Political violence I far-right extremism l security policy l extremist ideological misogyny I social networks l Editor in Chief - Democracy and Security.
MASS, USA
Joined June 2018
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The publication date of my upcoming book, #AmericanZealots, is 8 days away!
Now you can receive a 30% discount off the price of the book by using the promo code CUP30 in #CUP webpage:
cup.columbia.edu/book/americ…
Arie Perliger retweeted
Le 7 octobre des terroristes du Hamas ont tué Yahel Sharabi 13 ans sa sœur & sa mère
Il n'y avait pas de place dans le véhicule pour prendre + d'otages
Ils ont gardé en otage son père Eli 491 jours
le laissant presque mourir de faim
A sa libération il a su qu'ils étaient morts
Arie Perliger retweeted
A few years ago, I never imagined my family would leave our home in Canada for Tulsa, Oklahoma or that our story would become part of a national conversation about whether Canadian Jews are actively trying to leave the country.
But here we are. This question is real for many.
Are we on the verge of an exodus? In a hate-filled climate, Canadian Jews are weighing their options theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…
Three panels at APSA this week, all with my UMass Lowell students, all digging into how gender drives political backlash and violence. Reconstruction after conflict (Thu 12pm). Tradwives in Turkey and the US (Fri 8am). Disinformation targeting female candidates (Fri 12pm). Come by.
4/ If courts treat discreet payment channels to insiders as inherently fraudulent, the implications reach far beyond one organization. That theory would narrow what can be known about movements that conceal themselves by design.
5/ A field that has spent decades documenting how political movements rationalize the misconduct of their own members is in an unusually good position to notice when it starts doing the same thing.
6/ This is the moment to build the ethical infrastructure around insider sources and source compensation that the field has postponed for too long. Full piece: theconversation.com/indictme…
Heidi Beirich is a longtime colleague. Her indictment, and the SPLC's, force a question our field has avoided for decades. When is it legitimate to cultivate and pay insider sources inside violent movements? My new piece for @ConversationUS: theconversation.com/indictme…
2/ The human-subjects framework assumes the participant is the vulnerable party, the risks are foreseeable, and the researcher is safe. Extremism research fits none of those assumptions cleanly.
Arie Perliger retweeted
I love that you’ve never let your mediocre publication record or below average teaching evaluations interfere with your willingness to offer advice to our junior faculty.
The indictment of Heidi Beirich this week, following the charges against the SPLC itself, really produced strong reactions in the political violence and extremism community. Most fall into one of two camps, treating the case either as obvious political persecution or as overdue accountability. I think both reactions fail the same test.
That test is our commitment to the equal application of the rule of law. This commitment is easy to maintain when the law reaches the movements we study. The real test comes when it reaches our own professional community.
Two realities can coexist here. The indictment alleges that donor funds were channeled to informants embedded in extremist groups through accounts opened for fictitious businesses. These are just allegations, of course, which were not tested in court. At the same time, the political context is known. The public rhetoric of senior officials, the FBI severing ties with the SPLC, and the procedural irregularities documented in the defense filings are all open knowledge. A judge rejected the vindictive-prosecution motion, but a failed legal motion does not erase the surrounding context. The charges may describe genuine misconduct, and the decision to bring them may still reflect selective enforcement. Those of us who study state responses to political movements know this pattern well. Selective prosecution is itself a rule-of-law problem, even when the underlying conduct is real.
There is also a disciplinary question we should not avoid. The use of paid sources inside violent movements sits in a gray zone that researchers and watchdog orgs such as the SPLC have never really solved, and if compensating sources will eventually be criminalized, we will lose some ability to monitor extremist movements. Still, I think such concern cannot serve as a blanket defense. If donor funds were misrepresented or diverted, that is fraud, regardless of the mission's virtue. Organizations that demand transparency and accountability from others must be able to withstand the same scrutiny.
So my advice is straightforward. Withhold conclusions until the evidence is tested, name the political context plainly without allowing it to decide guilt or innocence, and resist the tribal reflex in both directions. The study of political violence teaches that democracies erode along two paths: when legal institutions become instruments of factional struggle and when communities shield their own from scrutiny. We should refuse both.
Arie Perliger retweeted
Not one Nashville bookstore saw what happened and offered to step in and host my launch. Not one. These are the institutions that lecture everyone else about free expression and how “all” are welcome - until a pressure campaign comes knocking. Then suddenly, principles become negotiable. I support bookstores. I believe deeply in the power of books and open dialogue. But we have to keep calling balls and strikes: when bookstores fold under pressure campaigns, they are no longer neutral. They are choosing which voices get a platform - and which don’t. That isn’t independence. It’s capitulation. Your support means the world @SpencerGuard ♥️
There is unquestionably a rise of antisemitism in the United States. There is gross political support/fuel to antisemitism (3 D test) cloaked in ant-Zionism or anti-Israel. It is putting Americans in danger. There is a massive rise of attacks on jewish communities/citizen in the United States @ADL. That must be called out and concrete action plans to address it by leaders from local, state, and federal levels.
But something worse is happening. Everyday tolerance and normalizing antisemitism.
Caving to it like the Nashville book store (Bell Bird Books) owner that cancelled @AlyssaRosenheck book launch because of a concentrated attack against the store for hosting a "zionist" or "jew." The owner isn't antisemitic, but rather than stand up against it, she caved and cancelled the event. It is a trend that can only be stopped by us all.
Do not tolerate antisemitism. Fight it. Call it out.
Arie Perliger retweeted
The radical thinks she’s entitled to say monstrous things because those things pale in comparison to the monstrousness, she tells herself, of those she ridicules. But, of course, one wrong, no matter how awful, does not warrant another. Five-year-olds know this. The radical doesn’t care. The radical wants only to spew her obscenities, to offend, to enrage. She can’t be bothered to be decent, because decency is for the bourgeois, the weak, those who lack the steeliness to slay, proverbially or otherwise, one’s political foes.
Arie Perliger retweeted
More & more liberal Jews, like ourselves, have concluded that our collective survival must take precedence over political alliances with movements that excuse & tolerate antisemitism (even when those movements share some of our other values). Align with those that align with us.
Arie Perliger retweeted
”‘While loud chants of “all Zionists are racists” and “one solution, revolution” permeated the air, they chose to dance. I cannot imagine what they were feeling inside, but I saw it culminate in a triumphant display of resolve and pride…’” nationalpost.com/news/canada…
Arie Perliger retweeted
Canadian universities today: “I was told to go die when I said I was a Jew from Israel,” reads one. “A professor wrote that we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were,” says another. “A group of students shouted, ‘there’s a Jew…let’s get him.’ They then chased him out of the building,” reads a third. ctvnews.ca/canada/article/sy…
Arie Perliger retweeted
An astonishing 98% of Canadian Jewish medical professionals say antisemitism is a serious problem in the medical field
nationalpost.com/news/canada…
