Terrorist tactics make hate crimes tough to prevent

WASHINGTON -- Last week's shooting rampage at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles struck an all-too-familiar chord of fear in the Jewish psyche.

The fear comes not only because this was the latest in a string of recent violent anti-Semitic attacks across the country, but because it was carried out at random by a lone extremist intent on sending a message -- an unmistakable echo of the terrorism that has long plagued Israelis.

"This incident was not just a hate crime. It was a terrorist attack," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Taken together with the other recent anti-Semitic attacks and threats, the Los Angeles-area assaults that wounded five people at the community center, including three children under 10, and took the life of a postal worker, have created a climate of fear among Jews unseen in this decade.

The image of children linking hands as they were led away from the site of last week's shooting jarred the entire nation, especially after the suspected gunman's alleged declaration that he wanted to send "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews."

Meanwhile, the Jewish community has experienced its own wake-up call to address security. At a New York news conference Tuesday morning, and later that day at a satellite conference for approximately 55 Jewish federations around the country, leaders from the United Jewish Communities and the Anti-Defamation League urged Jewish institutions to review their security procedures -- but not to go overboard.

"We need awareness, rather than armed bunkers or fortresses," said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director.

Foxman said he is troubled by the fact that some Jews around the country are discussing whether to wear skullcaps in public or let their children ride school buses bearing names of Jewish institutions.

Asked whether American synagogues might become like their heavily guarded European counterparts, he said, "No. God forbid, no."

Despite the frequency and fervor of the recent attacks, investigators and experts who monitor hate activity maintain there is no evidence of an organized effort by white supremacists or other right-wing groups to target the Jewish community or other minorities.

Nor is there evidence of an upsurge in the number of people affiliated with those groups, despite their growing visibility on the Internet.

Instead, what some experts fear is a rise in so-called "leaderless resistance," which has spawned a wave of independent, "copycat" attacks.

"There seem to be a series of lone wolves acting on the basis of ideology that's put out by hate groups all over this country," said Mark Potok, an analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based organization that tracks hate groups.

"It looks almost like a series of copycat crimes as much as the beginning of a revolution."

Like other groups that monitor hate activity, the center has received numerous threats in recent weeks from extremists, according to Potok.

One letter sent amid the deadly shooting spree carried out in Illinois and Indiana by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith over the July Fourth weekend called the gunman "a martyr to the cause" of creating an "international Aryan commonwealth."

"He isn't even the tip of the iceberg," the letter stated. "He's just a grain of sand in a worldwide beachhead. Us Aryans, the world over, haven't yet begun to flex our power or influence."

Said Potok: "For some people, these grotesque murders and shootings are inspiring. They are seen as a great way of bringing new people into the revolutionary Aryan fold, and in fact it may be that some people are inspired to the point that they, too, pick up the gun."

In the wake of last week's shooting, Jewish officials have been exploring possible responses to protect against future anti-Semitic attacks.

Some now argue that it may be time to give law enforcement greater authority to track hate groups and root out terrorists before they strike.

Foxman said he hopes that Furrow's "wake-up call" backfires and instead serves as a wake-up call for America to "examine hate and the ways and means within the Constitution to protect civil liberties so people can enjoy them."

"If you're dead, what good are" civil liberties? he asked.