Unveiling connections between Sacramento, Kosovo

I was not surprised when I learned that three synagogues in Sacramento had been firebombed by suspected white supremacist groups. Nor was I stunned to discover that the arsonists had targeted the Jewish community, blaming Jewish individuals in the media and government for steering NATO's actions in Yugoslavia.

Over the past few months, some fellow academics and I had been monitoring the rise in hateful propaganda in which the Jewish conspiracy line has been used to draw sympathy for the Serbs and boost ultranationalist organizations. From our perspective, it was only a matter of time before the infection spread from Serbia to the West.

In spite of the contact between Serbs and neo-Nazis over the Internet, there has been virtually no discussion of the Serbs' complicity in the hateful propaganda that preceded last month's bombings. The Sacramento Bee reported that the leaflet found by one of the buildings mentioned the Serbian cause, but it quickly rejected any notion that there was a connection between events in Kosovo and Sacramento.

Instead, it focused on how the community reacted to the bombings. For over a week, the Bee continued to present a sickeningly sweet picture of a multicultural city in which no one was to blame except for a handful of individuals, still at large. The paper condemned the idea of hate but chose not to take a deeper look into last month's attack.

I believe there is a connection between Kosovo and Sacramento -- one that directly affects the safety of Jews and other minorities.

No, I am not charging Serbs with the arson. The attacks have all the markings of far-right groups. And, let me stress, there is no basis to believe that members of the Serbian-American community harbor anti-Semitic feelings or engage in terrorism.

But I do believe that the arsonists were encouraged by two things: the xenophobic rhetoric from Yugoslavia that is actively parroted by the Serbian diaspora and, above all, by the hate crimes committed in the Balkans.

Let me explain. While many argue that white supremacists do not need excuses to bomb Jewish property, there is an additional point that needs to be considered. Far-right groups are opportunistic.

They look for events and dress up their crude anti-Semitism in contemporary themes as if to legitimize their illegitimate and hateful projects. In this case, Jews were not charged with murdering Christian babies. They were accused of directing America's and hence NATO's policies in the Balkans.

This is the first time that the Jewish conspiracy argument has been repackaged with Yugoslav wrapping, and at some level, one must ask where the groups that bombed Sacramento found such inspiration.

Without second guessing the arsonists, there are some facts that cannot be ignored -- not least the degree to which neo-Nazi and Serbian organizations have been exchanging information and promoting each other's chauvinistic causes.

On behalf of the Serbs, right-wing groups have circulated anti-Muslim and anti-Albanian slogans. They have repeated the false accusations that the Kosovars are fundamentalists and have recast the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo as civil wars rather than admit the truth behind Serbia's occupation and genocidal programs.

On behalf of right-wing groups, the Serbian-American community has financed extremists who are also in the service of Europe's leading neo-Nazi politicians. They have attracted racists and given them public platforms from which they fashioned their prejudices into policies for southeastern Europe.

More important, however, are the ideological ties between Serbia proper and the far right. Ultranationalist groups throughout North America and Europe have cheered on the Serbian campaigns of ethnic cleansing. For the ultranationalists, ethnic cleansing makes sense. Reflecting the way they view the world, the Serbs enthusiastically renounced the ideals of inclusion and proportional representation and crushed minorities in their way.

For ultranationalists, the war against Bosnia was hailed not only as a rejection of Bosnia's multiethnic existence, but as a rejection of multiculturalism in general. Now, neo-Nazis are celebrating the Serbs' brave struggle against "Muslim barbarians" and have described the war in Kosovo as a battle for Christendom. In short, the Serbs have become the pin-up boys of the far right.

In this context, why is anyone surprised to see white supremacists acting out what their Serbian idols are doing overseas, by torching the sites of the minorities they hate? The leaflet acknowledges as much. Why can't we?