Why Are The ADL And The SPLC Conspicuously AWOL On Public Support For Azov Nazism?

Chants of support for the controversial Azov Battalion break out at a pro Ukraine rally in lower Manhattan

Attendees chant “Azov” pic.twitter.com/fFguwpRa82

— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) April 23, 2022

mtracey |  Two advocacy organizations in particular devoted huge amounts of resources to documenting the purported rise of Nazism during this period. If you read an article over the past several years which purported to announce that Nazism, “white nationalism,” and similar tendencies were ascendant, there’s a good chance the basis for the article’s claims was sourced either to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). “Neo-Nazi Groups Explode Under Trump,” read one representative Daily Beast headline from 2018, citing a report produced by the SPLC. In denouncing Trump for having “flirted with the deepest racists and Nazis,” Charles Blow of the New York Times cited a report from the ADL which claimed that “anti-semitic incidents in the United States surged 57 percent in 2017.” And 2017, as Blow shrewdly reasoned, “was of course the first year of the Trump administration.” The methodology of such “reports” is hardly ever scrutinized with any degree of precision; organizations like the SPLC and ADL are largely just assumed by journalists to possess unchallengeable empirical authority. On the rare occasions when someone in the media does think to dig deeper into the genesis of these groups’ oddly precise statistical figures, doubts as to their veracity sometimes arise.

After having spent such enormous effort warning Americans that their country was being overwhelmed by Nazis, you’d have thought it would be a no-brainer for these groups to spring immediately into action last month and sound the alarms again. Because another “incident” took place that was right up their alley: an honest-to-god pro-Nazi rally. In the middle of New York City. Thanks to footage captured by journalist Elad Eliahu, we know that on April 23 in Downtown Manhattan, a group of rally-goers gathered to chant — with total, uninhibited exuberance — “Azov! Azov! Azov!”

Eliahu told me the rally was organized by a group called “Razom for Ukraine,” which has held regular protest actions in the city since the war began, including to demand a No Fly Zone. But on this occasion, they were focused on rapturous praise for “Azov.”

In case you still need a primer on what “Azov” refers to, you may want to consult The Nation magazine, which has been unique among US left-liberal media over the last several years in still allowing a modicum of countervailing thought. And so The Nation is one of the vanishingly few outlets that continues to plainly describe Azov — i.e., the Battalion of the Ukraine military currently fighting in the war — as an “outright Neo-Nazi group.”

The bluntness of The Nation’s description stands in stark contrast to what the vast majority of US media consumers have recently been told about said group. Elsewhere, Americans are being instructed to actively root for the righteous battlefield victory of Azov — particularly in the city of Mariupol, where the fighters have been under sustained siege by Russia. It’s easy for the untrained eye to miss, but US journalists — including the top Ukraine war correspondent for TIME magazine — have taken to characterizing these Azov fighters merely as Mariupol’s brave “defenders.” Which is a term that coincidentally obscures the fighters’ ideological composition. Thanks to most US and “Western” media coverage, this foreign battalion comprised of “outright Nazis” has become primarily known as valorous warriors for “democracy.” 

Tune into NPR or the BBC, and you will similarly hear the “defenders” euphemism used in reports about Mariupol. Naturally, this is also the preferred nomenclature of the “Kyiv Independent,” the newly-formed English-language media outlet whose sudden emergence owes to an emergency infusion of funds late last year from the European Union’s equivalent of the National Endowment for Democracy. Relentlessly touted by “Western” media as an authoritative source for news-on-the-ground from Ukraine, the outlet has also enjoyed massive algorithmic amplification by Twitter — with it seldom ever noted that their chief “defense reporter” publicly proclaimed himself a “brother in arms” with Azov.

Despite his public admission of affiliation with what most reasonable observers used to uncontroversially classify as a Neo-Nazi regiment, millions of Americans have been fed a regular supply of “journalism” from this person, Illia Ponomarenko, who appears to function as Azov’s main English-speaking PR operative. But he’s far from alone: a whole roster of newly-minted social media stars regularly heap praise on Azov fighters for “sacrificing their lives for democracy.” By sheer coincidence, these superstars also frequently tend to be affiliated with US-based think tanks funded by the weapons-manufacturing industry.

Do you think if NPR or BBC listeners were clearly informed that the “defenders” of Mariupol were in fact “outright Neo-Nazis,” they might have a slightly different reaction to the news segments extolling their bravery? Especially if they can recall earlier NPR or BBC segments, such as those which warned listeners to be petrified of Trump-backed “Nazis” taking over the US? Alas, we can only speculate.

Now, one might reasonably ask: isn’t this whole “Nazi” angle a bit overblown? After all, in the US, that label gets blithely slapped onto anyone who’s slightly more right-wing than Mitt Romney. And it’s not an unfair point. The elasticity of the term “Nazi” has become so preposterous, and it was deployed so indiscriminately during the era of Trump, that one could be forgiven for having an urge to immediately eye-roll whenever they hear it uttered. 

Here’s the point, though: in a prior political context, the purported existence of Nazis was supposed to prompt an earnest outpouring of shock, horror, and counter-Nazi mobilization. But in the current political context, the existence of Nazis is supposed to be carefully ignored — in service what is now the superseding imperative, namely to “Stand with Ukraine.”