Saturday’s attacks in San Diego, in southern California, took place during the end of the feast of pesach, the jewish passover. It was also the day six months after the massacre in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were killed and seven wounded in the worst anti-semitic attack in the united states in the 2000s. Where was the offender a right-wing extremist whose stated goal was to kill as many jews as possible. Even in San Diego describes the local authorities of the attack as a hate crime. The town’s mayor Steve Vaus said that the offender ”was someone with hatred in his heart against our jewish communities”. The president, Donald Trump declared his ”deepest sympathies” with the victims after the attack and also said that all indications are that it was a hate crime.
the Offender must have fired about 15 shots. A 60-year-old woman died when she, according to witnesses, tried to save the assembly’s rabbi, who was injured by the shots. An eight year old girl from Israel was damaged also. According to an interview in the israeli radio to her family having moved from Sderot, near Gaza, precisely in order to escape the violence in the region.
The suspected offender shared a manifesto on the web forum 8chan, the platform also used by the perpetrator behind the massacre in New Zealand earlier in the year. In the manifesto accused the jews of trying to destroy the white race, by encouraging immigration to the united states. It has long been a common assertion in the right-wing and neo-nazi online forums, but the same anti-semitic lies, have in recent years also been on conservative news outlets, who in the Lou Dobbs program on the Fox Business Channel. Earlier in the year spread even Donald Trump baseless claims about the jewish philanthropist George Soros may have funded the so-called caravan with thousands of migrants from Central america.
believe that Trump’s own rhetoric have contributed to the significant increase in the number of anti-semitic violence in the united states in recent years. In 2017 took the 1986 anti-semitic hate crimes in the USA, which was the highest rise in four decades. Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, which identifies anti-semitic threats in the united states, has said that Trump’s rhetoric may have contributed to the worsening of the threat.
” When leaders in the highest positions using extremely intemperately language and repeat extremisters rhetoric, we can not be surprised if young people start to imitate them. Extremists feel encouraged by this. We know because we monitor the extremists and read what they write on social media and in chat rooms, said Greenblatt in a previous interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Greenblatt also pointed that social media may have increased the spread of anti-semitic views.
– Everything is allowed on these platforms, and it has created a scenario where prejudices may grow, with a volume and a speed that we have never seen before, ” said Greenblatt to the Los Angeles Times recently.
Joe Biden to attack on Donald Trump just for his controversial statements in which he seemed to defend the neo-nazis after the massacre in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017, when Trump said there are ”very fine people” on both sides of the riots, where anti-racists fought against the neo-nazis. When the Trump of the week was a new chance to explain what he meant by the comments, he chose instead to defend their statements.
the Attack in San Diego immediately aroused a series of strong policy responses. Democrat Kamala Harris, senator and presidential candidate, said that it showed how real it anti-semitic threat is in the united states.
https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1122258196029235200
John Hickenlooper, a democrat and former governor of Colorado, said that the attack shows the importance of tougher gun laws, and also pointed to högerextrem the rhetoric of Donald Trump and other republicans may have contributed to the increase of violence.
“this is another sign that we have a new normal where we have become so fragmented that it leads to hatred, which leads to violence,” said Hickenlooper.
