Violent Anti-Semitic Crimes Likely to Increase, Says American Jewish Committee Report

American Jewish Committee
Wednesday, 29 September 1999

Three vicious hate crimes during the summer marked a turning point in a violent anti-Semitic movement that has come to rely on individual acts of terrorism in its ongoing war against Jews and other minorities, according to a new American Jewish Committee report.

While noting that hateful ideologies remain on the fringe of American society, "we must change how we think about domestic terrorism and the anti-Semitic ideas that fuel it," Kenneth Stern argues in Understanding the Summer of Hate: Contemporary Anti-Semitism Takes a Violent Turn. Would Washington's reaction be different if "these latest atrocities were committed by foreigners believing it their duty to kill Americans and receiving their guidance from a movement that preaches the virtue of individual terrorist acts?"

Mr. Stern, AJC's program specialist on anti-Semitism and extremism, analyzes the historical roots of the ideas advanced by the American far right, the present dangers they pose, and offers a series of recommendations for countering an expected increase in violent hateful activity.

Individuals inspired by a hate movement whose ideologies and theologies make violence against Jews and other minorities "inevitable" carried out the summer shootings in Los Angeles and Chicago, and are the prime suspects in the synagogue arsons in Sacramento, writes Mr. Stern. Buford Furrow's attack on the Jewish community center "combined all the elements that we should expect to see in this 'war' - attacks against Jews, people of color and the federal government."

"The 'bottom line' for these haters is belief that the continued existence of white people is in danger, and that Jews are responsible for remaking America into a country that is projected to have a majority of people of color by the middle of the 21st century," writes Stern. "The more diverse America becomes, the more likely some people will be troubled by this new racial balance and try to change the scales themselves through violence."

The anti-Semitic far right has been encouraging violent action by individuals to avoid law enforcement infiltration of various white supremacist organizations. Indeed, convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh may have been following this strategy when he blew up the Murrah federal office building in 1995.

Since Oklahoma City, "dozens of small groups have been arrested in recent years with the means and plans for acts of domestic terrorism, including plots to attack trains, assassinate political leaders, blow up government buildings and build biological and/or chemical weapons," writes Mr. Stern. "There is every reason to expect them to escalate."

"Understanding the Summer of Hate" is part of the American Jewish Committee's ongoing efforts to combat hate through education, community action and legislative advocacy. The AJC set forth an action plan in its ad, "Enough is Enough," which recently appeared in the New York Times and several other major papers across the country. National experts attending an American Jewish Committee conference in April on the Christian Identity movement agreed that hate-inspired violence from the American far right was likely to increase in the coming months.

"The greatest threat posed by the Christian Identity movement is its success in providing a unifying theology for disparate white supremacist factions in the U.S. - a theology that hails whites as God's chosen people and sees America as God's exclusive gift to them," says Mr. Stern. "People may be drawn into the world of hate through these familiar, but distorted, theological references," writes Mr. Stern, adding that "Christian Identity proves yet another layer of justification and empowerment to people who already see the world through racist and anti-Semitic lenses."

Mr. Stern, who regularly is interviewed in the print and electronic media on extremist movements and authored the highly acclaimed book on militia groups, "A Force Upon the Plain," voices deep dismay over the lack of action by elected officials in Washington.

"More than four years ago I thought that the death of 168 people, including babies, in Oklahoma City would have been enough to move our leadership in Washington to hold full-scale hearings into the racist and anti-Semitic subculture that preaches violence against Americans in order to 'preserve' America," he writes. "Through each succeeding terrorist event, including many exposed plots to blow up government buildings and hate-inspired killings, our leadership has remained silent. The silence continues even though the last three hate tragedies occurred in major urban areas."

Mr. Stern sets forth several recommendations for immediate action:

Congress should hold full-scale hearings, finding ways to combat hate-inspired terrorism while preserving civil liberties, as well as pressing for gun control legislation and hate crimes laws.

The academic community should establish a separate field of "hate studies" to provide testable, integrated theories about how to manage hate, at both the individual and the societal level. The need for such a field is becoming increasingly urgent in this age of the Internet, where hateful ideas now circulate at warp-speed, rather than the slow pace of the individual hate newsletter shipped in the plain brown wrapper.

Jewish institutions should ensure that security is adequate - and provides a deterrent.

Jewish parents should educate themselves and their children about contemporary anti-Semitism.

Support grass-roots organizations across the county, such as the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment and the Center for New Community, that, on shoestring budgets, combat Christian Identity and other hate groups.

This strategy, detailed in the report, can "significantly reduce the chances that we will again see the horrible television image of Jewish children, hand in hand, being led away from a scene of anti-Semitic-inspired carnage," says Mr. Stern.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org