The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a far-right Zionist terrorist organization operating in the United States and Canada. Previously thought to have faded into obscurity, the group has resurfaced recently in Los Angeles, one of their long term home base cities. For months now, pro-Israel extremists have flown their flag and attempted to rebrand the group on social media.
The FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center have designated the group as a right-wing terrorist group and a hate group respectively. The FBI has specifically noted that the JDL has plotted and executed violent terrorist attacks within the United States. One of their followers even assassinated Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin for trying to make peace with Palestine.
Their history also includes the murder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee regional director Alex Odeh in 1985, the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in 1994, a plot to assassinate U.S. Representative Darrell Issa in 2001, and a plot to bomb the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City. The JDL was founded by Meir Kahane, a violent U.S.-born Israeli terrorist who created the organization in the image of his own version of Zionism: Kahanism, a supremacist, theocratic, and genocidal ideology demanding the eradication of Arabs and the reorganization of Israel as an exclusively Jewish fascist dictatorship.
Amid rising pro-Israel far-right militancy and violence targeting Los Angeles pro-Palestinian protesters in the streets and on college campuses, the JDL flag keeps appearing— signaling that the group and their supporters have been intimately involved in the pro-Israel fascist violence rocking Los Angeles.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee recently released a statement saying they were “alarmed by the strong showing of support and presence of supporters of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a terrorist organization.” ADC National Executive Director Abed Ayoub said, “The openness with which the JDL is being represented and promoted is a serious threat to Arab Americans, Palestinian Americans, and every American who stands up for Palestinian rights. The JDL and its ideology is a threat and must be rejected by all levels of government and all Americans of conscience.”
They were confirmed to have been part of the horrifying pro-Israel terrorist attack and raid on the UCLA pro-Palestine encampment, where pro-Israel extremists used metal poles, chemical weapons, and explosives to hospitalize and attempt to murder pro-Palestinian students and protesters. The pro-Israel violence by JDL and their allied extremists mirrors the JDL’s terrorism from the past, when they were more active.
“I grew up in L.A. in the 1970s and people forget how strong the JDL was in Los Angeles, especially with Irv Rubin as its leader,” wrote CSU history professor Jennifer Selwyn on Twitter/X. “Add that to a large Israeli diaspora, and it’s a recipe for the ugliness we saw.” Another professor, Dawn Chatty from the University of Oxford, responded to Selwyn by saying, “I too was terrorised by the JDL in the 1970’s on UCLA’s campus!”
The JDL’s flag was even seen flying outside of Los Angeles Democratic mayor Karen Bass’ speech condemning pro-Palestine protesters where she parroted far-right disinformation campaigns about social justice activists. At the conference, Bass spoke next to an InfoWars host, a far-right Zionist named Adam King who has openly collaborated with and praised neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.
Despite proof that this terrorist group is back to engaging in political violence, the Biden administration and law enforcement are focused on the victims of the violence rather than the attackers. It seems like this Zionist terrorist group went from being targeted by the FBI to now being on the same side as them against pro-Palestinian activists.
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