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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38391/full/38391/renewed-focus-on-terror-after-shooting-at-holocaust-museum/ <br /><br /> <b>Renewed focus on terror after shooting at Holocaust museum</b> <br /> Thursday, June 18, 2009 | by eric fingerhut <br /><br /><p>Is the recent shooting attack on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum — coming soon after the murder of prominent abortion doctor George Tiller — a signal that the Jewish community should be ratcheting up its concern about right-wing extremism</p> Those who track extremism and security threats in the Jewish community say that a variety of current factors — such as the poor economy, the first black president and increased immigration — make the prospect of terror attacks from the right something to watch carefully. <p>“The real threat is lone wolves with extremist views from the right or left,” said Paul Goldenberg, national director of the Secure Community Network, an initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organiz-ations.</p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 360px;"><img alt="USjta memorial shooting" class="left" height="312" src="/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/z06_19_09/USjta%20memorial%20shooting.jpg" title="Bulet holes mar the entrance to the museum on June 10. photo/jta/eric fingerhut" width="360" /> <div class="caption">Bulet holes mar the entrance to the museum on June 10. photo/jta/eric fingerhut</div> </div> <p>Goldenberg said the common denominator is that they all target the Jewish community. In the case of the Holocaust museum shooter — James von Brunn, an 88-year-old Navy veteran — law enforcement officials found a note in his car declaring that President Barack Obama was “created” by Jews and does what his “Jew owners tell him to do.”</p> <p>The museum shooting June 10 revived a national debate over a report released and then withdrawn by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier this year warning that the “economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment.”</p> <p>In particular, some GOP lawmakers objected because the report pointed to veterans as possible recruits for such an attack.</p> <p>But with the museum and Tiller shootings, liberal commentators and organizations have been arguing that the DHS report’s basic thesis was correct and that the promised revised version should be released as soon as possible.</p> <p>While most Jewish organizations have not jumped into the debate, they have been pointing to a string of recent plots hatched by anti-Semitic masterminds as evidence of an increasing danger posed by extremists of all stripes.</p> <p>In recent months, a Jewish Wesleyan University student allegedly was killed by a man who was carrying a copy of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”; four Muslim men were arrested for plotting attacks on Bronx synagogues; and a Muslim man who was charged with killing a soldier and injuring another at a military recruiting center in Arkansas was found to have been researching Jewish sites.</p> <p>Also, in April, a Pittsburgh man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers was found to have been a frequent poster on extremist right-wing Web sites.</p> <p>Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesen-thal Center said that they had previously tracked von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter.</p> <p>Attorney General Eric Holder this week called on Congress to pass new hate crimes laws. Citing recent killings in Arkansas, Kansas and the nation’s capital, he said new laws are needed to stop what he called “violence masquerading as political activism.”</p> <p>The violence, Holder said, “reminds us of the potential threat posed by violent extremists and the tragedy that ensues when reasoned discourse is replaced by armed confrontation.”</p> <p>Kenneth Stern, director on anti-Semitism and extremism for the American Jewish Committee, said that while lone wolves are a major concern, he had yet to see a major uptick in organized right-wing extremism such as during the mid-1990s, when the citizen militia movement grew in the Midwest. Stern noted that many of the prominent leaders in the movement over the last 10 to 15 years have died or are in jail.</p>

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