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Thread, Post 1\: So I have probably dug as deeply into the history of anti-Semitic terrorism in the United States as anyone, having written a book that deals extensively with it. The history is important for understanding the context and motivation for what we are experiencing.
2\ So my book digs way back to the early 20th century and attempts to document every major act of anti-Semitic violence possible. I explain how I do that in the book. But observation #1 is this: while anti-Semitic sentiment was common, serious anti-Semitic violence is not.
3\ Starting in the late 1950s, that begins to change. You have the first major wave of very serious anti-Jewish violence in the late 1950s, when a string of synagogues are bombed (as well as black churches).
4\ Then you have another major wave in the late 1960s, specifically 1967-1968, in Mississippi. Again, this includes black targets as well.
5\ We were lucky to avoid a major wave in the mid-to-late 1980s, but several right-wing groups were stopped, with some unfortunate exceptions, before they could carry out their more hideous plans. Again, I referring to very serious violence-- bombings, arson, killings.
6\ Finally in the late 1990s to early 2000s, we see another wave. The one common thread for each-- though it influences matters in different ways-- is the influence of Christian Identity ideology.
7\ CI ideology argues that Jews are the "synagogue of Satan" and that they literally are engaged in a massive, centuries long, cosmic conspiracy against the "true Chosen People"-- White Europeans. The end-point is a holy, race war, one these terrorists hope to provoke.
8\ It is a perversion of Christianity in the same way Salafi jihadists pervert Islam (hence the name of the book-- America's Secret Jihad.) I document the influence of this ideology on a number of major crimes including, yes, the MLK assassination (the focus of my other books)
9\ The ideology was so pervasive that by the the late 1980s, scholars like @hoffman_bruce argued in a review of the decade of domestic terrorism that *every single right-wing terror group fell under the umbrella of Christian Identity.* This say only *slightly* overstates, imo
10\ And that is because some new "religions" emerged in the 1980s that so closely paralleled CI that one could easily miss it. (Dr. Hoffman and others are brilliant, but they also missed CI's decades-old pedigree/influence.) Key point: CI influenced all said religions.
11\ Even white supremacists "religions" that attack CI borrow its tropes of: divine favoritism towards white Europeans, a holy race war, Jewish influence on government and the media (older than CI, no question), the threat of miscegeny (also predates CI).
12\ It is my contention that by now, these concepts are so pervasive that white supremacists who are more-or-less secular nonetheless borrow its tropes. But now, they are coming back with a vengeance, and it, once again, seems to be motivating a wave of anti-Semitic violence
13\ Bowers, Earnest, etc. all directly quote Bible verses that could have been cribbed straight out of the CI creed. Even the attacker on the mosque in Ne. Zealand, spoke to the hope of inciting a race war. I can show you quotes about that tactic from CI ppl back in the 60s.
14\ I worry times are getting very dangerous. And will be worse if we ignore the ideological foundation of said attacks.
