S. President s and the saudi relationship and the saudi impression that no one is going to have their backs. For many years to iran and saudi were two kids in a schoolyard or the saudis would call the principal and try to reprimand the kid they are fighting in the schoolyard. Now the saudis are calling the parents of the Islamic Republic and calling china to come in and try to adjudicate. This is going to have long term effects for u. S. Foreign policy and Economic Security in the persian gulf. We are at time but before we go i want to give you one minute. There is a very important component to this which is the propaganda war that is going on. Adl did a report along with the center for countering digital aid around how iran is promoting its propaganda. If there is a message you have on this issue with regard to what we ought to be doing and saying to social Media Companies what is it . I think we should all become wiser users of social media, not to shy away from it but use it and support people who are in need of more amplification and more attention who are telling the truth or telling stories about the voices of persecuted people inside iran. That does not necessarily get picked up in Mainstream Media or in the algorithm. In terms of the regime propaganda campaigns, this is not something new this is something i lived through. When i lived in iran and that is something i have been witness to as an activist. The power of the Propaganda Machine of the Islamic Republic is very strong. They spend billions of dollars on this delegitimize activists, to trap activists and take their lives if they can. They also use their system to create anonymity and propagate why does the Islamic Republic need to have israel as its enemy . Or the u. S. . They need that because as long as they have someone else to fight they have someone to blame for their problems that the people are going through. And the enemy is actually what gives them sustenance. This is why in press tv they say that jews are responsible for the Covid Vaccine for the covid disease. This is why they say that the zionists are conspiring to take muslim kids away from their religion. Or many other lies. We have to be better users and hold the social Media Companies accountable and ask them to follow their own terms of service. Thank you so much i would like you to join me in thanking our guests for an excellent conversation. [applause] i would like to also welcome to the stage adl supportive board of directors member nicole. Thank you very much. [applause] hello. It is so nice to see you all here today and i am pleased to be here myself. And i am honored to introduce our next speaker, dr. Lynn randall sherwood. Dr. Sherwood randall serves as the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and counterterrorism. Prior to that she was deputy secretary of energy, a member of the National Security council, among other positions in the clinton and obama administrations. Prior to returning to the white house on this tour of service, she was cofounder of International Affairs at harvard and a distinguished professor at the Georgia Institute of technology. She is a Hometown Hero from los angeles on was the first sibling to be awarded the rose scholarship a few years before her little brother. We are so grateful for your Important Service to the United States and we are so thankful that you are here with us today. [applause] good morning, everyone. It is truly my honor to be here with each of you today. When Jonathan Greenblatt asked if i would give remarks this morning, i eagerly agreed because of the Vital Mission of your organization, the partnership we have built in the Biden Administration with jonathan and his team, and the urgent issues facing our community today. Jonathans vision and innovation define what it means to lead an organization dedicated to combating hate at home and around the world. In these increasingly challenging times for all of us. As President Bidens Homeland Security advisor, a role created just after 9 11, it is my job to deal with the threat to our homelands that antisemitism represents but for me, it is also personal. My greatgrandparents fled oppression in Eastern Europe to build a new life in america where they could practice their faith free of fear and seek opportunities denied to them in their homelands of origin because they were jewish. Still in america, my mother was chased home from Elementary School in omaha as a little jewish girl. Her family moved west to seek a more tolerant place. She met my father in high school in los angeles with a subsequently married at wilshire boulevard temple. At that time my father was considering entrylevel job offers from several law firms after completing Harvard Law School and a clerkship with the Supreme Court. One offer was from a firm that had no track record hiring jews. Another had a great track record of hiring jews. When trying to choose, his peers at the jewish firm reached out and played for him not to accept their offer and instead accept the other firm where he could blaze a new trail. I grew up with the imperative to build bridges rather than walls, to be integrated rather than segregated, to know the other and have the other know us across states and races. My father experienced antisemitic discrimination long into adulthood but he chose repeatedly, just like with his choice of a law firm, to build bridges from the Jewish Community to other groups confronting discrimination and hate, including the black and asian communities in Southern California and beyond. As Martin Luther king said, the ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people. Or as we say in our faith, it is our obligation to use our lives to heal our broken world. I take that responsibility very seriously, and i know that you do, to. That is why you are here. And every day i see what is broken seems even more jagged than it used to be. Ethnic and religious hatred is being normalized in our melting pot. Antisemitism is being normalized. It is more mainstream. It is out in the open. And most disturbingly, violence against jews is being normalized in america. Jews are being targeted in our neighborhoods, synagogues, schools, homes, and online. We have not seen this level of hatred against jews since before the second world war. 2022 represented a 34 increase in antisemitic incidents over the Previous Year in the United States, the highest number recorded by the adl since they began tracking these incidences in 1979. We have been focused on these issues since day one of the Biden Administration, when the president charged us with generating the countrys First Ever National strategy for countering domestic terrorism. Then as a component of that effort, we embarked on developing the first National Strategy to counter antisemitism specifically. We explained we accept we expect to complete this work by the end of may and my colleague and friend susan rice will speak more about the strategy later today as she and i are cochairs of the effort. Among the many initiatives is one that is to me is most urgently needed, the restoration of safety for jews in our country. That goal means working in partnership with you to address three pressing issues simultaneously. First, we must continue to improve the security of our synagogues and jewish institutions. The Biden Administration has already expanded Security Assistance to for houses of worship and religious institutions. Increasing funds to increase physical security from 108 million three years ago 180 million three years ago to 250 million now. And we have asked to increase the funds. We are sharing more information with Law Enforcement and allies, creating partnerships among them and training our congregations to confront these threat. We saw how this work can make a literally vital difference in january of 2022 in colleyville, texas when a rabbi and for members of his congregation were taken hostage. Ahead of time, the synagogue had already mapped out their floor plan and submitted it to local officials and the fbi. They had installed security cameras so Law Enforcement could see what was happening in real time. As a result, they moved quickly to mount a rescue operation and when there was an opportunity to escape, the hostages relied on their active Shooter Training to takes Decisive Action and fleet the building safely. The rabbi said after the hostage crisis, over the years my congregation and i have participated in multiple security courses with the police, fbi, antidefamation league, security network. We are alive today because of that education. [applause] second, we need to reduce the threat itself and decrease hate driven violence and harassment. This brings me back to my fathers lesson to build bridges within our communities that make it hard for hate to flourish. That was the administrations aim last year when the president convened the united we stand summit. It mobilized federal agencies in new and renewed ways. The Justice Department approved the reporting of hate crime incidences to address the problem of underreporting. Another take away from the summit is the benefit of communitybased prevention efforts that see teachers, coaches, pastors, and many others working together to steer individuals away from hate and violence. Work that takes time and trust and seeing each other as human beings living in the same community wherever possible. And when these efforts are insufficient, we will rely on Law Enforcement partners to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of those who would harass, abuse, and harm our jews in jewish communities. On this point, Strong Partnership between the government and diverse Community Groups can have a real impact. For example, last november the Community Security initiative, an organization detected a social media threat to shoot up a synagogue in new york city. They relied on their strong ties with Law Enforcement and reported the threat to the nypd and fbi who determined the threat was critical credible and identified two men as suspect. That information was shared widely with local authorities and houses of worships which resulted in the swift apprehension of the men. A local transit worker recognize them in penn station and alerted the police, who arrest the suspects and found a handgun and large capacity magazine in their possession. This was possible because the Community Group had strong relationships in place with Law Enforcement. So whether you are working to strengthen ties within your community or helping us address harassment, abuse, and threats, it matters. You are making a difference in the fight to end antisemitism and protect our community. Third, while we enhance protections shortterm and expand prevention efforts to reduce the threat over time, we also need to address the creeping normalization of antisemitism in our everyday lives, especially through online media. That includes tackling the ways in which antisemitic and other hateful views circulate online and commit to a Conspiracy Theory and disinformation that can lead some people to violence. We need to ensure that those who spread lies and conspiracy theories remain outside the mainstream and we have to do it in a way that protects not just members of the jewish faith, but members of all religious denominations. That is how we build a common cause against those who seek to divide us. That means speaking out forcefully and clearly when we encounter expressions of hatred for jews and other Community Groups, which is something President Biden has done throughout his career in Public Service. Hate speech should never go unchallenged. We as a government are taking a number of actions to address this. The departments of commerce and education are using model grid and Grant Programs to help americans learn to recognize online hate speech and reduce the spread. Through organizations like the Global Internet forum to counterterrorism, we are sharing information with Technology Companies to ensure that they understand the threat of antisemitism and more successfully enforce their terms of service. This is critical given the algorithms that suck people into more and more sinister conversations that we know may lead to incitement of violence. Two years ago after the Prior Administration had refused to join, we announced President Bidens decision to join the christchurch calls, a Partnership Among 56 governments and 10 Technology Companies, including facebook, twitter, and youtube, to develop new solutions to eliminating terrorist content online while safeguarding the freedom of expression. An example of how this works in real time. When the perpetrator of the Buffalo Supermarket murders last may tried to livestream his attack, the christchurch called and the Global Internet forum worked swiftly to terminate the livestream. Then they ensured it was neither posted online nor shared widely, which meant the content was far less widely circulated than we had seen in prior attacks, diminishing the prospect of incitement of motivation by example or copycatting. We know we need to go much further than this and now we are working with congress to do that , as the president called for earlier this year. We look to congress to reform laws to ensure the Technology Companies are responsible for the content they spread and the algorithms they use. As all of these examples illustrate, we cannot do this alone. We in government will do everything we can to improve the safety of jews and other religions, races, and ethnics groups that face harassment and discrimination but we need to do the work with you. We need the public to understand antisemitism and rally against it in all its forms while Standing Shoulder to shoulder with other communities who are being targeted by hate. We need Community Groups, Law Enforcement, schools, houses of worship, businesses and others to Work Together to rally against hate and use all their tools to prevent hatred and violence. We need leaders at the local and state level to join us in speaking out and condemning antisemitism and hate wherever it rises. And we need the antidefamation league, whether it is the combat plan to fight antisemitism in our community, the repair plan to address online hate, or many of your other remarkable initiatives, we share the adl comprehensive approach to end the defamation of jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment for all. [applause] coming back to the lessons i learned from my familys experience, fleeing hate and violence, starting new lives in a new land, making their way despite outright hostility, and always looking for ways to lift up others and heal the world, i will leave you with this final thought. Let us turn understandable fear into empowering action. Rabbi marc katz in new jersey recently put this best when he wrote, there will always be bad actors, hateful people, bad agents. But they need not derail our lives. Every triumph, no matter how small, takes up the room in our psyche that was once full of anxiety. We need to ask not what would happen tomorrow but what we can do today. Then when tomorrow comes, we arrive realizing we have been so busy fixing our broken world that we had no time to be afraid. Thank you for allowing me to join you this morning and i look forward to doing work with you in the days and months and years ahead. [applause]